Exasperated from having ecological discussions with people who respond with arguments that attempt to quiet all constructive conversation? Like a roadblock in the pouring rain that prevents you from exploring down a path of productivity and exploration, these types of exchanges attempt to dampen and end environmental discussions. People are not usually Ill-intentioned that do this, but I've noticed from experience, that the people I have these encounters with are usually quite privileged and are not invested in finding solutions to environmental issues. To debunk and demystify the factual errors of these points, I've put together a report on common environmental arguments and how to unravel them so that we can expand awareness, inspire broader and more critical ways of thinking, as well as provide education on the deeper reality of the issues at hand.
You can use the logical responses below to puncture the flaws of these common environmental arguments:
The Car Argument: “you drive a car so you’re a hypocrite if you advocate for environmental change”
Jamie Henn from 350.org summates the response to this argument to this well: “To say it is hypocritical to divest while still using fossil fuels is equivalent to telling parents they must remove their children from class while advocating for better schools. We must fight in the world we have, not the world we want.”
Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes also points out the flaws of this fossil fuel argument:
“Of course we do, and people in the North wore clothes made of cotton picked by slaves. But that did not make them hypocrites when they joined the abolition movement. It just meant that they were also part of the slave economy, and they knew it. That is why they acted to change the system, not just their clothes.”
Another great quote from Ethan Cox from Ricochet Media: “If members of society were disqualified from advocating for change while participating in the systems they want to alter, we’d still be bashing rocks together to make fire. Humans have always had to use one source of energy while transitioning to the next. No doubt many of the early oil barons of Pennsylvania in the mid-19th century conducted some of their business using whale oil lamps.”
The Bottom Line: don’t let someone call you a hypocrite for fighting for a world that’s better than the one we’re in now. We should all be driving less as much as possible, and we should also be working change the goddamn system, not just our personal transportation habits.
The 10 Rivers Plastic Pollution Argument: “But 90% of plastic pollution comes from 10 rivers in Asia and Africa so what we do in Canada is pointless”
Oh, joy! If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked a question about this or been told this.
First of all, in BC, most of the plastic we find is from BC and the coastal US, not these 10 rivers in Asia and Africa. So, before we displace the blame on places and situations we actually know nothing about, we need to look at our own systems that are causing destruction locally.
Secondly, multinational western corporations who produce all of these plastics that end up in the rivers forcefully market their products to underprivileged communities in these countries.
Then, to add to this storm, a lot of these countries do not have proper waste management infrastructure to capture materials, including plastic products and packaging. Individuals who are already suffering the effects of plastic pollution and climate change then get blamed, not the companies who are truly responsible. Aiden Wicker told well - “ Multinationals like @kraft_brand, @nestle, @generalmills, @cocacola, @dannon, @pepsi, @mondelez_international, @unileverusa are aggressively marketing disposable junk food and plastic products to the underprivileged in these countries, where there is no infrastructure or cultural know-how to properly handle the waste."
The Bottom Line: We need to take responsibility for the pollution caused by our own countries, understand this issue through a global perspective, and hold the rich multinational corporations responsible for the mass destruction they are causing, not people who are barely getting by everyday.
The China Argument: “If China isn’t going to change, then it doesn’t matter what the world does”
Writer Francesca Willow from Ethical Unicorn has an INCREDIBLE article on this, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. Here's her quotes, visit this page to read the full article. I've said it before and I'll say it many times over her, follow her and read everything she publishes!
“However, it is not the only large polluter, and reducing China’s emissions alone will not stop the climate crisis. Together China, the EU and the US are responsible for more than half of total global emissions, while the bottom 100 countries are responsible for 3.5% of emissions.
If we instead look at this data in terms of per capita emissions, China drops to 12th place. The US is third, behind Saudi Arabia and Australia, and the UK is 13th. Considering the drastic differences in population between these countries (China has 1.386 billion people while the US has 327.2 million, Saudi Arabia 32.9 million, Australia 24.6 million and the UK 66 million), this already shows how pointing fingers at other countries based on one set of data alone is, at best, problematic.”
Coal usage has declined since 2014 in China, sitting at about 60.4% of the country’s total energy use in 2017, however China still consumes more coal than the rest of the world combined. Most of this coal is consumed by the industrial sector: manufacturing, agriculture, mining and construction made up 67.9% of China’s energy use and 54.2% of China’s coal use in 2015. Power production was responsible for 41.8% of coal consumption.
China also manufactures half the worlds steel, producing around five times more than the EU. Each ton of steel produces 2 tons of CO2, with steel processing potentially accounting for more than 10% of China’s CO2 emissions.
While many of these materials are used domestically, it’s worth noting how much is used overseas. In 2017, around 25% of the cement and 9% of the steel produced in China was exported. If we want to blame China solely for emissions, we have to acknowledge that at least part of this is driven by the west pushing manufacturing of these carbon-intensive industries into China in the first place.”
Overall, pointing at China’s emissions as an excuse to avoid dealing with the messes of our own countries doesn’t seem particularly smart to me. While China’s energy use and carbon emissions rose rapidly as it invested in factories and infrastructure, it’s also important to remember that China only became the top contributor to global warming in 2015 as it became a more developed country, and it is still nowhere near the highest polluter per capita.
Additionally, no one country can reduce emissions enough to stop climate breakdown. While China’s efforts are important, so are the efforts of other countries and companies too.
The Bottom Line: “So, all in all, I’d say keep protesting. Keep demanding politicians do better. Keep asking for system change. Pinning the blame on China for something that is a global problem driven by colonialism and exploitation is a waste of time. And any politician that wants to wait around for China to fix the problem has chosen a poor excuse.” - Ethical Unicorn
The Population Argument: "The world's vastly increasing population is the biggest issue and we aren’t going to be able to solve this”
The growing population of the planet is definitely a massive concern for managing resources as well as lowering pollution and emissions. However, we need to remind ourselves of the vast disparity that rules our global society: The UN Development Program reports that the richest 20 percent of the world's population consumes 86 percent of the world's resources while the poorest 80 percent consume just 14 percent. As populations grow, the privileged 20% need to consume a hell of a lot less, and so that the rest of the world can increase their quality of life without sacrificing even more of the planet’s ecological integrity. Project Drawdown states education as one of the biggest and most equitable ways to control population: "Kenya has made significant gains in education, with more than 80 percent of all boys and girls currently enrolled in primary schools. In secondary schools, the rate of enrolment drops to 50 percent for both boys and girls. Poverty is the main cause of low overall enrolment, and given socioeconomic norms, boys receive priority for higher education when there are financial constraints.
Education lays a foundation for vibrant lives for girls and women, their families, and their communities. It also is one of the most powerful levers available for avoiding emissions by curbing population growth. Women with more years of education have fewer and healthier children, and actively manage their reproductive health.
Educated girls realize higher wages and greater upward mobility, contributing to economic growth. Their rates of maternal mortality drop, as do mortality rates of their babies. They are less likely to marry as children or against their will. They have lower incidence of HIV/AIDS and malaria. Their agricultural plots are more productive and their families better nourished.
Education also shores up resilience and equips girls and women to face the impacts of climate change. They can be more effective stewards of food, soil, trees, and water, even as nature’s cycles change. They have greater capacity to cope with shocks from natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Today, there are economic, cultural, and safety-related barriers that impede 62 million girls around the world from realizing their right to education. Key strategies to change that include:
-make school affordable;
-help girls overcome health barriers;
-reduce the time and distance to get to school; and
-make schools more girl-friendly.
Out of the top 100 ways to reverse climate change, project Drawdown cites this as #6, preventing 51.48 gigatons of C02 reduced by 2050, which is MASSIVE.
The Bottom Line: Improve quality of lives, manage resources better, lower emissions. PERIOD.
The Weather Argument: “It’s snowing so climate change is obviously a big made up scam”
I love this quote from Rainforest Alliance: “OK, people, here’s the difference between climate and weather: Weather fluctuates day in, day out, whereas climate refers to long term trends—and the overall trend is clearly, indisputably, inarguably a warming one. Not to mention the fact that the logic in that sentence is a just a little shaky. Stephen Colbert summarizes it perfectly: “Global warming isn’t real because I was cold today! Also great news: World hunger is over because I just ate.”
There’s hundreds of climate change arguments alone that could be listed here, so here’s some great resources that debunk arguments stating climate change is false, visit below to learn the facts and turn conversations around on this:
https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/articles/five-common-claims-made-by-climate-change-skeptics
