Can One Person Really Save The World?

In a rare outburst on TechCrunch, founder Mike Arrington excoriated the apparently growing number of people who include this message, or a derivation thereof, in their e-mail signatures:

“Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to.  Thank you.”

Arrington, in his rage, makes several good points.  He notes that most people don’t print e-mails anyway.  When they do print, it is usually because they do, in fact, need the hard copy — he gives a map as an example.  I don’t know of anyone who just randomly prints an e-mail, just in case they need it or something.  Do you?

The money quote from angry Arrington’s article (the title of which, hilariously, is “Hey, You Condescending Jerk, No One Prints Emails Anyway”):

The same people who insist on wearing colored rubber bracelets to show their support for the cause du jour put this crap at the bottom of emails. My suspicion is that they don’t particularly care about the issue, they just want credit from everyone that they are a caring, thoughtful human being.

This isn’t the way to show support for the our planet [sic]. Last week at Davos, Earth defender Al Gore himself made it clear that personal choice decisions at the individual level have little to do with helping the environment. What matters is that our governments make the right policies and hold us, particularly corporations, accountable. That isn’t happening yet. If you really want to change the world, start talking to your elected representatives. Or march on Washington.

Ouch.

So do personal acts of conservation serve a purpose?  Do you think his criticism of people who include the signature (and by extension, those wear the colored bracelets) is too harsh?

I have mixed feelings, myself.  I disagree with his overall downplay of the impact of personal choices.  Not only can a lot of small changes make a big impact, but it also serves to keep individuals focused on the larger movement to protect our planet.  If we make daily, conscious decisions to be less wasteful in our own lives, perhaps that will remind and embolden us to engage with our communities and governments to help on a larger scale.

But I also agree with Arrington and Gore’s overall argument that personal choice is largely inconsequential when compared to the potential impact that changes made by governments and businsses could make.

I work in a law firm.  We waste paper.  ENOURMOUS amounts of paper.  There are days where I send 3000 page print jobs down to a printer that’s bigger than my car, and the print-outs get stuffed in a binder.  Of these pages, I’d say about 10% will ever be discussed by the attorneys or used in court.  Some of those binders have never left the shelf in my office, and may just get shredded one day without a single attorney ever having reviewed them.

In short, while personal choices are important, it seems the onus really is on businesses and governments to enact the change we need.  And I’m not just talking about the White House choosing an e-budget over a printed one.

Anyway, enough about what I think.  What are your thoughts?

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user Florian.