Earth Day is always a problem.
Every April 22, we pay tribute to the (truly incredible) first Earth Day in 1970, when
an estimated 20 million Americans came out to demand government action on the runaway pollution choking towns and cities from coast to coast. Demands that gave birth to the modern environmental movement and led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
And every April 22, brands seize the day to tout their sustainability and encourage yet more consumption, all so they can plant a tree somewhere.
Meanwhile, groups of all sizes invite people to mark the occasion by joining walks, picking up trash, planting trees, and more. (And to be clear, these are wonderful things.)
But then April 23 comes around and most people go back to work and everyday life, and most brands put away the feel good t-shirts and go back to business as usual. Then the next Earth Day rolls around, and well, it looks a lot like the last one. Rinse, repeat.
Of course, in the background is climate change and the fast-closing window we have to stop rising temperatures in time to avert irreversible and truly catastrophic impacts.
At least in the US, climate-fueled disruption and devastation are simply becoming part of our everyday lives. Last year, four in 10 Americans lived through a climate-disaster. In the West, we just expect to choke on wildfire smoke and sweat through one heatwave after another every summer and fall. Yes, our anxiety levels rise in line with CO2 levels, but for better and much worse, we are adapting.
Google’s homepage says a thousand words.
So how do we break the cycle and in time?
The Greatest Trick
In the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects,” the villain Keyser Söze tells the detective investigating the murders that he (Söze) has orchestrated, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The line – twisting another from the French writer Charles Baudelaire – proves a supreme act of misdirection, pushing the detective to look elsewhere when the culprit is right in front of him. All enabling the criminal to simply stroll away.
Fast forward to 2022, and the greatest trick the oil companies ever pulled was convincing all of us our carbon footprint mattered. On Earth Day, when our inboxes are bursting with a million invitations to do our part to reduce our carbon footprint, it’s worth remembering that the term was actually invented by an ad agency working for . . . you guessed it . . . the oil industry.
The implication of individual carbon footprints is clear: We’re all responsible for climate change and we’re all in this together.
This, of course, is utter bovine excrement.
The fossil fuel industry has spent decades and billions not only to lock us into an energy system that has irrefutably altered our climate, but also to slow walk and block the obvious and practical policies that can change course and promise a livable future to our children and coming generations. We are not all responsible in the same way.
This is not to say it doesn’t matter that people in rich countries and communities produce exponentially more climate-changing emissions than those living in developing nations who inevitably pay the greatest price. Because it does.
Rather, that focusing on individual carbon footprints tricks us into looking the wrong way while fossil fuel companies – just like the movie villain – calmly stroll away, free of consequences.
You can’t make this stuff up.
