Perfect environmentalists do not exist and that is okay

I identify as an environmentalist and yet, almost every day, I drive to school in what is considered to be one of the main factors of pollution: cars. In fact, the transportation sector is responsible for up to a total of 29% of greenhouse gas emissions.

I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not vegan. I address the environmental cons of flying abroad but fly abroad nearly every other summer. I educate myself about plastic pollution but am guilty of buying food with plastic wrapping. 

Environmentalists deal with this hypocrisy from themselves and others daily. There is a certain stigma attached to being imperfect, especially in the environmental field.

Even more so, the notion of a perfect environmentalist has unrealistically high requirements that are unreasonable. Often in the climate movement, the phrase “zero waste” is thrown around 

People say, "Oh, you care about the planet? Ok, go zero waste." However, a person would have to fully go off the grid to be “100% zero waste.” For most people, that is not practical at all.

I’d like to emphasize one point: striving for perfectionism is unsustainable. 

Perfectionism leaves a person unsatisfied with what they have achieved, making them overly critical of themselves and the opinions other people have on them. People ask, “You still wear fur jackets even though you don’t eat meat?” or “Why bother talking about greenhouse gases when you own a gas-powered car?” or “Did you just use a plastic straw?”

The emphasis is placed on a person's faults and shortcomings. This “nothing will be good enough” perspective detracts environmentalists from their goals and work. Guilt is an impediment to progress, and progress is the main aim for environmentalists. 

A person does not need to be perfect to be a good environmentalist. In fact, the idea of a good environmentalist is subjective.

Most importantly, I do not want people striving for activism to stop doing so because they are scared of doing it wrong. It is not all or nothing. Robert Schuller once stated, “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”