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I understand the hopeless feeling of "what can one person do." But the individual actions of individuals do add up. We are seeing right now a trend towards better farming practices, with large chains like Chipotle going antibiotic-free. They are doing that, in part, because enough individuals made the choice to look for antibiotic-free food. In other words, individuals drove corporations to act. Individual actions also add up directly, even without influencing corporations. If you eat even a little less of a harm-causing food, that's an actual impact on the market. Less of the product is being bought, and less will (eventually) be produced. It's a small effect, hard to see, but it is definitely there - it has to be. And even if you think "oh, it rounds off", then yes, maybe they can produce 1,000 or 2,000 but not 1,001, so most likely reducing 1 won't affect production. But that just means that a single individual going from 1,001 to 1,000 will reduce 1,000, and that averages out - the probabilistic effect of an individual remains the same, and again, it has to be, assuming reasonable rational production. Finally, there are indirect effects: If you eat less of a harmful product, your coworkers, friends, and family might notice. It might lead them to make a similar positive change. Hard to measure, but we do know this is an important factor. I do agree we shouldn't "blame the general public" in the sense of blame/shame/etc. But at the same time, we can't give up and say we can't do anything, because our individual actions definitely do have an effect. To some extent, we can make things better. |