Collective Action and Climate Change

In this précis of three of the chapters of my book Taking Responsibility for Climate Change (2024), I explain why collective responsibility must be construed widely to grasp the scope of climate change responsibility. Individuals can share responsibility to take mitigation action as members or constituents of collectives and groups of several kinds. If we try to frame climate change responsibility exclusively from either the collective or the individual perspective, we leave out a crucial element of collective and shared responsibility—namely, how we are all influenced by the collectives we belong to and how, in turn, collectives are influenced by individuals. I look first at organized collective action and shared responsibility as members of collective agents, followed by a discussion on the shared responsibility of constituents of unorganized collectives. I also discuss how misinformation tactics have been deployed to delay meaningful climate action, thereby derailing democratic decision-making processes. Collective agents involved in such activities bear responsibility for their actions.