Learn English – Looking for a word to describe ineffectual people who would like to be effective

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I need to create names for four categories of people – people who score either high or low on measures of environmental concern and pro-environmental behaviour. I have three sorted so far:

  • High environmental concern + high pro-environmental behaviour = pro-environmental individual
  • Low environmental concern + low pro-environmental behaviour = non pro-environmental individual
  • Low concern + high behaviour = honeybee (having unintended beneficial effects)

And I'm stuck on naming the fourth group:

  • High concern + low behaviour
    This group is very concerned about the future of the environment, and presumably would like to prevent global climate change, but isn't acting on these concerns.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated, either for the fourth group or alternatives for the first three 🙂
Thanks so much!

Best Answer

Slacktivist

Wikipedia defines it as:

... a portmanteau of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little physical or practical effect, other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed.

This may not be exactly what you are looking for because "slactivists" still think they are helping the environment with their behavior.

However, there are campaigns where small gestures, like sharing a video or signing an online petition, are marketed towards those who don't have a lot of time or money to contribute and claim that such small efforts still have a significant effect. Therefore, "slacktivists" may consciously be making these low efforts thinking that it it is a substitute for being more active.

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