Seriously, it's not my fault!

It’s not over-consumption that’s causing climate change, it’s our no-blame culture, says Angharad Phippen.

''maybe my mate would be a little lighter if she cured her addiction to McFlurrys, but can she really be to blame for climate change?''

My mate is really fat, it isn’t her fault though, it’s the fault of McDonalds who tempt her into their stores 3 times a week. People in the developing world are starving and climate change is a growing concern, but luckily that’s not her fault either, it’s the fault of the government and big businesses. So she can lead a guilt-free existence right?

Well ok, maybe my mate would be a little lighter if she cured her addiction to McFlurrys but can she really be to blame for climate change? Actually this is symptomatic of a shift in people’s morals and attitudes, because people in our modern society seem incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions. It is this no-blame culture, now entrenched in our society, which can be found at the root of many global issues from obesity to climate change.

Obese people cannot blame their weight on the food companies or on their ‘big bones’; they have to take responsibility for what they put into their own mouths. If they can blame someone else for their weight they don’t have to face the responsibility of changing their lifestyle. Similarly, if climate change and global poverty is nobody’s fault then it is nobody’s responsibility to fix it. I really believe in the power of the individual, but with this power comes a responsibility; a responsibility for our own actions. But, if people cannot even take responsibility for their own lives, why should they accept their share of responsibility for global issues.

It is terrible to think that, while so many people in the world are starving, in the West we are struggling to cope with obesity. What’s worse is these people blaming society for being obese. This extreme denial has even led some Americans to try to sue fast food chains such as McDonalds for making them obese. Seriously people, McDonalds is bad for you, everyone knows that.

Similarly, everyone knows that recycling is good, yet the very mention of charging people for the amount of rubbish which they throw away opens the flood gates to a barrage of excuses: “The council don’t offer enough recycling facilities”; “I have a large family”; essentially “it’s not my fault!”

Unfortunately sometimes it is your fault and sometimes we have to take responsibility. The crisis is not the number of obese people in this country or even the amount that they consume, but the number of people who blame all their problems and, on a larger scale, the problems of the world on someone else. Sadly while this modern philosophy of selfishness prevails there seems little hope for change.