There’s a scene in the first season of the award-winning “Ted Lasso” in which the titular character repeats the same word so many times that it loses its meaning—a phenomenon known as semantic satiation—and is perceived as nothing more than a random collection of sounds.
I’ve reached that point with “sustainability.”
Sustainability, once the exclusive purview of tree-huggers (like me) and select brands at the vanguard of corporate evolution (like a few of Red Fan’s clients), now saturates almost every aspect of life. It’s become a bloated word, layered with complexity and so grossly misappropriated by charlatans that I’m not even sure what it really means anymore.
If you would’ve asked me 10 years ago, I’d have said that where we are today is progress—the fact that conversations about sustainability and corporate social responsibility have climbed into the public and professional consciousness is a victory in its own right.
Right?
I suppose it can still feel like that—there are plenty of people and companies who have integrated sustainability into their business models and have taken action to reduce their environmental impact.
But then I see Exxon Mobil running Earth Day commercials (I won’t insult you with a hyperlink) congratulating itself on “advancing climate solutions,” and I begin to feel that we’re just climbing to a higher vantage point from which to stare into the abyss or—perhaps more appropriately—from which to fall and drown in an ocean of plastic.
Exxon Mobil is responsible for producing the most particulate matter in the nation. Its two refineries in Texas emit eight times more than the other facilities on the top 10 list. Recently, when California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigation into the oil and gas industry’s role in the global pollution crisis, Exxon Mobil told him to bugger off.
It is the most ironic, Vonnegutian display of gaslighting I can imagine, and it’s left me wondering if Exxon and brands like it are leading us blindly off the precipice or pushing us with premeditated intent.
Probably both.
The concept of sustainability—which I’m defining as any strategy that attempts to address negative environmental impact specifically—possesses an underlying psychology that is both fascinating and infuriating. On one hand, we can easily quantify the negative impact humans wreak on the environment. Melting ice, intense and prolonged drought, declining access to potable water, more severe hurricanes and typhoons. The temperature in the Arctic Circle hit 100°F in December. So, in that sense, we have a very practical understanding of how the planet is changing in real time and what it will change into over the next century and beyond.
At the same time, the very concept of a drastically different Earth at the turn of the 22nd century—in which 3 billion people are “likely to live under climate conditions that are warmer than conditions deemed suitable for human life to flourish”—is so massive and profound that it loses its meaning to us, much like what happened to our friend, Ted Lasso. When that awareness of the future moves from the concrete to the abstract, it becomes even easier for people and companies to ignore the next century in favor of the next quarter, planet be damned come literal hell or high water.
It’s the most dangerous case study of collective cognitive dissonance in history. It’s particularly frustrating that the people and brands who care the most are often the ones with the least environmental impact. We buy electric cars, install solar panels on our roofs, invent more energy efficient lights, grow our own food, use natural cleaners, reuse or repurpose bottles and cans and jars.
And yet, even recycling—the most basic practice of sustainable or zero-waste living in which a third of the global population participates—is a deception half a century in the making (the true U.S. recycling rate has never broken 10 percent). Documents from the 1970s confirm that the oil and gas industry knew all along that successful recycling practices were “unfeasible” and “[could never] be made viable on an economic basis” and would only be useful in distracting the public from the untold damage it was causing to everyone and everything around.
In other words: gaslighting.
Thankfully, California has officially launched an investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s manipulative practices with a subpoena of Exxon Mobile. It’s the first of its kind. Hopefully it’s the first of many on the path to developing clean energy particles.
There are precedents for holding companies accountable—the thousands of lawsuits filed against the largest prescription opioid manufacturers forced them to settle for $26 billion and even incentivized Johnson & Johnson to exit the opioid business altogether.
The same can happen to the companies most responsible for this crisis—force them into massive remediation initiatives instead of empty rhetoric, public statements and the one-off Earth Day commercial. It’s no less than they deserve.
In the meantime, vote for political candidates that make sustainability—and accountability—their most important issue. While you’re doing that, Red Fan will be launching a set of initiatives that reflect our employees’ passion for the environment, and you can find me hugging a tree somewhere.
