The Climate Activist Bad-Faith FAQ

With good-faith answers.

I’m seeing a lot of the same bad-faith arguments used to scold, delegitimize, and otherwise dismiss climate activists, so I’m starting a list of Frequently Asked Questions, with good-faith responses.

1) “It’s hard to keep up with all the groups. Which one(s) should we pay attention to?”

Decide for yourself, but the major scientific panels and groups that track climate change are good guideposts. Climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a publicly-available consensus document. The IPCC reports are impressively researched and sourced. For what it’s worth, they’re also chock-full of beautiful pictures and reminders of what’s at stake.

More directly, the UN’s Framework on Climate Change says we need to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Instead, we’re on track to increase them by 10%. Given the disconnect between what scientists say we need to do and the snail’s pace of real action so far, people are desperate to spur change. Desperate enough to, say, throw tomato soup on a Van Gogh.

2) “Why don’t you try that in the North / Riyadh / China?”

Disruptive activists who (e.g.) block traffic draw violent questions like this. The idea is that police are too gentle on protesters, and that activists need a good roughing up, imprisonment, and whatever else road ragers can dream up. Those who want a good old-fashioned law-and-order clampdown are pushing for harsher penalties—which won’t work.

In the example of Just Stop Oil, the good-faith answer is that none of those things would pressure the UK government to end new fossil fuel licenses, which is that group’s goal. The bigger-picture answer is that nonviolent civil resistance and direct action beat the alternative.

3) “Aren’t you just going to turn off working people? Isn’t the risk that you lose support?”

In a nutshell: ”We don't actually need support. We just need the government to act.”

Another take on that one…

4) “This makes it easier for those who don’t yet support you to say ‘Oh, they’re just a bunch of climate crazies.’ How are you going to bring them on board with these kind of tactics?”

Answer by Dr. Patrick Hart (NHS):

That’s an especially bad-faith question. Is the questioner truly interested in helping the activist? Note the use of the word “eventual” to describe climate action. When might that be?

5) DEMOCRACY! “Why are you trying to impose your will on everyone? Are you too lazy to vote?"

See also: “Why don’t you go form your own party?”

If voting alone worked, popular climate action would already be policy. This applies to a range of popular proposals that have gone nowhere for decades, like universal healthcare in the U.S.

It’s not pleasant to acknowledge, but our political systems are corrupt. Elected officials serve their biggest donors first and foremost. Those at the top have a representative democracy. Those at the bottom, not so much.

6) “You’re wearing clothes made from and/or transported using oil. Isn’t that hypocritical?”

So you’d support activists if they wore hairshirts? Please. There is no type of protester and no form of protest acceptable to those being protested.

Stephen Fry fields the question well.

As does the comic at the top of this FAQ.

7) “You know you can’t just ‘stop oil’, right?”

It’s tough to fit nuance into a three-word slogan, isn’t it? Just Stop Oil’s central demand is to stop licensing new fossil fuel exploration and extraction. The idea is to use existing reserves to buy time for the transition to renewables. The number bandied about for the UK in interviews by spokesperson Alex de Koning is eight years. And yes, fossil fuels are arguably indispensable for some applications. But this is really a question about changing the status quo—and an implication that doing so is impossible.

8) “We can’t go any faster. The physics are the physics. Why can’t you accept that?”

”The physics are the physics” is a phrase used by both climate activists and denialists. Activists use it as an imperative, saying that the physics of climate change demand that we pick up the pace on climate action. Denialists use it as a dismissal, saying that there are physical limits to (e.g.) the amount of new renewables that can be integrated into the existing power grid. Some are more cynical, doubling down on petrocarbons.

Stanford’s Mark Jacobson, among others, has mapped out wind, water, and solar energy transitions for countries worldwide. There are also moves to integrate electricity supply and demand, which would speed the change. But the idea that we can’t go any faster than we are right now is risible.

9) “But what about China and India?”

This question suggests that climate activists on a fool’s errand so long as China and India continue their emissions trends. Nature Conservancy Chief Scientist Katherine Hayhoe fielded the question recently on LinkedIn:

"What about China and India?" is one of the most common objections I hear every day in response to both the reality of climate change and the urgency of climate action. By pointing the finger at others, we try to shift the responsibility to act, as well as the guilt of not doing so.

“For a long time, I responded to such objections by explaining that cumulative, not annual, emissions are responsible for observed warming -- if, that is, people were willing to listen. As I explain here, often these objections are just an excuse to cover solution aversion; so if you debunk one, another will just pop right up:

“Now, however, a new study estimates the actual amount of global warming directly attributable to each country. And yet again, guess which country comes out on top?

In order, the top 5 are:

1. United States (17%)

2. China (12%)

3. Russia (6%)

4. Brazil (5%)

5. India (5%)

Explore the data”

FAQ updated April 25, 2023 with #9, “But what about China and India?”