Sometimes, you see things online that explain why the peak oil and global warming deniers and delayers find it so easy to fight us.

Case in point, It’s Earth Day: “Go *!$# Yourself” (emphasis added):

Like personal carbon-offsets, a consumer’s purchase of “green” products is doing nothing to halt the accumulation of green-house gasses in the atmosphere, and arguably, many consumers in this country and other developed nations, with their preference for such things as fresh, if organic, vegetables in the winter and bigger, if “greener” houses, are inadvertently adding to the problem with their well-meaning purchasing.

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Instead, if anything is to go viral starting today, I would suggest that it be to get really, really pissed. If we as a species are ever to address before it is too late our climatic self-destruction, we are going to have to get very angry at the short-sightedness of everyone from the suburban housewife who drives an over-size vehicle that gets 5 miles to the gallon because she can, to political leaders who blithely predict that technology will solve our problems at some point in some vague way. The only way for us to reduce significantly our continued over-consumption of fossil fuels is for them to become either actually or artificially (through taxation) so expensive that we are willing to assess risks, like women in a refugee camp, in a wholly different way. It will have to become scary to continue in our current state and that fear will have to translate into global, political action – where leaders will be just as concerned with telling their people that they are robbing the earth of cheap energy as they are of increasing food prices. So here’s something that you as an individual can do for a day: decide to become scary yourself.

For a day, even if for a day only because like most of you I don’t think continual anger is psychologically “sustainable,” get good and cranky when confronted with any reminder that this is Earth Day. Expletives could escape your mouths. Perhaps commit a mild act an act of vandalism or two. Be civilly disobedient or not, but register your anger and not your complacency. Be like Moses when the Israelites were worshipping their Baals after he brought them out of Egypt. Because green happy-talk just ain’t cutting it.

Excuse me? Purchasing greener products “is doing nothing to halt the accumulation of green-house gasses [sic] in the atmosphere”? Really? And the evidence to support that sweeping claim is… what, exactly?

When I was car shopping in 2006, I easily could have bought some monstrosity like a full-size SUV that gets 15 MPG and then driven it like the lead-footed morons I see on the roads every day. Instead I bought my oft-mentioned Scion xA, which, with a little help from hypermiling techniques, consistently delivers 40 MPG. That reduction in gasoline consumed and CO2 emissions of over 62% didn’t contribute to halting greenhouse gas accumulations?

And my use of CFL bulbs in every socket in the house, plus my greatly reduced use of air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter (partially via zone cooling and heating)? No progress there? What about the fact that my wife and I pay more for our electricity to get 100% green electrons–all pushed down the wire to our home from wind farms and small hydroelectric facilities? I suppose all those steps somehow fail to reduce CO2 emissions, as well.

The author mentions organic vegetables out of season and larger, greener homes. Where is the evidence that such produce bought out of season are any worse for the environment than non-organics bought at the same time? I didn’t know before I read this posting that they were, and I still don’t know that–there was no proof offered, just a flat assertion. And how can anyone make sweeping generalizations about the environmental impact of larger but more efficient homes? Compared to what? A smaller home of the same efficiency? A home of the same size that’s not as efficient? Pick your assumptions and you get the answer you want. But without data to back it up, it’s just hot air and the kind of posturing that our shared enemies in this political fight love to use against us.

Five MPG SUV’s? Really? I yield ground to no one in my dislike of the use of unnecessarily oversize vehicles, but there’s no way I would make that ridiculous claim.

As for the contention that we should “get good and cranky when confronted with any reminder that this is Earth Day. Expletives could escape your mouths. Perhaps commit a mild act an act of vandalism or two,” I almost don’t know where to begin. Get upset with the deniers and the delayers? Damn right. I do that almost every day, and I desperately wish that more people would pay some bloody attention and get worked up to the point of uttering a few choice expletives. But “perhaps” resort to vandalism? Someone please tell me this is a very, very bad joke. That would be about the most counter-productive thing anyone who cares about energy and environmental issues could do. And oh, by the way, it’s not just dumb, it’s illegal.

The worst part of this post is the false dichotomy–we either get mad and force change or we engage in “green happy-talk”. What a Lutzian crock. What those of us on the right side of this issue must do is find as many ways as possible to reach out to others and educate them. You can’t elevate someone’s awareness regarding such large and genuinely scary issues from “blissful ignorance” to “educated, activated consumer and voter” (the mission of this site since day one, I might add) in one gigantic step. You have to build ramps and find ways to coax them along. For the frustrated and impatient true believers (and those of you who read this site know how often I fall into that category), it can be agony explaining to newcomers over and over again sunspots don’t cause global warming and the price of oil isn’t rising because “the oil companies are screwing us”.

We have to find ways to internalize that razor-edged emotional response and turn it into positive energy so we can continue fighting the good fight. We write, we give public presentations to environmental groups and schools, we proselytize until our friends avoid us at social gatherings, and we argue publicly with other enlightened individuals about strategy and tactics. It doesn’t feel like it at times, but that’s the path to victory in an inherently political process. First we get them on our side in sufficient numbers to generate the needed popular support for a cap-and-trade system or car feebates or a carbon tax or whatever policy measures are appropriate. Then we collectively force the politicians to do the right thing. (If you’re still carrying a grudge at that point, you can wallow in the fact that the people who don’t support you will be mad as hell that you found a way to make both the government and them do the right thing. Success truly is the best form of revenge.) That’s how Democracy works, not by swearing or making some sort of perverse and wildly counter-productive “statement” via vandalism.

Some people, even a few of those most dedicated to the cause (which I assume includes the author quoted above), might be tempted to dismiss Earth Day as a content-free exercise in “green happy-talk”, but I see it as a perfect chance to focus mainstream consumers and voters on our looming energy and environmental issues. Is Earth Day the one lever that we can use to move (or save) the world? Probably not. But given the urgency of the situation, I’d rather use (and re-use) that opportunity as fully as possible instead of throwing it away.