Moguls, ballers, fat cats, tycoons, and high-rollers who can’t keep a clean greenhouse gas footprint are just not cool anymore. Our climate crisis means that lives are being lost and the very existence of our species is at stake. Even if we can survive the disastrous conditions our species has wrought, immense suffering is unavoidable as our planet becomes less inhabitable. So do you think it’s a good look to pull up to your NBA game in a six-wheeled Jeep? Or to own a luxury tank? Or a yacht so big you end up asking a city to move its bridge out of the way? The changes that society needs to make in order to mitigate catastrophe will cost money. But some of the richest people don’t seem to have much interest even in canceling out the negative effects of their own extravagant expenditures, nevermind helping the cause of the public. 

Most people have to earn a living. Some fail to do so, and others are beyond the need, having already accrued enough of a fortune to afford a lifetime of necessities and reasonable amenities, with a significant buffer for unforeseen costs. Some of these people still have careers, and some may even find themselves in financial trouble at some point, if only because of severe over-reaching. But these people are not earning a living–they are just making money. They don’t have to worry about bills for anything truly essential, and they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to do, such as renting themselves out to a company for forty or more hours a week. But many of these people energize multiple enormous homes and travel great distances for pleasure (or completely optional–from a survival standpoint–business), all while making little to no effort to account for their impact on the planet. In fact, some of them seem to design to do these things in ways that are lavishly non-sustainable. It’s cool, they must think, they can afford the fuel. And sycophants will ogle!

But our planet can’t tolerate the release of more greenhouse gasses, at least not without deteriorating inhabitability. (For all you ostensible nationalists and populists; last I checked, nations and people exist on the planet.) We are getting smothered.

Not everyone can afford to buy an electric car or install a heat pump or solar panels. Heck, many can’t afford any car and don’t have a home to install anything onto. But how can we expect to make it through this crisis, and to do so with any scrap of dignity remaining, if the folks who can afford these things, just decide not to? We should not let them think they can gain or maintain our esteem if they make this decision despite the fact that they could afford to cancel their greenhouse gas footprint without jeopardizing the funds needed to afford life’s necessities (after all, green energy winds up being a financial cost saver in time).

Such a decision hearkens to the way in which selfishness and status quo line-towing allowed the holocaust to occur. While some folks might chafe with indignation at having their contributions to the climate crisis compared to such an atrocity, let’s examine the facts. Deadly storms, plagues, floods, famines, and fires are becoming more frequent and more severe. Desertification and sea levels are on the rise. Positive feedback loops like methane released from melting permafrost and increased energy costs in overheated populous zones threaten to allow conditions to spiral out of control. Worsening air conditions coincide with a rash of pandemic respiratory illness. People make reckless journeys to escape the places that have reaped the impact of climate change without benefits of the development which was its cause. They are rebuffed by xenophobic leaders of the haves. While it’s perhaps foolhardy to have a pissing match about atrocity, I fear the comparisons to the Holocaust may not be sufficient. Even to the secular, this situation ought to smack of apocalyptic doom, especially since the ones linking these conditions to greenhouse gas emissions are not tin foil hat and sandwich board-wearing sidewalk denizens, but the scientific community instead. Let’s heed them while speculation of submerged nations and heat waves that will kill millions remain speculative.

We all need to do our part to avoid disaster, regardless of socioeconomic status. But it tends to be hard for some of us to muster anything but misanthropy when many people use most of their financial influence to acquire jewels and car collections (though not, ironically, with any underlying or overwhelming interest in geology or engineering). Curtailing energy costs is simply the adult thing to do in our current era. And what’s cooler than keeping up with the times?

Fortunately, there are many people who are doing their part. Some of them are geniuses fueling a renaissance of sustainable energy concepts. Others are technicians with the know-how and gumption to handle the grind of vast but needed infrastructure change. Some are just folks who prioritize global imperatives ahead of personal luxuries. But to the rest: get bored with your destructive fetishes, emerge from your shiny object fascination. Nerd out on carbon capture methods and phase change insulation. Ride a bike, flaunt efficiency if you must. Go vegan or fund trusted greenhouse gas offset operations. Don’t be callous. Don’t be afraid to confront humanity’s role in catastrophe. I hope you get to enjoy a nice life. Do yourself a favor and sleep better at night.