I watched the video and find it upsetting. I believe that this guy and his way of thinking about climate change is why we run into it the way we do.

Rather than acknowledging that climate change is caused by emissions which are largely done through energy production, transport in supply chains and industrial activities, i.e. systemic elements, he goes on to complain about how individuals, who have nothing to do with energy production or transport, are hypocrites.

This is disgusting and will do nothing to solve global warming but in fact make it worse.

To name a few examples:

In response to how people say they care about the problem vs other actors:

“… it is pretty fair to say that we consumers have a pretty good view of ourselves and a pretty dim view of others …”

Alternatively, we might say that they just make a statement about the efforts / care they feel versus the efforts and care they see in other actors, notably in industry apparently, which, correctly, is perceived as rather absent.

In response to the stat showing that people support stronger environmental rules but don’t think that they would need to change their own habits:

" … gap between what people say and are prepared to do …"

The presenter’s statement simply does not follow from what was presented. A simple alternative explanation: People might think it won’t affect their lives because they aren’t energy generation experts or have deep knowledge about how transport in supply chain works.

Then the guy goes on about how people apparently prioritise reducing waste and recycling. The problem he sees with this is that waste minimisation and recycling is already happening in the west and therefore interprets it as the “lazy” option for people to choose because it means they already adapted and don’t need to change their lifestyle.

First of all, I’m nearly 100% certain that this is a false statement, given the discrepancy between recycling and waste management efforts in the western world. Secondly, the whole point has very limited applicability to global warming.

Later on he shows other proposed actions and mentions that none of these are actionable by an individual. He uses this to show how everyone is a sinner. Instead he could make the logical conclusion that climate change has something to do with the systems our economy runs on, which most of us have no insight or power over.

Then he asserts that many people could replace fossil fuels with renewables “in their own homes”. Most people do not live in their own homes. Even those who happen to live in their own homes would generally not be in an financial position to swap fossil fuels with renewables. Further, the idea that this swap should be done on a household by household idea is so stupid that I don’t even know where to start.

After a turn to some marketing ideas that made me throw up, he seriously argues that governments were not able to regulate the tobacco industry, because the industry sowed “tiny seeds of doubt” into peoples mind about the health impacts of tobacco. Really? How about the money spent on lobbying with politicians?

He finishes his talk with: “if everyone would do the right thing…”. I just want to reiterate that this is an absurd argument to make. There are serious economic and financial goals at stake for actors that prevent us from changing our economy to mitigate global warming. These goals are directly related to some of the largest industries in the world (e.g. energy) and we haven’t even articulated the issue, let alone started a conversation of how to solve it.

The solution to global warming is to wind down the fossil fuel industry to zero, which should be easy enough to understand. This is an act that will have a significant impact everywhere and we should focus on managing that change. Asking people to turn off the lights, enhance energy efficiency and advocate for “Meat free Mondays” will largely fail but even where it doesn’t, won’t impact the amount of produced emissions.