My friends and I scuttled into the amphitheater brimming with students and, after several minutes of searching, found some vacant seats. Just as we were sitting, one of the heads of the Red Crescent Society of my country walked in. 

He immediately began recounting a humorous incident that happened to him on the way to the amphitheater. Once the crowd had warmed up to him, he delved into the meat of the speech—the climate crisis. He told us about the various initiatives of their organization that try to mitigate the climate crisis. He also encouraged us to minimize activities that contribute to climate change, such as traveling via automobiles and planes, which release CO2 gas into the atmosphere and exacerbate the climate crisis. He ended the speech with the ever-popular slogan “Every little bit counts”. 

However, I was not convinced. Does every little bit count? It is certainly very difficult to see it that way. Would extracting a piece of plastic or adding an extra piece matter when there are already trillions of pieces submerged in the oceans? Similarly, would donating a single dollar to a cause help anyone? In the grand scheme of things, if only a little help is offered, the effect is negligible at best, and to say it ‘counts’ would be theoretically correct, but realistically, not really.

I realize that this seems like a misconstruing of the main point of the slogan. It is not difficult to realize that if everybody did help, only a little, the cumulative effect would be tremendous. For example, if every person on Earth took out a piece of plastic from the ocean, that would be 8 billion pieces of plastic extracted from the ocean. Likewise, if each person mustered up a dollar for a donation, that would total up to 8 billion dollars. In this way, small contributions can make a large impact if every person contributes. The problem, however, is that there is no guarantee that every person will contribute. You only influence your own contribution, and if others do not end up taking action, your own contribution will be as good as nothing. So you can never be sure your contribution is actually making a real difference because, as proven above, only collective contributions truly matter.

Here we find a paradox. Only collective efforts matter—not individual, at least not when the contributions from each person are so small. However, without the individual effort, the collective effort will never form. So if we can never be sure our contribution will matter, why contribute at all? 

I believe this dilemma can be solved by the universalizability principle. To quote it directly, it means to "act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” Simply put, we should only do an action if we think the world would be a better place if everyone were to do as well.

This principle endorses individual efforts because if everyone else also did the same action as we, the world would surely be a better place. Albeit this still does not mean others will do the same thing, and it is debatable whether a noticeable effect will transpire, but in this way, we at least fulfill our own moral obligation. And as I pointed out before, we only influence our actions, so we should only be responsible for our own actions. Therefore, ensuring those actions are morally correct should be enough for us as individuals.