What I'm really focused on is systemic change
or, how to be a professional skier and maintain climate cred
A few of the professional skiers (and others) I follow on social media are heavily involved in advocacy organizations like POW (Protect Our Winters). Occasionally, when they express concern about climate change on social media, they get some push-back. Typically, the critical comments highlight the difference between what they say (save the planet!, protect our winters!) and what they do, which is travel by air to exotic, hard to get to destinations, and then use helicopters to access remote mountains and make ski films with names like “The Blizzard of Aahhh’s” (1988) and “Global Storming” (1999). Both of the films mentioned were made over 20 years ago, when they used to do this sort of thing unapologetically. I wondered if, in this new virtue-signaling era, they would still have the courage to use irreverent, goofy titles. Some recent films by Matchstick Productions, one of the biggest players in the adventure athletics business, are titled, “The Stomping Grounds”, and “Huck Yeah”, so the answer is a pleasant yes.
When the athletes fess up to their hypocrisy I have noticed a recurring theme. Most say something about how they understand that they are engaging in “unsustainable” behavior. They might explain further and describe how the contradictions embedded in their lifestyles used to stress them out, but now they don’t worry so much. Why the change?
It’s because, they explain, we live in a system that prioritizes the wrong things—consumption, capitalism, the freedom to make individual choices about how we live our lives. The system is all-powerful, driven by science deniers, fossil fuel CEOs, corrupt politicians, and corporate greed. There’s nothing that any one person can do to change any of it, so instead of trying to set an example of sustainable living that others could follow, they have decided to focus on systemic change.
Systemic change—what does this mean? It means joining organizations like POW, posting social media tropes from the IPCC and other organizations that declare that the time to act is NOW, and encouraging people to “vote for climate” during election cycles. It means declaring that we must “end fossil fuel” and hold fossil fuel companies accountable, all while jumbo-jet flying around the world to make films or attend splashy climate summits. In short, focusing on systemic change means you get to carry on doing all the things you love to do just as you always have, as long as you signal your virtue by letting everyone know that things have to change!
There is a very talented young cross-country runner in England. She is 16 years old and her name is Innes Fitzgerald. She is world class. Earlier this year she was invited to the World Cross-Country Championships in Australia. She has chosen to forgo the opportunity to represent England at the competition. Why? Because, in her words, “the reality of the travel fills me with deep concern”. She fears that air travel is contributing to “those suffering on the frontline of climate breakdown”. I think her reasoning is flawed, but unlike my fellow skiers, at least she has the courage of her convictions. My skier friends would jump on the plane in a heartbeat. While in Australia they would post something sober about the need to just stop oil because wildfires and the Great Barrier Reef, and if called out about the fact that they just flew 14 hours on a giant airplane fueled by kerosene they’d say “I know I’m not perfect, but what I’m really focused on is systemic change”.
Selection bias: those who really care and cut their emissions down mostly go off grid and don't endlessly self-promote.
Modern evangelism, whether religious, ideological or environmental, is mostly based on greed; driving clicks and earning exposure. Greed is the problem.