I travel internationally by train, when I travel at all — it’s been years. (And I’ve also never owned an internal combustion engine, have a plant-based diet, no kids, and travel everywhere by bike or if I can’t, public transportation.)

Of course, what I do personally has no relevance to the validity of my claims either way. This pseudo-argument is so common it has a name: Mister Gotcha.

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We need to decarbonize by over 90% immediately: we need to reduce our society’s emissions by 9 parts in 10 in the next twenty years to avoid, not just disaster, but catastrophe.

And there isn’t going to be some magic technology to save us. We as individuals and we as a society are going to have to reduce our consumption dramatically or collapse.

With that in mind, it is desperately unfortunately that every single reduction suggested to deal with the climate emergency has people such as yourself explaining why it will forever be impossible to the slightest degree.

What part is going to go if every single part, even cruise ships which are pathologically productive of CO2, is completely essential, “think of the jobs” untouchable?

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What is your plan to deal with the climate emergency? How have you contributed to dealing with it in the past?

I predict your plan will be this —change nothing, burn all the fossil fuels, catastrophe, collapse.

“It’s out of our control, because the corporations are to blame! If I pay Carnival Cruises to take me on a cruise, they get all the moral responsibility and I get none. And they don’t have to put moral responsibility on their balance sheet, so it all magically disappears!”

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As for number 5, here’s what you are saying: “I’m angry at how loud you are shouting FIRE! Just to spite you, I’m going to continue to spew gasoline until you apologize.”

But in fact you weren’t going to change one fucking thing about your life no matter how polite I was to you. Whether I pleaded, talked man-to-man to you, yelled, were warm and rational, or just factual and scientific, there would always be some reason for you to defend unbounded consumption of any type.

That’s just how addicts behave.

And now you’re going to use me as an excuse forever! “Once a man was rude to me on the Internet and therefore I am free of any of the consequences of my wasteful actions forever.”

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In fact, if I want to convince people, which I do, me yelling at your irresponsible self is much more likely to entertain and edify the masses than yet another round of tedious and polite explanations that everyone nods at and then ignores.

You’re probably unsalvageable, but some other person or people will continue to read because it’s exciting and then think about the consequences of the very grim picture I’m presenting.

Anger isn’t inappropriate — it’s the logical reaction to the sight of humanity destroying itself through obsessive consumption and lying to itself all the way down.

If you aren’t angry, you just aren’t paying attention. And you should be paying attention, because we have got to the endgame and we are about to lose everything.

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Thanks for reading.