I don’t think climate change is a big deal. I don’t think it makes the top ten list of global problems, and I don’t think that we should do much to stop it. In fact, I think that we need to burn more fossil fuels than we do right now as it is the surest way to lift an energy-starved planet out of poverty. I know people say they disagree with me. Some even say we face a climate catastrophe that threatens us all with extinction. But when I look at how these climate change hand-wringers live, they act as though they are in complete agreement with me. Even more oddly, when you look at how I live, you’d swear I was the one who was the climate change hero trying to save the world. I guarantee that my carbon footprint is minuscule compared to just about everyone else in Canada. I don’t care how people live, and I certainly don’t care how others think I should live, but if you believe that the world faces a coming climate change induced extinction and you don’t even try to live like me, then you are worse than a hypocrite. Your convictions run only as deep as the point of your vanishing convenience.
The CBC recently ran a First Person piece by Heather Kitching. Heather says that the world faces a climate calamity, but finds it too difficult to cut carbon from her life given that she lives in Thunder Bay. Her main complaint is that EV car sharing isn’t available and that heating her home without natural gas is just too expensive. I am sure Heather thinks she cares about the world. She clearly wants to tell us about how much she cares and she wants us all to know how hard she’s working to do the right thing. A public confession of sorts, I suppose. But she hasn’t thought carefully about what she claims to believe. Consider this thought experiment:
Imagine it is WWII all over again. And imagine that you can save one Jew from the Holocaust. You have no ability to stop the Nazis or their evil machine, but you have the opportunity to save one human being. Now imagine that to save that person you have to move into a major Canadian city, rent a nice apartment (or buy a nice condo), give up car ownership, ride your bike all year long no matter the weather – hardly ever even taking public transit – and eat a mostly plant-based diet. If you live this way for the rest of your life, you will save one Jew from the Holocaust. Would you do it? If you claim that climate change is destroying the planet and there is nothing individuals can do about it, you’re wrong. You can live like me. At the very least you’ll be able to say, I couldn’t stop it, but I didn’t go along with it. And, you can say that in expectation my meagre contribution to the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere saved one statistical life somewhere on Earth over the next century. Maybe the great flood of 2087 in Bangladesh will be just a fraction of a millimetre lower because you spent a lifetime living a low carbon lifestyle. What’s more, is that as terrible and evil as the Nazis were, people like Heather claim climate change will be even worse – to their mind we face human extinction if we don’t do enough! Now, I don’t believe climate change is a threat at all so I don’t think that my lifestyle benefits anyone but me. But if you believe climate change is about to usher in an apocalypse and you go along with carbon burning because it’s convenient, that makes you a collaborator.
What people like Heather from the CBC say is that they’ll help stop what they believe is the near certain death of humanity up to the point that it becomes too personally inconvenient. That’s her real confession. She could ride a bike all year long, even in the winter. I do so in Ottawa – and my bike isn’t even electric. She could section off living space in her home during the winter and heat her reduced living quarters with electric radiators. She doesn’t have to live in Thunder Bay if not contributing to climate change is that important to her. Now I don’t find Heather evil but I do find her dangerous. I believe she’s an honest soul who wants to be a good citizen. What makes people like her dangerous is that she doesn’t think. She falls prey to social desirability bias which leads to a world run by demagogues. Cost benefit analysis goes out the window in service of lofty ideals, opening the gates of hell for the demagogues to impose serious consequences including poverty and endless human suffering on the rest of us. (Peace, Land, and Bread anyone?) Heather shouldn’t feel bad about her carbon footprint. She should enjoy time with her girlfriend in her gas-powered car. Life is short enough as it is.
As for why I live in a box in the sky, with no car (I’ve never owned one), biking all year long, it’s not for climate change. It’s for time. By living this way I get time back for what’s important to me. I’m at work in 12 minutes, and on the tennis court with my wife in 15 minutes. And tennis is life to us. Everything I need is within a 25 minute bike ride and often within a 5 minute walk. And biking turns your legs into Sexy Flanders! My life isn’t for everyone. If you live on an acreage with a big pickup truck and ATVs, fill your boots – have fun! I’d love to have a beer with you. No one should have to live like me and certainly not for climate change.
Hi. Just discovered your blog. Your writings make sense to me, esp this one (so far). Do what you believe, respect others choices. Author Barbera Kingsolver had the same reservations you have regarding the enviroment. She had a beautiful home in Tucson, Az, and moved to Tennessee (I believe) to be more environmentally responsabile (in her view). She did the work and I admire her for it. Activism by convience is a thing more of us need to recognize. Pushing responsibility (in their view) onto others seems to be a common thing now-a-days. We have a farm (phunny pharm?) and would be happy to hoist a beer with you! Thanks for your musings, they make sense (to me)
Dude, you’re just obnoxiously stupid, sorry to say that. Learn to live with it, read more, improve, etc. That would be a much better use of time than this graphomania you’re busy with.
I’ve been called worse by braver.
You are being a hater, why? It is not necessary.
I’ve long held the opinion that a (small-g) green activist is just somebody that can’t, or won’t, do the math. Take the number of persons living in Canada today, multiply by the number of kJ needed to transport food to them and keep them from freezing in the winter, carry the 1, ….
I’m old enough to have seen the changes in glaciation in the Canadian Rockies, which started long before the 1970s when I started taking my own photographic record. So I have no issue with the observation that the climate is changing. I fully agree with you about the hypocrisy of people who seem to feel that their responsibility ends once they’ve complained about the state of the world. Actually taking actions to do something, anything, just doesn’t seem to be part of their belief system.