Individuals can do nothing to improve the environment; only governments and large companies can make a difference. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

"

Individuals

can do nothing to improve the

environment

; only governments and large

companies

can make a difference". My feeling towards

this

statement acts as a double-edged sword. On

one

side, with my personal thoughts, I strongly disagree with the statement but on the other, it might seem very logical that it is actually how

this

neoliberal

world

is running. My

first

reason to disagree with the following statement is that I strongly believe in the domino effect of the immensely small

change

that can lead to a massive big

change

. An individual's impact on the

world

is negligible as it is only

one

thing done by

one

person

from the 6 billion other

individuals

existing on the

planet

that could be doing many other things and most probably, the majority of these 6 billion other

individuals

are harming the

planet

one

way or another. On paper, the action of

one

person

seems totally useless.

However

,

this

one

person

doing something positive is

one

person

less doing something negative.

This

one

person

becomes the beacon of that positivity that the

world

needs. If that

one

individual's actions

change

the idea of two more

individuals

and if

this

changing of positive ideology runs for 10 cycles, we will have around 2000

individuals

having a positive impact in the

world

which is about a small village walking towards the welfare of

this

planet

.

Furthermore

, I was enlightened by the power of 1% from a book called "Atomic Habit". The book beautifully illustrated that 1%

improvement

every day for a year is an overall

improvement

of nearly 37% from the initial point. That's the power of an individual per cent that can lead to nearly halfway resolving an issue.

Nonetheless

, it is certain that our

planet

is deteriorating; from the ruins in the ocean spills to the devastating deforestation of lands. All these scars being inflicted on

this

planet

is only due to a very narrow-minded thought process - to extract as much as resources possible in the short run while having faith that all the consequences will be handled in the future in the long run. Truth to be told, sometimes

this

faith doesn't exist. Large

companies

continue to dent the health of the

planet

for mere profits that could be gained. There are promises made,

such

as donations and plans to suture the damage, but it is all a front-cover to avoid tax and avoid a bad reputation towards the company. The true motivation towards the fixture should have been to save the

environment

.

However

, that very motivation is missing as it will cause a vast amount of money.

Hence

, it is in the hands of the

individuals

to bring an

improvement

to the

environment

.

This

will bring a small

change

but

this

small

change

can lead to a bigger

change

over time. In

this

neoliberal

world

, we all have our choices and

hence

, the government and big

companies

have chosen to make the greatest amount of money possible by choosing a path

that is

doing the least damage to the

environment

, ignoring that it is still harming the

environment

. If the government and large

companies

, changes their priorities to help the

environment

, there will be a big difference made in the

improvement

of the conditions in the

environment

.

However

, it is not the case and

therefore

, it is in the hands of the

individuals

to make the small changes, hoping it will be significant enough to bring a bigger

change

.