Another day, another Foamy video that makes me think some weird combination of "He's got a point" and "woah, too far." I am personally getting sick of the kind of people who say things like, "Oh, Electric cars and solar panels use resources too! Isn't that bad for the environment, too?" I am fully aware that simply being alive is bad for the environment, but I really shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of the good--we'd still have far less pollution problems on our hands if we either built cities to be far more feasible to walk and maybe bike in, or more likely, made electric cars and/or other cars that don't run on fossil fuels directly the norm. If you think I'm going to trade in my electric car for a gas car--especially during absurdly-high inflation of gas prices in particular--just because it might cause some different environmental problems in the future, albeit not on the scale that fossil fuels have historically causes, then you're out of your mind. It should also be noted that processes like producing meat were never an environmental issue until after the Industrial Revolution, so surely there are ways for us to make all of our daily needs far more efficient without depriving us of said needs and living in squalor--and indeed, a lot of things have gotten more efficient and there are many ways for us to drastically reduce our own emissions via more efficient technology available right now, like the aforementioned solar panels and electric vehicles (or, if you're lucky, an outdoorsy neighborhood where you don't depend on either) that gives us some control over our impact on the Earth, regardless of whether the current government is willing to help you or hinder you.
The usual argument of "don't have kids/don't add to overpopulation" continues to be a potential Pandora's Box, too. It's another example of an environmental concern that people oversimplify way too much, especially now as the countries most responsible for climate change are actually dwindling in population while the poorest countries least responsible for the problem (but most susceptible to its impacts) continue to grow drastically. And that's before we get into political shenanigans that make the minority opinions on issues like climate mitigation far more powerful than they should be in a truly just society, like how the US has the Electoral College ensuring a Presidential candidate no longer even has to be popular with the majority of voters to win, or how the Senate strongly favors sparsely-populated areas and older people who don't have to worry about things like what the Earth will look like in 2050 to the chagrin of states big and populated enough to basically be their own nation, like California or Texas.
BUT, but but but, if I calm down about Foamy regurgitating some Big Oil talking points that are meant to make us feel less powerful than we all actually are, he does have a point about media and rich people in general shoving messages in entertainment as if we "plebs" are not already bombarded with horrid news about the state of the world simply by going to work or school every day. Clearly I care deeply about whether humanity or many of our favorite animals and wildlife places will still be around after I die, or even if I get to live long enough to grow old, so much so that I sometimes have panic attacks about it. So does that mean I'm comfortable watching something like The Inconvenient Truth or Weathering with You just because I agree with their messages? Heck no. I want to have fun in my free time, not be more anxious about world problems that I have little to no control over and, again, hear about all the time against my will anyway because that's what you have to endure if you want to be a functioning member of society. Fortunately, I must be playing the right games, because I have yet to encounter ANY games with an obvious message, let alone one about climate change, with the obvious and now-tame exception of Final Fantasy VII, but for many other issues and many other mediums (especially TV), the point still stands that being preached at is patronizing and uncomfortable in an age where cell phones and portable Internet ensure we will be made aware of societal issues with or without the TV or movies doing the same thing (oftentimes less convincingly).
Finally, do people realize there's a difference between preaching to children and preaching to adults? I do have to begrudgingly admit that, unless parents decide to stop using TV and phone screens as substitutes for actual parenting, toddler-oriented shows do have the responsibility of educating children about how the world works and giving them good role models to look up to, in case they don't get either irl. But if you didn't learn basic respect for those that look, act or think different from you after watching Sesame Street as a kid, then you're sure as hell not going to learn that lesson as an adult watching Rick and Morty or playing The Witcher 3.
Sorry for this essay-like counter-rant, but this was a very controversial Foamy rant for me. I, like so many other people, need a break from the real world in my free time and want to be trusted that I'm doing the best I can to stay informed and trying to fix what I can control when I'm not resting. But I also feel that, intentional or not, this spreads some misinformation in the form of simply arguing we can't at least improve the climate change when we very much can right now. Yes, we may have to settle for "Net Zero" and hope we can suck out a lot of the excess carbon out of the air at this point, but that's still a million times better than if we all just give up and let emissions rise even more than they do now. Pessimism and hopelessness and especially "false equivalencies" (yes, things like wind turbines and electric cars still have some negative impacts on the environment, but not nearly on the scale of continuing to rely on coal plants or ICE cars--and that's assuming they don't ever get more efficient than they are now) is the new weapon against meaningful climate action or electing leaders who can do so much more than us individuals, and I won't stand for this cynical new tactic just because we environmentalists have to settle for the lesser of the two evils.
