Do lifestyles matter?

One focus of my work has always been how to translate insights from philosophy and complexity science into my lifestyle. Many people argue that an individual approach to sustainability is insufficient. The oil giant British Petroleum (BP) hired PR professionals to invent a concept designed to blame individuals, not fossil fuel companies, for climate change. And BP revealed the phrase carbon footprint, along with a carbon footprint calculator, in 2004. Two things come to my mind about the impact of debates on lifestyle.

1. It is insufficient to translate insights from philosophy and complexity science into my lifestyle if I don’t feed it back to “the system.” 
2. I recently found an article claiming that the Boomer Generation focuses on lifestyles, whereas Gen Zs focuses on political solutions. What if neither is wrong? There is no need for a debate. Both approaches matter. 
3. To be for individual choices does not imply being against political action. It is to be against the rhetorical or conceptual attempt to delineate the individual into something separable, disentangled, and homogenous. Lifestyle choices are always already systematic. As the systems scientists, Stuart Kauffman once said, “we are the system” (I have published an academic paper about this if you are interested, head over to jessicaboehme.com under “research”)