This post shares a long series of legitimizing myths. Why cover these beliefs so comprehensively? Recall the response of a wise person who was asked, “If you had one hour to save the world, how would you spend it?”

The reply: “I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes solving it.”

Another wise person said, “If I had 4 hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first 3 hours sharpening the ax.”

This post is about understanding the problem and sharpening the ax.

If you’ve thought any of the following, the thoughts may have felt personal, but they likely resulted from your having been induced to act against your values—that is, from being corrupted. You don’t have to create legitimizing myths for activities that don’t violate your values, like breathing or drinking water. You do for ones that do, like activities that pollute and deplete.

Common Legitimizing Myths

“What I do doesn’t matter.”

“Individual action doesn’t matter.”

“Only governments and corporations can make a difference on the scale we need.”

“Most of my family lives flying-distance away. I value the environment but I value family more.”

“Besides, the planes were going to fly anyway.”

“If we don’t progress, we risk reverting to the Stone Age or reaching a Mad Max-like apocalypse.”

“If enough people do little things, they can all add up.”

“Better many people do a little imperfectly than a few people be perfect.”

“I’ve done my share. I’m one of the good guys.”

“I care but I don’t have time. I’m too busy. I’m working too hard.”

“I’m already doing all I can.”

“Climate change is complex enough to understand or solve. All our other environmental problems are too numerous and complex to understand or act on: deforestation, ocean acidification, fisheries collapsing, extinctions, biodiversity loss, and so on.”

“Sustainability means deprivation, sacrifice, burden, and chore.”

“Nature is scary and threatening.”

“Human ingenuity requires more energy.”

“Others should change to pollute less, but what I do is so important, I should still pollute.”

“Thinking of how my behavior affects others is a burden.”

“I have to balance caring about nature with living a good life.”

“Technology, markets, and laws are our only hopes, or at least our best hope.”

“I am powerless.”

“There’s no point. Nothing will make a difference.”

“The people causing the problem are (unrepentant capitalists sleepwalking into destroying the environment and enslaving people) or (ignorant socialists or communists sleepwalking into global totalitarianism we won’t be able to undo).”

“We have to destroy the whole system.”

“Others are hurting me. I’m the victim who should be helped, not asked to help.”

“I am entitled to the life I planned before, no matter what.”

“We have to balance protecting nature with living a good life.”

“The problem is capitalism.”

“The problem is socialism.”

“If we act sustainably and others, like China and Russia, don’t, they’ll beat us, maybe in the market, maybe militarily.”

“I’m one of the good guys. Look at the billionaires with yachts and mansions and how much they pollute. Tell them to change.”

“Even if I did everything I could, it would turn my life upside down and barely make a difference.”

“Many environmentalists pollute the most. They justify it for themselves that what they do is important and helps more than it hurts. Why can’t I?”

“What I do that pollutes is important and helps too!”

“I have to make money to pay my mortgage and put food on the table.”

“I can’t afford it.”

“What about poor and disadvantaged working multiple jobs? Aren’t their problems more immediate?”

“Is sustainability a problem only for people with spare time and resources?”

“Many crises affect people here and now: racism, sexism, homophobia, woke-ism, elections, housing, anxiety, social media, education, fentanyl, polarization, etc. We should work on them first.”

“Republicans are the problem. They deny the problems exist. We need more regulation to protect us from companies cutting corners on safety and health for profit.”

“Democrats are the problem. They may mean well, but their big-government interventions wreck the economy, deprive entrepreneurs of incentive to solve problems, and risk descending into Maoism and Stalinism.”

“We need a political solution but there’s no one to vote for.”

“BP tricked us into thinking individual action mattered to distract us from them.”

“57 companies cause 80 percent of global CO2 emissions. Stop them, not me.”

“Market incentives like a carbon tax will save us.”

“Science will save us.”

“Scientists will fix our problems.”

“Someone smarter or richer than me will fix our problems.”

“Future generations will fix our problems.”

“The energy transition seems clear: Wood → Coal → Oil → Natural Gas → Nuclear → Renewables → Fusion → Beyond. Energy is becoming cleaner and more abundant. Innovation will solve the problem.”

“Market forces drive efficiency and reduce waste. The market will solve the problem.”

“A rising tide lifts all boats. Nothing lifted more people out of poverty than growth and wealthier nations are cleaner.”

“Some studies show only modest results from climate change, maybe a few percent lower GDP. We need less regulation so the market can allocate resources to people who will solve the problems best.”

“We should educate children. They’ll face more years of environmental problems so they’ll figure it out.”

“More education will lead to a demographic transition which will lead to all of us living sustainably.”

“People have predicted collapse for centuries. Yet we keep thriving. Maybe there’s no problem.”

“We exhale and poop. Life requires polluting.”

“Maybe humanity has had its run. Earth will continue just fine. Life will adjust. Why fight it?”

“The transition to sustainability will mean billions of people will suffer and die before their times.”

“It’s called progress for a reason. Privileged people don’t realize that people used to spend all day washing clothes.”

“Nature is dangerous without civilization and technology to protect us.”

“People may cause problems, but we solve them too. More people solve more problems.”

“We have no right to deny poor nations to develop as we did. They need more energy, just as we did.”

“Chicken Littles are fearmongering for personal gain.”

“Life on Earth is fragile. Consciousness exists only here. A comet, solar flare, or human-caused disaster may destroy us. To protect something so valuable, we should become a multi-planet species and colonize Mars.”

“There are so many projects like green growth, ecomodernism, decoupling, sustainable growth, substitution, a circular economy, techno-optimism, biomimicry, ESG, conscious capitalism, and the Green New Deal. At least one of them must work.”

“There are so many technologies like carbon capture, wind, solar, geothermal, better batteries, AI, hydro, nuclear, fusion, smart grids, and geoengineering. Some of them must add up to a comprehensive solution.”

“Still, technology-based solutions are so big, I can’t help with them.”

“Any contribution of mine wouldn’t make a difference in comparison. I should just wait.”

“Since tomorrow can’t be better than today, I should just ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’—that is: enjoy sensory pleasure without meaning or purpose.”

“Maybe I’ll die before the worst happens.”

Advanced Legitimizing Myths

Many of these legitimizing myths parallel ones that Jefferson used when he was induced to violate his values. As slavery grew in size, cruelty, and cultural acceptance the mental need for legitimizing myths to mollify grew too, so they grew in intensity and wildness.

In time, the scientific racism of Jefferson and his peers came to appear mild compared to the “positive good” theories of John C. Calhoun and his peers, but the latter simply evolved from the former as long as the situation persisted.

The situation of the violation of the Minimum Requirements persists, today’s legitimizing myths have evolved as Calhoun’s did. Ecomodernists and their peers state today’s advanced legitimizing myths, for example:

Stephen Pinker wrote, “Industrialization has been good for humanity. It has fed billions, doubled life spans, slashed extreme poverty, and, by replacing muscle with machinery, made it easier to end slavery, emancipate women, and educate children. It has allowed people to read at night, live where they want, stay warm in winter, see the world, and multiply human contact. … The tradeoff that pits human well-being against environmental damage can be renegotiated by technology.”

Remember how “abolitionists were a despised minority?” Pinker described environmentalists as based in a “quasi-religious ideology . . . laced with misanthropy, including an indifference to starvation, an indulgence in ghoulish fantasies of a depopulated planet, and Nazi-like comparisons of human beings to vermin, pathogens, and cancer.”

“Technology will ‘decouple’ the desired outcomes of technology from the undesired effects like pollution.”

“’Green growth’ and a ‘circular economy’ will achieve similar goals.

Economist Julian Simon’s 1998 book The Ultimate Resource 2 said that any material we might ran out of, scarcity would cause prices to rise and we could do what we always have: substitute other materials, dematerialize, and so on.

Marian L. Tupy and Gale L. Pooley’s 2022 book Superabundance followed up with more data showing that more growth correlates with improved quality of life and concludes that growth will solve our problems.

Alex Epstein’s bestselling books The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less suggested that, whatever problems fossil fuels caused, they enable solving our problems as well, so we should keep using them.

• ← That’s Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth (TYMCALM)