Look, I get that logic, I really do.

And do it. I’m not trying to stop anyone from going vegetarian at all. But think of how many people need to change before your not buying meat actually has an effect. Because, think about it: you don’t buy any meat, but the store you shop at doesn’t change their order. If you went full vegan today, the grocery store would still stock the exact same amount of those products.

My point isn’t that telling people to go vegetarian is wrong. Not at all, it’s a great thing.

My point is, it’s thinking way too small and it’s actively changing the tone of the conversation. And that change was literally crafted by industry publicists, drawing attention away from the true culprits. The waters are muddier.

If every article and every study that came out telling individuals how to change their lives and sacrifice in order to save the environment were, instead, about how 100 companies are responsible for 70% of emissions, how they had internal studies a hundred years ago about how their product was altering the environment, about how they’ve escaped change via lobbying and misinformation, the pressure wouldn’t be spread out—this conversation wouldn’t be happening. Our lifestyle changes would be exactly as important as they should be in this conversation: a nice addition. Nowhere near the focus. Instead, I see way more articles focusing on how we can all collectively change to fight the monstrous beast that is climate change. That’s telling people to fire bottle rockets at an attacking Air Force. It’s pissing in the wind. When there are white armies out there that get to write off doing shit because it’s on those people.

Again, changing your life for the good of the environment is a great thing. Doing it is admirable. But it’s also privilege-restrictive. Living an emission-reductive lifestyle is literally not possible for a lot of people. Just like being poor is expensive, being poor forces horrible carbon emission decisions on people. I haven’t crunched the numbers, (no one has) but if every privileged-enough person changed, would that be enough? Probably not. More and more people are financially restricted, and talking about eco-friendly lifestyle choices like it’s all about how much you care is incredibly unfair.

But that’s all after the fact of this being a tactic invented by the oil/gas industry to take pressure off of the few companies that literally are responsible for—and that could have a huge effect on—climate change.

This is playing marbles in a hurricane and yelling at the kid who is trying to blow the marbles out of place—is that contribution actually changing things? Sure, a little. But there is a fucking hurricane and any time spent talking about changing that kid’s behavior is time not spent talking about the hurricane.