ABSTRACT
There has been a historical shift in the solutions to environmental problems, which has come to focus on individual responsibility to prevent problems. This is partly a response to a changed character of the environmental problems that oftentimes have global reach, and partly a response to the view of who is responsible for dealing with the problems. Everyday decisions like how to manage household waste, what to purchase for dinner or how to get to work are now considered to have consequences for the environment and others. By acting environmentally friendly and by taking a personal responsibility for the environment householders as citizens are expected to change the state of the world to a more sustainable place through increased political participation (UNCED, 1993; Aarhus Convention, 1998). Sustainable development connects local and global processes on practical and symbolic levels. What is made – or not made – in daily lives locally have global implications. Citizens can participate in a multitude of ways, and political participation can mean many different things (Skill, 2008). They can also understand their environmental responsibilities in different ways and act thereafter. In distinction to the previous chapter by Lundmark et al. that deals with the tension between environmental responsibilities and individual freedom of action in official Swedish environmental policies, this chapter focuses on householders’ interpretations and day-to-day experiences of environmental responsibilities.
