Totally unfair!
Why climate professionals are often held to unrealistic standards
Climate professionals, people who work in roles which address climate change, are often criticised for what they eat or how they travel. Criticism of lifestyle choices by colleagues, family members or even strangers can be demotivating. Worse, it can hinder efforts towards building a sustainable future.
As more people start working in sustainability, both in traditional sectors such as climate researchers or public health professionals and within other workspaces where sustainability is embedded into an existing role, this type of criticism is in danger of becoming more familiar.
As more people start working the scam they should be expected to practice what they preach, but, you know, that is only for Other People
Climate change affects everyone, whether we like to admit it or not. It can be overwhelming to know how best to act on all the advice about living more sustainably. In fact, increased knowledge about what is necessary for a sustainable lifestyle can be paralysing, and prevent someone from taking action.
See? Everyone should be forced. Except for those pushing it, who have massive carbon footprints.
Of course, many of us do want to live more sustainably. But some people may feel restricted by the efforts and costs of taking these extra steps to change multiple aspects of our busy daily lives.
Wait, so walking the talk is inconvenient and expensive? Who knew? (well, me, because I’ve been saying and writing this stuff for 20 years)
Instead of revamping our own lifestyles, it can be easier to challenge those recommending these changes to our behaviour, to see if they are following their own rules.
Um, why would I change my lifestyle? I’m not a card carrying cult member. They are.
Climate professionals know which choices are best for the environment. But when you see one of them flying to a UN climate summit, drinking from a plastic water bottle or caught red-handed eating a beef burger, how do you feel? Confused? Vindicated? Perhaps, relief? If the very people who are advising us how to live sustainably aren’t practising what they preach, does this absolve us of responsibility to act?
Whether intentional or not, holding climate professionals to unrealistic standards is a tactic which delays effective climate action. It slows down climate action by redirecting responsibility and foregrounding low-impact solutions.
Of course, the article keeps making more Excuses for climajhypocrisy.
What, questioning people who are telling us how to run our lives, and urging legal action to require it, can’t be criticized for not practicing what they preach?
Should I assume that our esteemed host’s articles inspired the cited article? :)
So, their work is Too Important for them to be required to take the actions they want imposed on Other People?
Well, of course! But doesn’t the same logic work the other way? Doesn’t that also mean that the “climate professionals” are taking the easy way by recommending changes to our behavior than revamping their own lifestyles?
It would be easier to take the “climate professionals” seriously if they demonstrated their seriousness by taking action on their own? Is the CO2 they generate somehow less harmful than the CO2 Other People generate?
Perhaps, just perhaps, if they were taking the actions they want to impose on others, they’d understand the costs that they want to impose on others.
Demanding perfection in others who are promoting actions you disagree with is an Alinsky principle.
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition.”
But does ridicule make for a fair debate? Of course not, since it detracts from the discussion.
The Earth is warming from the CO2 we’ve added and are still adding to the atmosphere. Here in the United States, per capita CO2 emissions have decreased some 35% since 2020!! How did that happen and have you suffered because of it?
But relax. Humans will continue to burn fossil fuels and the Earth will continue to warm. We’ll adapt. You’ve won. WINNING!
The diligent Mr Dowd wrote:
If the ridicule is accurate, in this case pointing out activists who do not practice what they preach and what they wish to impose on other people, how is it not a “fair” part of the debate? Is it somehow unfair to point out that the activists have not taken their position seriously enough to have taken the actions they advocate?
Does Mr Dana, as a balance budget advocating libertarian, eschew Social Security, Medicare and all the other “perks” of American government? Will every MAGAt forgo their government subsidies to balance the budget??
While we all realize that the $12 million a month the taxpayers give the president to play golf is a metaphorical “drop in the budget”, critics still cite it. After all, ridicule is man’s most potent weapon!
We’ll believe the national debt is an existential crisis when the ones claiming it is stop nursing at the teat of Mother America!
Are these criticisms valuable contributions to balancing the budget? Not really.
The relevant question is, “Is the increase in atmospheric CO2 causing the Earth to warm?” The scientific consensus is a resounding “yes”.
A corollary question is, “Is global warming affecting the Earth’s ecosystem (climate, severe weather events, ocean’s volumes, melting ice sheets and glaciers, redistribution of plants, animals, microbes, etc)? Again, the scientific consensus is “yes”.
Is there evidence to suggest the warming will stop? Short of nuclear war, asteroid strikes or massive volcanism, or shifts in Earth[s axis, or an act of Allah, the scientific consensus is “no”.
Pointing out that a few advocates still drive internal combustion autos, fly to meetings, eat a burger, drink a Desani is not strong evidence. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. Whining about the imperfect behaviors of others is a “tactic”, part of the strategy to keep things “same is it ever was”.
We’re well aware of the right’s disdain for education, research, progress, scientific predictions, the truth etc.
“We’re well aware of the right’s disdain for education, research, progress, scientific predictions, the truth etc.”
Complete nonsense. Propaganda couched in lies, spread as if it is uncontested truth. So now we know what this clown considers “fair debate.”
Scientific consensus? I don’t think you know what that means.
I don’t care what they practice or what they preach. Alarmists have issued 50 years worth of failed predictions and warnings. I stopped paying attention long ago.
Over a century ago, Professor Svante Arrhenius* predicted that increasing atmospheric CO2 would cause the Earth’s surface to warm. True dat.
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* The Arrhenius equation, Arrhenius acid, Arrhenius base, lunar crater Arrhenius, Martian crater Arrhenius, the mountain of Arrheniusfjellet, and the Arrhenius Labs at Stockholm University were so named to commemorate his contributions to science!
Professor Trump DID found Trump University.
Arrhenius’s equation only applies up until absorbance saturation occurs. We reached that already.
And yet CO2 keeps climbing as does the temperature.
Can you explain the mechanism of “until absorbance saturation occurs?” Thanks.
Nature keeps outsmarting those dang scientists. The atmosphere is constantly changing, isn’t it? And those pesky molecules of CO2 not only absorb infrared wavelengths they re-emit radiation. And get this, as the atmosphere warms it can hold even MORE water vapor which absorbs an IR spectrum that differs from CO2!
Jun. 4, 2025 = 430.5 ppm
Arrhenius later admitted his equations were erroneous.
Professor Arrhenius stated he had not included the rise in CO2 from industrialization.
Being a Swede, Professor Arrhenius was more concerned with GLOBAL COOLING than warming.
That’s where the “erroneous” claims from the anti-science crowd came from. Even today, it’s still not clear how much warming a doubling of CO2 would cause, so Professor Arrhenius did OK!
Anyway, there is absolutely NO question that atmospheric CO2 causing warming, the relevant quesion is “how much”?
Told ya, Rimjob.
Apology accepted.
Bwaha! Lolgfy Loser!
It is totally unfair for people who constantly bitch and whine about others who do not live 100% carbon neutral lives to advocate for renewables to be using that same renewable energy in their own lives. NC gets 15% of its energy from renewable. If you expect others to live political/energy correct lives than you MUST also end your use of renewable energy !00%. Or, simply realize that the electrification will continue. We will never see another big nuclear power plant built, people just do not want or eed them
“Sustainability” is a Bullshit trigger word. Whenever you see it in an article, the credibility of that article drops to zero.
Most MAGAts vote for reducing the federal budget yet collect their Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, disability, drive on highways, across bridges, etc. Hypocrites!!
We’ll believe the budget is in dire straights, when those who say it is start acting like it!!
HorseSqueeze. Those are all things we pay for under duress… except maybe medicaid.. Roads and other needed infrastructure are part of what the government is for.
If every conservative refused to accept Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, unemployment, we’d eliminate the debt.
The apparently wealthy Mr Dowd wrote:
Were we given the option to decline to participate in Social Security and Medicare during our working years, you might have a point. But we were taxed to support those programs, and could be thrown in prison if we refused. I, for one, intend to take every last euro of my Social Security, and would do so if I had a million dollars in the bank.
The younger George Bush proposed allowing, not requiring, but optionally allowing, workers under 55 to choose to contribute two percentage points of the 6.20 percentage point Social Security tax on individuals to private investment instruments. Naturally, the Democrats screamed bloody murder, that George McChimpy Bushitler was trying to destroy Social Security and push Grandma off the cliff, and it never happened.
The left allow us exactly zero choice.
Mr Dana argues he has no choice. You can choose to refuse your Social Security and Medicare subsidies.
If you really believed that the debt tsunami threatens the existence of this formerly great nation you’d choose to do your part to Make America Great Again!!!
Tell those healthy and energetic young workers to stop paying their payroll taxes!! Could off SS and Medicare at its source!! Kentucky has some of America’s most influential Senators and Representatives – make it a movement!!
Even Republicans recognize that some 90% of federal spending is for Defense, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and interest on our massive debt!!
Another consideration would be to convert our bloated private-public healthcare “system” to a system similar to those of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Japan, Korea (south), Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, etc*, who pay half what we pay with better outcomes! The problem with universal healthcare is that it steals from the pockets of corporations and company execs!
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* Oh man, only one nation starts with an “O”, and it sucks, period.
I’m just getting the money back that the government confiscated from me without my consent. None of those government programs are instituted or run with my approval.
The climate nags have total control over their own lifestyles.
There’s the difference.
Excuses, excuses…
Better outcomes? Canada? Only if you want assisted suicide as your treatment. I spoke at length last night with a Canadian doctor (from a family of doctors) who fled to the US to practice, and he describes the Canadian medical system as horribly broken and dysfunctional.
And since we shoulder the burden of defense for most of the “free world” those countries can afford to be happy little socialists.
No doubt some Canadian docs flee to the U.S. for riches. Having spent much time there, I found if you talk with patients, you hear a different story. They like the system. Business trips to Montreal Canada, Melbourne Australia and Milan Italy all tell the same story.
Anyway, you can find comparative info on outcomes from various sources. Our materal mortality rate is times WORSE than in other advanced nations.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2024/sep/mirror-mirror-2024
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/
About a quarter of U.S. physicians come from outside the U.S., mostly from India, Pakistan, the Phillipines, the Caribbean and Mexico.
In the past the AMA placed onerous barriers on licensing foreign physicians here, but that is changing.
International medical graduates (IMGs) practice in underserved areas – rural areas and inner cities. In addition, IMGs tend to be generalists, e.g., internal medicine. The AMA now advocates loosening the credentialing of IMGs to 1) increase service in underserved areas and 2) offset a looming physician shortage.
“Mr Dana argues he has no choice. You can choose to refuse your Social Security and Medicare subsidies.”
Why would you deliberately hurt your own financial well-being?
So you are admitting that following the climate nags advice is self-damaging? Which is why they don’t do it.
Too funny-“no question CO2 causing atmospheric warming, question is how much”. Actually there’s all kinds questions, as you been shown before. And if how much isn’t known, which it’s not, you have nothing