Many people in the society believed that only governments and large companies could have significant impact on environment preservation, while others deem individual efforts could make up accountable differences. The subsequent paragraphs will further analyze the core of the argument and give my personal opinion.
It is undeniable that governments and large companies are exploiting more natural resources compared to individuals. Take carbon dioxide emission as an example, prominent manufacturers and major companies leave behind a massive carbon footprint, while household carbon dioxide emissions are under most circumstances minimal. Due to the reasons above, climate change, a major topic in environmental protection, is largely driven by governments and major companies. Without their effort, ordinary citizens could barely have influence on this issue.
Despite individual efforts are inadequate to combat climate change, as stated above, it is only one of the environment problems worldwide. In some other cases, community participation is still effective to combat against other environment-related issues. For instance, beaches and parks in some countries such as Australia and Japan are significantly cleaner and well-preserved compared to other countries. However, this outcome is caused by the collective efforts of locals, instead of the government and companies. This phenomenon clearly shows that small actions, such as throwing away rubbish responsibly, can lead to major differences to the local environment by means of collaboration.
In conclusion, in spite of the limitations on broader environmental topics, individual efforts could still have a major impact on the local environment. Hence, individual efforts could not be considered completely useless.