Responsibility

I have recently seen a chat show on MTV which dealt with climate change. At last something educating, I thought - until I heard what a German professor working at an English university had to say. He had this "We can't do anything about it anyway"-attitude that really stunned me. He claimed that even if Germany stopped all the pollutant emissions, it would not make any difference in the world because other countries are much "worse" in that respect. At least he was the only one among the guests who thought that way. They also showed interviews with people in the street or in supermarkets. What I remember most is the statement "One light bulb does not do any harm" (in reply to the question why somebody did not buy an energy-saving lamp instead of the standard sort). True - it is a very common approach.

I think we all have somehow come to live with those little lies. However, it is an egotistic way of thinking which does not help at all - not just regarding light bulbs... If everybody just goes on like that, things are never going to change. That's why I would like to remind of the "categorical imperative" established by Immanuel Kant:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

As for the ecological and social horizon, this statement can mean making sure that my meat, milk and eggs are not produced through factory farming, that the products I buy do not have to be shipped from the other side of the globe polluting the environment or at least that people get decent wages for making all those little things that were "made in Indonesia" or somewhere else.
I regard Kant's "categorical imperative" as a very good way of assessing one's own actions. Of course, thinking about it can make a bad conscience even worse, but it can also cause relief knowing that what one does is not harming anybody or anything.