🧵Sometimes friends of mine say they feel guilt they aren't recycling more, or swapping out their lightbulbs for more efficient ones.

But those aren't really very important things to do to lower your emissions.

I think it's important that we all have a basic mental map of what really are the effective consumer choices.

This chart from Kimberly Nicholas and Seth Wynes at Lund University (2017) deserves to be more widely known.

And to add to that - all of these activities are absolutely DWARFED by the impact of you taking political action.

During this climate crisis we shouldn't really be acting as consumers at all, since it is fundamental change that is needed. But if you're going to be a Chidi Anagonye and worry about your ethical impact this chart ☝️is the best guide :)

🧵If you're going to be motivated by guilt then I'd say the real climate sin is not if you buy plastic straws, it lies in when we refuse to examine and acknowledge all the ways we could be powerful, socially and politically, to make a change.

It's a sin because you're living in what Simone de Beauvoir would call 'bad faith'. You're being untrue to yourself and to the reality of the crisis because you're allowing yourself to be gaslighted.

Oops forgot to add link to source. https://www.kimnicholas.com/responding-to-climate-change.html

On a related topic - I've changed how I share stuff about the climate crisis.

I used to share lots of stuff that was "LOOK HOW BAD IT IS, IT'S GETTING WORSE, IT'S REAL". And I don't do that any more.

Not because it's not getting worse - it's way worse - but because I think we're past the point of trying to scare each other into taking this seriously.
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