If you're not a hypocrite, you're not being ambitious enough

Asking for serious climate solutions requires not entertaining unserious questions from people with an emotional axe to grind.

Every time I've spoken with someone who works for a fossil fuel company about climate change they have wanted to talk about something I'm wearing or holding. Subjects raised vary widely - my phone, my headphones, my shirt, my glasses (actually made from acetate, derived from trees) - but the goal is always the same: to distract me, and make themselves feel a little bit better.

To recap: climate change is a problem almost entirely caused by fossil fuels. The companies that dig up, transport, and refine fossil fuels have known that their products cause the planet to warm for roughly 40 years. Over the course of those four decades, they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually to deny, delay, and distract from policies that would stop them from selling coal, oil, and gas. Both the gap in public awareness about the urgency of the problem, and the incredible power advantage the industry holds in policymaking space are together entirely responsible for the continuation of a global disaster that will cost millions of lives.

If you're not a hypocrite, you're not being ambitious enough

When someone who works for a fossil fuel company brings up your glasses, or phone, they are trying to make it harder for you to tell the story about who is responsible. The accusation is difficult to avoid responding to, no matter how many times you hear it, because being accused of hypocrisy is always unpleasant, particularly for people who are actively involved with trying to make the world a better place. But when you do respond, the real conversation you need to have is already over.

In the context of climate change, if you're not at least a little bit of a hypocrite, you are not being ambitious enough. We are all clearly tied in many ways to fossil fuel consumption now. This is the result of the decades-long strategy laid out above. That is the reason to call for ambitious action, not a reason to avoid it.

Fully disconnecting from fossil fuels is only possible with time and concerted political effort. If you focus on making sure you are never a hypocrite, you will spend all of your time worrying about yourself, and not the kind of social and political engagement needed to solve the real problem.

A silly equivalency

But I also think there is an important emotional dimension for the people trying to talk about my phone when I'm trying to talk about fossil fuels. They usually want to act like pointing out these facts creates a more honest version of a discussion about climate change, making them serious truth tellers and me a frivolous activist.

In fact a discussion about our individual responsibility for climate change is far less serious than one about the companies and systems primarily behind the problem. Pointing out hypocrisies flattens responsibility, and creates false equivalencies between all people who touch the fossil fuel system, rather than thinking about specific causes and solutions. It's simply not the case that Exxon's CEO and a person posting online from their iPhone share the same responsibility for action. Pretending otherwise is farcically unserious.

But the flattening emotionally serves the people who make this accusation in other ways. If you or I are just as responsible for the problem as people actively supporting the fossil fuel industry, then they bear no special burden or guilt as well. It's a form of comforting personal denial for a massive social problem.

Just do it

Everyone should feel bold enough to suggest climate solutions that may feel slightly contradictory to the way things are today. That's what being a part of a visionary movement is all about. Ultimately, this all may be difficult to convey in a snappy response. The most important thing is to point out when someone is trying to change the subject, and why. From there, hopefully you can return to the real story, because that's where meaningful change can begin.