Moral arguments can do more damage than good...
We’re not all saints, we’re kind of aware of it, but we don’t really like being reminded of it, which is why it’s irritating when someone takes the moral high ground. What makes it particularly annoying is that 99% of the time, you know that they’re not a saint either. There’s enough examples of celebrities preaching about social justice and climate change before jumping on their private jet.
Once a moral argument has rubbed someone up the wrong way, it makes it more difficult to get them to engage with the topic, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve. The thing with climate change (unlike world poverty for example) is that this doesn’t need to be a moral argument, and we think that the fact it’s often presented as one is actually really damaging.
If I’m being honest, the moment I started to do something about climate change was the moment I went “crap… I personally, am likely to significantly worse off if we cock this up”. Everyone else on this planet is also in a similar boat and we think we should be trying to appeal to their best interests, rather than pinning hopes on how much they care about the interests of others.
The other thing with framing this as a moral argument is that it creates a false sense of security, and it encourages people to believe that they will be unaffected by climate change. Don’t get us wrong, the people in low lying Bangladesh and the polar bears are being hit first and hardest, but that this is still a big issue for everyone else.
In conclusion, despite there being a compelling moral argument, we believe the message should shift to “please get on board with this movement because, for all our sakes, we don’t want to facc this up”.
We’re not all saints, we’re kind of aware of it, but we don’t really like being reminded of it, which is why it’s irritating when someone takes the moral high ground. What makes it particularly annoying is that 99% of the time, you know that they’re not a saint either. There’s enough examples of celebrities preaching about social justice and climate change before jumping on their private jet.
Once a moral argument has rubbed someone up the wrong way, it makes it more difficult to get them to engage with the topic, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve. The thing with climate change (unlike world poverty for example) is that this doesn’t need to be a moral argument, and we think that the fact it’s often presented as one is actually really damaging.
If I’m being honest, the moment I started to do something about climate change was the moment I went “crap… I personally, am likely to significantly worse off if we cock this up”. Everyone else on this planet is also in a similar boat and we think we should be trying to appeal to their best interests, rather than pinning hopes on how much they care about the interests of others.
The other thing with framing this as a moral argument is that it creates a false sense of security, and it encourages people to believe that they will be unaffected by climate change. Don’t get us wrong, the people in low lying Bangladesh and the polar bears are being hit first and hardest, but that this is still a big issue for everyone else.
In conclusion, despite there being a compelling moral argument, we believe the message should shift to “please get on board with this movement because, for all our sakes, we don’t want to facc this up”.