The Truth About Our Banana Climate Society — WE ARE NOT TO BLAME

How hypocritical and misguided public opinion is holding back the climate debate

I’m at odds with something.

Everyone knows about climate change. About the harm humankind is inflicting on this tiny blue marble zooming around a giant thermonuclear explosion suspended in what seems to be a whole lot of nothing. More than 99% of all scientists agree that we’re pretty much completely and utterly fucked at this point.

To make matters worse, they have been warning us about it since, well, forever. There are articles about the carbon impact on the climate dating back to 1912. Imagine that.

Still, when faced with this delightful dread nugget, most people shrug, turn the ignition on their fossil fuel-powered cars and are off to buy plastic-wrapped bell peppers.

The finest hypocrisy

I threw a party the other day and opened a Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. “You know that bottle had to travel halfway across the globe, right?” my friend asked. “Couldn’t you have bought something local?”

I could’ve said the truth. That it’s because I like the romanticism of tasting something produced so far away when I can’t afford to travel there. But instead, I said something dumb, “No, this was shipped here at great environmental cost. Makes me feel important.”

I meant it as a joke. As in a satirical comment on how the rich use their private jets the same way we use bicycles. I know, it’s not a great joke. And it might not even qualify as a joke, falling mostly in the mildly amusing category. Anyway, it fell flat.

And the room went bananas.

So here’s the problem

Let me start small. Something unsuspectingly harmful, of which you’re probably also guilty, like bananas. I live in Norway, and like any person residing in Norway, I eat bananas. “Husk Banan” (Remember Banana), like the locals say. And why wouldn’t you remember bananas? It’s great advice.

Well, the thing is, there aren’t, as far as I’m aware, any banana plantations in Norway. All bananas come from far, far away, at great environmental cost.

I’m not advocating we stop eating bananas. That’s crazy talk. What would the vegans do if we cut them off bananas or avocados? They would probably invade the streets, posters in hand, with quick breaks in between for an oat milk latte and B12 supplements.

No.

All I’m saying is that it’s not my fault that in order to replenish my potassium deficit, I have to be complicit with the extinction of five endemic species per minute and, you know, slavery.

Or even to eat chocolate. Do we have to taste child slavery every time we dig into a chocolate cake? No. The companies buying chocolate from child abusers are to blame. Or the child abuses themselves. I should not have to do intensive research about every single thing I eat to understand the bloodshed and climate plundering behind it.

The people responsible for making these products are the ones that have to be liable, not me. Not you.

Where does this leave us?

I can no longer drive my diesel car or drink overseas wine with hints of honey, vanilla and notes of pending extinction-level events without having a guilt trip. It also seems I cannot joke about it, either.

Why is it okay to tell people I drive a car and drink foreign wine, but the instant I acknowledge my awareness about the climate impact of my choices, I’m garbage juice?

In one moment, I’m a casual human carrying on with his life in complete denial; in the other, I’m the personification of evil. Blinds shut while I cross the street, while parents huddle with their children and tell them to avert their eyes.

I find this insane

I’m all about saving the world. I’m team Planet Earth all the way.

After all, it’s where all the people I love live. It’s where my children will grow. And also where I keep all my stuff.

I recycle, I only use LED light bulbs, I bought an electric car, and I don’t eat meat every day.

But I have no land to plant my own veggies. I’m entirely dependent on the system as it is, and as broken as it is. So, yes, I eat bananas and other exotic fruits. Like, say, tomatoes. (Norway is not known for its tomatoes.) I also buy disposable diapers for my son and buy plastic-wrapped bell peppers. I don’t want to buy plastic-wrapped bell peppers, but supermarkets don’t leave me much of a choice.

I’m even in the strange habit of using toilet paper to clean myself. And have been all my life. Who knows how many hectares of forest my tush has consumed this far?

And why would I?

It’s but a lesser evil in the grand scheme of things.

Still, is it massively cruel to the environment that I chose to wipe my bottom with double-layer, soft tissue? Yes. Yes, it is.

Our western butts combined consume about 600 billion trees a year. That’s something like 150 million acres worth of trees. Each roll consumes around 140l of water to make, plus it produces 2g of carbon dioxide per roll. Not to mention the landfills and water treatment plants where it ends up. Each with its plethora of environmental issues.

Like toilet paper, most problems have simple solutions we choose to ignore for convenience's sake. But there are ways around it.

We could wash our butts. It’s a far superior method and already the most used worldwide.

For starters, it actually cleans our haemorrhoid-ridden rectums instead of smearing poop around, fertilising the grounds for more haemorrhoids in a vicious haemorrhoidal nightmarish cycle. Our bums genuinely get clean.

We used to do it before; that’s why bidés are a thing. But they’ve gone out of fashion and out of culture. You could argue that then we’d waste more water, but since toilet paper already uses 140l of water to make, you’d be saving tons of water. You could then say, “But won’t I have to wash my hands more often?” To which I’d look at you with such disgust that you’d have to reassess your life choices.

Please, wash your hands.

One pandemic in my life life is one too many.

Don’t get me wrong, next time I’m at the supermarket, I will buy toilet paper. So will you. Don’t pretend you have any clue about how to use a bidet. Preferably I’ll buy toilet paper with a fluffy animal on the label. (I don’t know why fluffy animals are synonyms of clean bums, and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask. It’s not like anyone would fantasise about wiping their butts with a little lamb or, say, a squirrel. Well, at least, I like to think no one would. Okay, let’s face it, somebody does. Somebody definitely does. In fact, I bet somebody’s doing it right now. Think about that next time you visit the loo.)

We could produce toilet paper with sustainably grown forests and use only renewable energy in the process of manufacture; we could continue with our very cultural, however disgusting habit, with a clean conscience.

But, alas, we don’t. We’re not in charge.

Now that I have explained it, listen to this:

“I wipe my ass with toilet paper,” simple sentence, not something you expect to hear every day but no further issues than that.

“I wipe my ass with toilet paper at great environmental cost.”

Utter hypocrite.

So what’s my point with all this

We can’t look at ourselves as the culprit of this pernicious calamity.

It’s not our fault.

Large corporations have been doing their best to make us, the consumer, guilty of buying their products. I should be able to buy foreign wine knowing full well it was transported by solar-powered ships. Or Hydrogen fuel cell-powered engines.

This thought of climate guilt is so ingrained in our society that if I joke about it, I’m the bad guy. I’m somehow what’s wrong with the world.

Well, I’m not. Neither are you.

We need to shout our opinion until our voices run hoarse. Do what we can, when we can, and stop blaming each other.

And start blaming those who are truly responsible for this mess.