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Guest: So the timeline is that I was at NowThis from 2015 to 2021. And so I was there through COVID, the COVID stuff too. And so, and I was visible. I was an on-camera person the whole time I was there. So the whole world shut down at the peak of COVID, it was something like 17%... we saw a 17% reduction in our carbon emissions. The peak of COVID. So that’s like just like those two weeks. Over the year, it ended up being something like a 5% reduction. And I’m thinking to myself, wait a minute, the climate movement wants a 100% reduction in our carbon emissions. What is it going to expect of our society?
Interviewer: Yeah, we’re literally locked in our homes, not doing anything.
Guest: And we still have carbon emissions. And so that was the first moment where I go, hold on. I don’t know if I want to live in a world where we have zero carbon emissions because I’m kind of depressed right now at home. Like this sucks. And we have no freedoms. And so what does the climate movement, if you take it to its logical conclusion, it’s not going to be no big deal. Like it’s going to require people to give up their freedoms to like lower carbon emissions.
And so that was one thing. And then the other thing was I was very anti-plastic. And all of a sudden like the PPEs everywhere, the masks, the plastic barriers between every table at a restaurant, and when you’re checking out your food at the grocery store. And I’m like, wait a minute. I have been sweating about a single-use plastic straw for the past five years, and now we’ve proliferated more plastic in the last few months than I’ve seen in my lifetime. And it... and also looking around, we seem like we’re fine. It looks like our society was able to absorb that plastic and the world has not ended.
It’s like we can’t, we don’t have time for nuance. We just have to push forward the most extreme narrative because this is a fire alarm situation and the planet is going to be destroyed. So like, we don’t have time to think about the downsides of solar and wind. Like we have to just keep pushing forward because this is existential. And so I didn’t... so I subscribed to that where I’m like, you know, this is an existential threat and we don’t have time to like look at the details. Like, you know, we just have to get people to care, um, and to be afraid. And because if they’re afraid, they’re going to change their habits.
When I was in the climate movement, I got my identity from being a good person and from being on the right side of history. And so I identified with that. And so good people don’t question the climate movement. You know, good people don’t listen to fossil fuel shills or defend fossil fuels. Good people don’t question the climate narrative. And so this identity of being good... and I talked a little bit about this idea of atoning, right? Because everyone’s obsessed with the white privilege and everything. And I’m realizing like, oh my gosh, I’m an oppressor by being a white woman and from America. And so I need to atone for my sins by pushing and being part of this movement. And that is what makes me good. And so if I’m going to leave this, I’m no longer going to be seen as good and I’m no longer a good person. So who am I? And then that’s when you have to start doing the work of building up yourself.
