I live in this society and want to change it for the better.
You want the oil companies to make more money making your own life worse.
Your argument is tired and wrongheaded.
Branding climate activists hypocrites for wanting to decrease fossil fuel consumption while at the same time burning them is, therefore, a logical fallacy.
Branding climate activists hypocrites for wanting to decrease fossil fuel consumption while at the same time burning them is, therefore, a logical fallacy.
Abolitionists who opposed slavery in the United States, for instance, wore clothes that were spun from the cotton harvested by slaves.
"But that did not make them hypocrites," Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes told The Nation in 2015.
"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."
The hypocrite argument also falls apart because it ignores big structural factors.
Personal decisions or forced decisions?
Sure, some people do live off the grid, or walk and ride their bikes everywhere. But, for most of us, it's nearly impossible to escape creating greenhouse gases.
Fossil fuels don't just heat our homes and fuel our vehicles, they are also the foundation of almost everything from electronics to painkillers.
"Our whole society is structured around fossil fuels," says Duncan Kenyon of the Pembina Institute.
"It's the backbone of our society, our economy."
It's, therefore, nonsensical to suggest that having a carbon footprint means you can't legitimately raise concerns about climate change and its potentially dire ramifications.
Protestors demonstrating cuts to the health-care system wouldn't likely forgo lifesaving treatment at a hospital if they needed it.
