You’ve seen it before.
想必大家都看过这段视频。
A climate activist sits down for an interview with a cable news network ready for hard questions, and instead the TV host shames them for their carbon footprint.
一位气候活动家坐下来接受有线新闻网的采访,准备回答尖锐的问题,但电视主持人却拿他们的碳足迹羞辱他们。
“Because you're guzzling and burning up the atmosphere with your TV and you don't want to admit it because it makes you look like a hypocrite.”
“你会消耗汽油,也会看电视,对大气层造成伤害,但你不想承认这一切,否则你会看起来很虚伪。”
We are stuck with individualized solutions to the climate crisis, and the pressure to be the answer to this massive world-altering predicament, crushes our mental health.
我们被气候危机的个人化解决方案困住了,“解决这个巨大到足以改变世界的困境要靠我们自己”这一想法带来的压力,让我们的心理健康崩溃了。
Since the 1970s, when the environmental movement exploded onto the scene, the answer to our ecological problems, like plastic pollution, carbon dioxide emissions, and water scarcity, have been increasingly presented as problems that can be solved by many individuals changing their consumption habits.
20世纪70年代环保运动爆发以来,塑料污染、二氧化碳排放和水资源短缺等生态问题,在人们眼中越来越像是可以通过许多人改变消费习惯来解决的问题。
Recycle more, drive less, shower less, fly less, or even have fewer kids.
多回收,少开车,少洗澡,少坐飞机,甚至少生孩子。
These are the impossible choices that we are presented with when we seek any meaningful ecological transformation because in a fossil fueled society there are few viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
我们寻求任何有意义的生态转型时,这些选择都是我们不可能做到的,因为在化石燃料社会中,几乎没有可行的化石燃料替代品。
For the vast majority who live paycheck to paycheck, cutting out fossil fuels is an immensely difficult endeavor.
对于绝大多数靠薪水过活的人来说,停止使用化石燃料极其困难。
So, before we can even begin to advocate for climate action, we’re told to be perfect zero impact individuals in an economy that makes that lifestyle impossible.
因此,早在我们开始倡导气候行动之前,我们就被要求不对环境产生任何影响,而在今天的经济状况下,这是根本不可能做到的事情。
And the fossil fuel industry likes it that way.
而化石燃料行业就喜欢这样。
Companies like ExxonMobil and BP have spent decades and millions of dollars pushing the burden of change away from their factories and onto the individual.
埃克森美孚和英国石油等公司花费了数十年,耗费了数百万美元,将变革的负担从他们的工厂转移到了个人身上。
And the plastic industry–which by the way is just another form of fossil fuels–pushed heavily for recycling campaigns like this one so they wouldn’t have to deal with the mess they themselves created.
塑料行业--顺便说一句,这只是化石燃料的另一种形式--大力推动像这样的回收运动,这样他们就不必处理自己造成的烂摊子。
This individualization of the climate crisis means that corporations can pollute to high hell and then turn around and blame us for using their product.
托气候危机责任个人化的福,企业可以大肆污染环境,然后转过身来指责使用了其产品的我们。
As journalist Eleanor Cummins writes in an article for The New Republic, “When consumers are told that they are equally to blame for the climate crisis…but face a lack of options for actually leading a more climate-friendly life, it’s all too easy to convince people to feel guilty merely for living.”
正如记者埃莉诺·康明斯在《新共和》杂志上的一篇文章中所写的那样,“当有人告诉消费者,他们同样应该为气候危机负责,…但又没有什么选择能够消除他们的生活方式对气候造成的影响时,他们很容易会仅仅因为活着就感到内疚不已。”
We are trying to solve public crises with personal solutions.
我们正试图用个人解决方案来解决公共危机。
The highly siloed reality of neoliberal capitalism urges us to shrink our carbon footprint, and when we inevitably fail in that task, we’re shamed and guilted for our failure.
新自由主义资本主义高度孤立的现实敦促我们减少碳足迹,当我们不可避免地在这项任务中失败时,我们会为自己的失败感到羞愧和内疚。
We are given the impossible task of somehow already ridding ourselves of fossil fuels before we even begin to dismantle the fossil fuel industry, and we have to do it alone– no wonder we feel so guilty and anxious.
我们被赋予了一项不可能完成的任务,那就是我们在还没开始拆除化石燃料行业的时候,就得摆脱化石燃料,我们还必须独自完成这个任务--难怪我们感到如此内疚和焦虑。
Something I’ve come to realize is that this is an excellent way to crush a movement before it starts.
我逐渐意识到,这是在运动开始之前就粉碎它的妙招。
If everyone is too busy pointing fingers at each other and shaming themselves for not being perfect, they won’t notice the smokestacks pumping CO2 into the air all around them.
如果每个人都忙着相互指责,为自己的不完美而感到羞愧,他们自然不会注意到周围的烟囱正在向空气中排放二氧化碳。
This is how the fossil fuel industry wins.
化石燃料行业就是这样取胜的。
Not only are we wracked with anxiety about ecological disasters but we must also struggle with the guilt and shame of failing to carry out an unfeasible solution.
我们不仅对生态灾难感到焦虑,还必须与未能实施不可行的解决方案而产生的内疚和耻辱作斗争。
The intense emotions that bubble up from that failure breed apathy, inaction, and burnout.
从这种失败中涌现出的强烈情绪,正是冷漠、无所作为和倦怠的温床。
Which is why, in addition to looking towards external climate solutions, we also need to look inward, to grapple with and move through the emotional turbulence that the climate crisis causes.
这就是为什么,除了寻求外部气候解决方案外,我们还需要向内看,努力克服并度过气候危机引发的情绪动荡。