I listen to a lot of podcasts, and my extension, a lot of commercials. Today I got hit up for the Happiness Lab podcast, which is a… help you through of dealing with climate change anxiety. Oh, baby, did you find the WRONG audience.
Now most people when faced with being advertised for something they would never (in a million years) buy, would just laugh it off and go on. Except I can’t. Not because I’m neurotic or better than you, but because it’s the only ad playing. Over and over and over again, I hear how a chipper woman in an older soprano voice says “climate change causes us to feel sad, angry, and hopeless.” I can agree with hopeless, but since I went to public school at the beginning of the “global warming is going to destroy us all” phase, I’m not particularly sad or angry. I put it in the same category as “war in South Sudan” or “someone got shot in Baltimore.” Vague disappointment… and then I move on with my day.
I’m going to dissect this 30-second ad, because it infuriates me so much. Then some guy comes on next to say, “if you haven’t cried… about the climate, then you really haven’t experienced it.” Doesn’t that say a lot there? It should be one of those things that is obvious, it is preeminent, it should be affecting your life every day. Why are trying to convince me I should be sad?! Do I think climate change is real? Sure. Do I think it’s man-made? Probably. Do I think we should do something about it? Not at the cost of affecting my life in a measurable way. Because climate change is not affecting my life in any measurable way. So I don’t worry about it.
Thankfully, Dr. Laurie Santos (the soprano from before) has the answer and she’s created a “special season” just for this. So… apparently this is the schtick to get people to listen to her “you don’t have to be sad” talk for those who are too cheap to go to therapy. The same guy (apparently a leading scientist) comes back on saying that climate change affected our ancestors on the African savanna, but didn’t have the same mental triggers as it does now. Gee – is that because they were focused on more important things like, “I need to find enough berries to keep walking” or “all the game has moved to the river valleys, I should follow them.”
Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know about climate change? To quote Battlestar Galactica, “All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.” Our ancestors left the fruited plains of the Sahara because it was becoming a desert, and there was no internal combustion engine to cause it. They came to the Nile, the Indus, the Yangtze because it suddenly became a lot hotter and they needed to survive. Civilization followed, because when you shove a lot of people in a smaller space, you have to get along… even if the answer to that is, “I’ve got a big stick and my friends got big sticks, so listen up.”
Don’t worry, Dr. Santos has the answers. There are little things you can do to save the planet “while still travelling, shopping, and yes, enjoying those steak dinners.” (blink) Ah… what?
The entire reason you’re drawn to this podcast is because climate change is stressing you out. You want to know how you can save the Earth. You’ve done enough research (or had it indoctrinated into you) that cows kick out methane, which is a greenhouse gas. The best thing as a planet that we can do is to stop eating beef, pork, and maybe less chicken and go veggie. “But wait, Dr. Santos, I think beef tastes great! I’m not going to give that up!”
That’s okay, because a more clueless sounding woman comes on to say, “I’m going to order a steak, I’m definitely going to have a glass of wine. Instead of feeling guilty about that, I’m going to max out my pleasure here, and then in our daily lives,” having more of these low impact changes. (blink) Right… so what you’re telling me instead is that you’re really not that upset about climate change, but you’ve been told you should be, so I’ll just say that I’m making “low impact changes,” and feel virtuous and less stress. Right… without changing our g-d thing in your life! (sigh)
As the podcast ad finishes, I realizes, “Oh, that’s who this podcast is for.” It’s for “wine and steak for dinner” lady. The college-educated leftie who’s finally making money and wants to go to the Bahamas. But wait, doesn’t burning airplane fuel ruin the environment? Doesn’t the Bahamas have to import this wine on a diesel-belching boat? Bwaaa, never mind, I’ll just sort my trash into recyclables when I get home. It’s the “carbon offset” fallacy that smart people fall into. I know I should recycle my feces, but I think my neighbors might object to the smell.
This podcast is doing exactly what they say they’re doing – making you feel better about not saving the world. Their audience doesn’t really care about saving the Earth, but they believe they should be, so they’re guilty about it. I think like Alcoholics Anonymous, if they just admit that they don’t really care about climate change, they’ll feel freer and less stressed.
Ah, I feel better anyway. I haven’t written a blog post in a while, but I really needed to get that off my chest. I should write here more often – hope you enjoy it.
Albigensia Press 