February 17th,
Today we had small group discussions about varying political theory topics, and I was in a group talking about agency and its relation to the anthropocene. The biggest topic that my group discussed was how individual agency matters significantly less than collective agency. Politicians often talk about policies regarding environmental change as a collective action for all of the Government, when that’s really just impossible. Even for the general public who are seeing the effects of climate change before their very eyes realize that their individual actions don’t really matter. It’s not until someone creates an avenue for people to utilize their agency, that true differences can be made.
For example, I watched a Ted talk recently from an 18 year old from the United Kingdom, and he developed a plan to clean nearly all plastic from the ocean within 5 years. While reading through the comments of the video, I saw many people react very enthusiastically and show their intention to donate money to the cause. People realize that on their own, they cannot make much of a difference. But when there is an actual idea or project that people can help make happen, they feel like they’re actually making a difference and are far more eager to utilize their agency.