Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dia Mirza and Adrian Grenier have a message for you: It’s easy to beat plastic. They’re part of a bunch of celebrities starring in a new video for World Environment Day—encouraging you, the consumer, to swap out your single-use plastic staples like straws and cutlery to combat the plastics crisis.

The key messages that have been put together for World Environment Day do include a call for governments to enact legislation to curb single-use plastics. But the overarching message is directed at individuals.

My concern with leaving it up to the individual, however, is our limited sense of what needs to be achieved. On their own, taking our own bags to the grocery store or quitting plastic straws, for example, will accomplish little and require very little of us. They could even be detrimental, satisfying a need to have “done our bit” without ever progressing onto bigger, bolder, more effective actions—a kind of “moral licensing” that allays our concerns and stops us doing more and asking more of those in charge.

While the conversation around our environment and our responsibility toward it remains centered on shopping bags and straws, we’re ignoring the balance of power that implies that as “consumers” we must shop sustainably, rather than as “citizens” hold our governments and industries to account to push for real systemic change.

It’s important to acknowledge that the environment isn’t everyone’s priority—or even most people’s. We shouldn’t expect it to be. In her latest book, Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things, Wellesley College professor Elizabeth R. DeSombre argues that the best way to collectively change the behavior of large numbers of people is for the change to be structural.

This might mean implementing policy such as a plastic tax that adds a cost to environmentally problematic action, or banning single-use plastics altogether. India has just announced it will “eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022.” There are also incentive-based ways of making better environmental choices easier, such as ensuring recycling is at least as easy as trash disposal.

DeSombre isn’t saying people should stop caring about the environment. It’s just that individual actions are too slow, she says, for that to be the only, or even primary, approach to changing widespread behavior.

None of this is about writing off the individual. It’s just about putting things into perspective. We don’t have time to wait. We need progressive policies that shape collective action (and rein in polluting businesses), alongside engaged citizens pushing for change.

1.Some celebrities star in a new video to _________.

A demand new laws on the use of plastics

B urge consumers to cut the use of plastics

C invite public opinion on the plastics crisis

D disclose the causes of the plastics crisis

解析：选B。B 细节理解题。根据题目定位到第一段第二句，可知明星们主演该视频是为了鼓励消费者更换一次性吸管和餐具等，以应对塑料危机，故选B。

2.The author is concerned that “moral licensing” may _________.

A mislead us into doing worthless things

B prevent us from making further efforts

C weaken our sense of accomplishment

D suppress our desire for success

解析：选B。B 细节理解题。根据concerned和moral licensing定位到第三段，可知作者的担忧是“道德许可”可能是有害的，可能只满足了人们“尽自己的一份力”的需求，却没有采取更大更有效的行动，B符合原文，故选B。

3.By pointing out our identity “citizens”, the author indicates that _________.

A our focus should be shifted to community welfare

B our relationship with local industries is improving

C we have been actively exercising our civil rights

D we should press our government to lead the combat

解析：选D。D 细节理解题。通过citizens定位到第四段，可知作者认为我们只关注了我们个人的责任，却忽略了作为“公民”，可以让政府和企业承担责任，推动真正的系统性变革，暗示作者认为我们应该督促政府和企业采取行动，故选D。

4.DeSombre argues that the best way for a collective change should be _________.

A a win-win arrangement

B a self-driven mechanism

C a cost-effective approach

D a top-down process

解析：选D。D 细节理解题。根据DeSombre和the best way for a collective change定位到倒数第四段尾句，可知DeSombre认为的最佳方式是结构性的变革。故选D。

5.The author concludes that individual efforts _________.

A can be too aggressive

B can be too inconsistent

C are far from sufficient

D are far from rational

解析：选C。C 细节理解题。根据文章最后两段可知，个人行动太慢，并不是主要方法，从长远来看，我们更需要政府来塑造集体行动，故选C。