Environmental Whataboutism is a term I coined to describe the dilemmas we face in everyday sustainability decisions. Whenever I try to choose a “sustainable” option, new issues emerge, making alternatives seem just as unsustainable.
The idea draws from whataboutism, where criticism is redirected by raising a competing concern. In environmental choices, this shows up when every decision prompts a new “but what about…?” question, making it difficult to know which option is truly better.
Plastic bags pollute, cotton totes require significant resources, and paper bags biodegrade but contribute to deforestation and emissions. I explored these tensions by creating and distributing miniature versions of each bag type and pairing them with a stand-up routine that highlighted the paradoxes of sustainable living.
Mapping the system through a stock-and-flow diagram helped me see how conflicting data and highly interconnected, immaterial, and complex systems create ambiguity around what is “sustainable.” I inferred that these dilemmas stem from systemic complexity and inconsistent information, not just from individual decisions.
We live in a complex, messy, interconnected world where it is impossible to anticipate all the unintended consequences of our actions.
To achieve this, I adopted a design-led research approach and created provotypes that sparked conversation about the hidden consequences of ordinary actions.
I sewed tiny cotton tote bags with long labels listing all the factors that accounts to bags' carbon footprint.
I hand-sewed and screen-printed hundreds of bags and distributed them to provoke surprise, reflection and dialogue around unintended consequences of our actions.
I also set up an Environmental Whataboutism storefront at the Transdisciplinary Thesis Exhibition, where people could choose a bag.
Each bag came with a custom “receipt” listing all the factors contributing to its carbon footprint, helping people see the true impact of their choices. These unusually long receipts served as provotypes designed to prompt conversation and critical reflection.
To reflect the project’s focus on rhetorical trade-offs, I presented the thesis as a stand-up routine, surfacing the contradictions, humor, and discomfort within sustainability decisions, making the research’s paradoxes both accessible and memorable.
Here’s a small snippet of the stand-up routine, reach out if you’d like to see the full talk.
Through this exploration, I realized that sustainability dilemmas mirror moral and ethical dilemmas: there is no single rule that applies to every situation. Drawing on philosophical ideas from the book How to Be Perfect, I showed that sustainability, like ethics, has no universal “right” answer. It requires critical reflection and mindful attention to consequences.
After completing the research and creating the provotypes, I concluded that sustainability dilemmas rarely have definitive answers. What matters is cultivating the ability to think critically about everyday choices. Awareness in small decisions builds the muscle for larger, more meaningful ones.
The project proposes four practices for this: being attentive to the narratives we believe, observant of our surroundings, imaginative about alternatives, and comfortable with ambiguity.
