Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t a skeptic in the way we usually understand that word today - I was just skeptical that it was a big deal. Surely these folks were blowing it all out of proportion? But then I realised that no, they weren’t. Which was a bit of a slow dawning of an “oh, s***” moment.
Either way tho, I think many people have had some sort of similar realisation. Perhaps we didn’t really think about it, or maybe we didn’t want to consider the ramifications of admitting the issue to ourselves. And many of us - even those working in sustainability - still do things in our everyday lives that don’t sit with our knowledge. That’s what makes people like Greta convincing: I fly business class, while she takes a train or a sailing boat, to avoid the emissions, at huge cost of time, comfort etc. I justify it by saying to myself, “well air travel has so many other benefits for humanity, and it’s only a few percent of global emissions, albeit those emissions are deposited directly into the atmosphere at altitude…and I live in a dense city so I take public transport and I don’t own a car and I work in the general field and and and…” - but there I am, still eating beef in seat 11A at 35,000 feet. Yes, my carbon footprint is still lower than that of so many…but oh, the hypocrisy!
Of course, though, we’re all hypocrites in some way. The challenge is for each of us to do better, thinking of the collective and of the future rather than (for example) my love of a big petrol-powered V8 in the present. (And yes, I was once a diehard car guy. Guess what, I moved on.)
Best
E.