They know you’re lying
Money talks, bullshit walks
If you’re eating beef and being outraged by the fires in the Amazon, you’re doing it wrong. They are burning down the rainforests to ranch cattle — but even more, they are burning down the rainforests to grow soybeans for export, 75% of which is used to feed livestock. They are burning the Amazon and deforesting the world so you can have your burgers.
This idea you have? That you and your kids can eat meat and dairy and drive and fly everywhere and buy consumer gadgets from Amazon-the-company while the Amazon-the-lungs-of-the-planet burns, and it’s not a problem, because it’s up to our leaders to save us, and if you just sign one more petition or text to your Senator, it’ll be OK?
I got bad news for you — our leaders don’t believe you because your actions speak louder than your words. You might say you don’t want climate change but your spending habits say otherwise. You only get to vote for your leaders once every two years, but in those two years you’ve voted over two thousand times for climate change — once with each meal.
We need to reduce our greenhouse gas outputs by over 90% — to 10% of what they are now. More, these cuts aren’t going to come from the poor — the poorest half of humanity only emits 10% of the greenhouse gasses, whereas the richest 10% emits 50%. One New Yorker cutting their emissions in half is worth 25 Bangladeshis doing the same thing.
14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gasses are produced by livestock. Nearly all of that 14.5% has to go to have the faintest hope of getting below 10%.
Here are three food companies each of which has a climate change footprint bigger than the Netherlands. It is certain that they’re using some of the money you are paying them to lobby “your” representatives in favor of destroying the planet.
You want your leaders to impose a discipline on you that you are unwilling to impose on yourself. As long as you are driving your kids to buy meatburgers, they know you aren’t serious. They know that their best strategy is to talk a good game, but in fact to do nothing that would inconvenience anyone — exactly the same strategy you are taking.
You wait for them to act, they wait for you, everyone postures, no one does anything, the planet dies.
Money talks, bullshit walks. Vote with your wallet and your diet. Lead by example, or just do it for the same reason I do — so I can look myself in the mirror.
