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[0:13]How many listicles have you read proposing the 10 best ways to live a greener life? Do you feel obligated to recycle, carpool or bike to work, use energy efficient light bulbs, or buy local produce? These are all good things and the world is certainly no worse off for individuals trying to be more eco-friendly. The only problem is the push for individuals to quote, make the ethical choice and greenify their own lives is a massive scam. Sure, we should all try to be more conscious with our consumption, but by taking on the mantle of climate warrior ourselves, we've been swindled into letting the real culprits off the hook. For over four decades, some of the world's largest corporations have anticipated and understood the causes and disastrous effects of climate change. and either buried the evidence, shifted the blame onto individuals, or both. Just how bad is the problem? Let's take a trip back to 1977. One afternoon in July of 1977, at the Exxon Corporation headquarters, an assortment of powerful oil men received a striking report from James Black, one of the company's most senior scientists. The verdict was simple. The burning of fossil fuels was adversely affecting the global climate, and would eventually lead to disaster. Note that this was in 1977, before much of the public was even aware of the term climate change. Black presented a second assessment to a larger Exxon audience a year later, building on his previous findings and offering detailed figures. Exxon responded in what today might be seen as a bizarre fashion. They launched the most cutting-edge, empirical, thorough investigation ever into global climate change. Over the next decade, the company performed rigorous CO2 sampling and climate modeling. It assembled a panel of the sharpest minds Exxon had to offer. And then, once they had gathered a deep understanding of the state of the pending climate emergency, they launched a decades-long campaign aimed at obfuscating their findings and sowing doubt among the public. They chose to work as the tip of the spear for climate denial, spitting in the face of the evidence their own scientists had gathered. They lobbied to block federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and decried anything less than full autonomy for private corporations. Exxon was critical in building the colossus of misinformation that persists to this day. Meanwhile, just 100 companies around the world account for 71% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. ExxonMobil ranks number five. This is the central con of the world's largest corporations. They've known the truth for decades. And instead of working to mitigate the effects of the catastrophe they're causing, they choose to actively mislead those vastly more likely to suffer the fallout, all in the name of profit. Over the decades following Exxon's about face on climate change, well-intentioned eco groups and half-baked public policy initiatives have shifted the burden onto the average global citizen. What other option did they have? How are politicians supposed to fund their re-election campaigns without generous donations from the oil and gas lobby? If Exxon wants tax breaks, less oversight and complete autonomy, who else could they pressure to quote, save the planet? The answer, of course, is the rest of us. The vast majority of the world's population that has no sway over legislation and certainly none over corporate greed. And so we're told to switch to electric cars, take public transportation, stop using the elevator, unplug appliances, recycle, stop wasting food, buy less meat, shop local. Many of us do it, and it helps to ease our conscience as we watch coastal towns and small tropical islands flood and their populations evacuate their homes. In May of 2019, CO2 levels hit 415 parts per million for the first time in three million years. Not since the industrial revolution, not since the advent of agriculture, but for the first time since humans have existed. Three million years ago in the Pliocene era, the world was much warmer. Sea levels are estimated to have been up to 90 feet higher than they are today. That's the kind of world 415 parts per million produces. The list of cities and islands that would be completely submerged is extensive. Miami, Amsterdam, Lisbon, New Orleans, and hundreds of other towns, cities, and islands would go under, displacing millions of people. all so Exxon and others like them can keep paying their executives millions of dollars in bonuses. This is all infuriating, and the people complicit in causing and covering up the climate emergency deserve to be tried for crimes against humanity. But what can we do? Instead of letting ourselves off the hook by simply pledging to eat less meat or take fewer transatlantic flights, we need to shake off the mindset of individualism and consumerism and start to see ourselves as an interconnected group of people with a common goal. The prevailing cultural zeitgeist in the West, the willingness to see ourselves as merely consumers as opposed to citizens, is no accident. That mindset was built slowly and deliberately over several decades. Since Reagan and Thatcher, the prime motivation of government has been to deregulate, privatize, give tax cuts to corporations and remove any barriers to the exercise of unaccountable corporate power, while dismantling anything even remotely threatening to private power, especially unions and regulatory committees. In the 40 years since these policies have become staples of Western governance, corporations have been able to amass mountains of profit and thereby manipulate the very government that gave them their power. We are in the midst of a crisis, as predicted four decades ago by the very orchestrators of the crisis, and they will not give up their control without a fight. Throughout history, only mass movements have been able to turn the tide against seemingly insurmountable odds. We have to stop thinking as individuals and reignite the natural human desire to work together to make the world a better place for all of us. Speaking of making things better, if you're interested in climate change and the future of our species, I highly recommend you check out Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything for free on Audible. It's a fantastic book that explains how climate change affects not only the environment, but world governments, local economies, and the very structure of society. 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