In the age of climate change, every decision can feel laden with existential weight. Should I get the organic bacon and eggs, or rather pick the vegan option? Can we afford an electric car? Is it reasonable to take a plane to visit family over the weekend, or should we try to set up some video call instead?

Our carbon footprints trail behind us like shadows, always reminding us of the collective responsibility to save the planet from the ongoing crisis. And perhaps most concerning is the looming uncertainty around all of these topics. Am I doing enough to avert this disaster? How can we convince the US government to get back into the international climate negotiations? And will our grandkids forgive us for leaving the planet in a worse state than we found it?

In this context, I’ve noticed a curious pattern in the cultural consensus. Stick with me.

Repentance

Within traditional Catholicism, sins are considered inevitable — only saints rise above sin entirely. For this reason, there are codified mechanisms through which sin can be confessed, atoned for, and absolved. The Sacrament of Penance involves confessing one’s sins to a priest, expressing sincere contrition, and receiving absolution. Acts of penance, like saying certain prayers or doing good deeds, often follow.

Catholic guilt also finds expression through little penitent habits: those everyday acts that try to offset one’s sense of moral deficit. Meatless Fridays during Lent, serving at a soup kitchen on weekends, putting a bit extra in the collection plate — these small sacrifices assuage the ever-present awareness of falling short.

I see echoes of this in today’s climate-concerned circles. We engage in small eco-flagellations:

  • Hand-drying dishes after running the dishwasher on eco mode, a mode that’s too energy efficient to dry the dishes properly.
  • Skipping that beautifully seared steak and dutifully ordering the salad, even if it leaves us unsatisfied.
  • Getting caught by an unexpected rain shower while biking to work, consoling our misery with the assurance that we did something for the planet today.
  • Shivering through the winter with the heater dialed to 16°C, wearing our discomfort as a badge of honor.

These everyday sacrifices seem to serve as a kind of secular penance. In essence, we are atoning for the sin of participating in a fossil-fueled world.

Virtue Signaling

In the New Testament, Jesus frequently criticizes the Pharisees, a group known for their strict observance of Jewish law. Despite their outward displays of piety, like public prayers and showy tithes, Jesus accuses them of hypocrisy: of being more concerned with appearing righteous than with genuine goodness.

Some organizations (and individuals) loudly proclaim their ecological righteousness, in a kind of climate posturing not unlike the supposed virtue of the Pharisees. The implicit message seems to be: You’re off the hook if you associate with us. We’re on the side of the climate angels.

  • Delivery trucks emblazoned with “100% fossil fuel free!”
  • Train companies touting “Runs on 100% renewable electricity!”
  • Clothing brands trumpeting “Zero carbon footprint!”
  • Influencers documenting their photogenic #zerowaste lifestyles on Instagram.

The idea seems clear: align yourself with these righteous companies and influencers, repeat their messages, buy their products, and you too can be absolved of your complicity in the climate crisis.

Indulgences

Perhaps the strongest parallel to religious structures is the modern carbon offset. In the medieval Catholic Church, parishioners could make financial contributions, called indulgences, to reduce divine punishment for their sins. A wealthy nobleman might fund the construction of a cathedral to offset a life of greed and cruelty. The Church even sold indulgences directly, with prices varying based on the sin.

Carbon offsets operate on a strikingly similar logic.

  • Airlines offer to let you pay a small surcharge that is promised to finance the planting of a mind-boggling number of trees.
  • Companies must purchase CO2 permits for every ton of emissions — essentially a fee paid to “offset” the environmental debt.
  • Eco-conscious consumers pay a premium to get renewable energy, funding green projects to balance out their energy use.
  • Businesses loudly promote sustainability initiatives and donations, even while maintaining fundamentally emissions-intensive models.

In theory, some of these programs can meaningfully contribute to climate solutions. But suspiciously, nobody seems to look too closely at the actual impact of these offset schemes, and our institutions seem to be disinterested in ensuring that they are really working as advertised.

For a global existential crisis, this disinterest seems deeply strange to me. My best explanation is that these schemes are really about alleviating individual guilt, not about solving the systemic problem. Offsets become a form of climate indulgence — a payment to escape the shame of one’s carbon sins and achieve a state of eco-absolution.

Original Sin

The Christian doctrine of Original Sin holds that all humans are born in a state of sin, inheriting the consequences of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. No matter how virtuously one lives, this inherited sin can only be cleansed through divine grace, particularly through the sacrament of baptism.

If “just stop emitting carbon!” feels like an impossibly high moral bar, that’s because it is. Nearly every facet of modern life is entangled with greenhouse gas emissions. Coal is still the most common source of electricity, the intensive agriculture that produces our food is fueled by massive amounts of fossil oil and gas, and so are virtually all industrial processes, trucks, and container ships.

From a systemic point of view, this is not surprising — fossil fuels are the foundation that grew this industrial civilization, and there are very few incentives to change the existing (and cheap, and reliable) systems.

In a very real sense, we are born into a state of climate sin. Just by participating in society, just by living and breathing, we are complicit in a system that is disrupting the planet’s delicate balance. Like Original Sin, this is a burden we inherit simply by being born into this fossil-fueled world.

And just as Original Sin instilled a sense of inherent guilt and inadequacy in generations of Christians, our inescapable entanglement in climate-damaging systems can leave us feeling helpless, ashamed, and paralyzed. How can we possibly atone for this all-encompassing sin?

The Good News

Here’s the thing: we are not actually trapped in a cycle of eternal, inescapable climate guilt. Perfect isn’t the only option on the table.

The science tells us that solving climate change isn’t about individuals achieving a state of carbon purity. It’s about aligning our civilization-wide emissions with the Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases.

Currently, nature can handle about 20 gigatons of CO2 per year through processes like photosynthesis and ocean absorption. But we’re emitting around 32 gigatons annually. That 12-gigaton overshoot is the crux of the problem.

So while the “net zero” framing sets an impossibly high bar for individuals, a more modest (but still ambitious) collective goal comes into focus:

  • Reduce global emissions by 30%, and we’re back in sustainable balance with the planet’s absorption capacity.
  • Push that to 50%, and we start to meaningfully reverse the crisis.

This framing reminds us that the goal isn’t personally eliminating every last molecule of CO2. The goal is to systematically bring our civilization’s “carbon metabolism” back into healthy equilibrium with the Earth’s natural rhythms.

Economic Growth Seems to Be a Problem, Not a Solution

This raises a deeper question: if society is so deeply aware that we’re blowing past planetary boundaries, why do we remain so locked into high-emissions models of progress?

At the heart of the problem lies an entrenched societal assumption: the belief that perpetual economic growth is non-negotiable, that GDP must always go up for civilization to be healthy. This “growth imperative” remains the North Star guiding businesses, governments, and individuals alike.

But in a world of finite resources and ecological constraints, the doctrine of endless material expansion is running up against hard physical limits. As those limits bite — in the form of depleted fossil fuel reserves, extreme weather disasters, rising food insecurity, economic instability, and yes, a warmer and less hospitable climate — the growth imperative is becoming increasingly untenable.

A saner approach is to redefine societal progress and personal flourishing in a way that factors in the realities of a finite planet. Ecologically sound economic models do exist. Frameworks like Doughnut Economics, Degrowth, Regenerative Economics, and Prosperity Without Growth offer compelling visions of a future that is both sustainable and nourishing.

Transitioning to this steady-state paradigm is perhaps the most necessary and powerful shift we could make. It gets to the heart of the emissions problem in a way that purchasing carbon offsets never will.

The Real Carbon Capture Was Inside Us All Along

This equilibrium-focused view also reframes how we think about solutions like carbon capture. Rather than quixotically trying to suck all the excess CO2 out of the sky with human technology, we can focus on boosting the planet’s innate ability to capture and store carbon.

The Earth already has a built-in arsenal of carbon sinks — from forests to wetlands to the open ocean. For a fraction of the cost of engineered carbon removal, we could protect and expand these vital ecosystems:

  • Averting deforestation, reforesting degraded landscapes, and protecting old-growth forests
  • Keeping peatlands wet, to avert the release of their stored carbon
  • Restoring coastal mangroves, seagrass beds, and salt marshes
  • Preserving local biodiversity and attempting to eradicate invasive species, to protect ongoing biological cycles

These ideas may not be as flashy as gigantic carbon capture machines, fueled by big VC investments and lots of expensive electricity. But strengthening these natural systems is a proven and cost-effective path, and it comes with a host of beneficial side effects, like flood protection and insect population recovery.

Just as an organic farmer works with natural processes rather than trying to rigidly control them, we can partner with the planet’s built-in balancing systems. We don’t need to invent a mechanical replacement for nature; we can instead support and amplify the regenerative forces that have kept this planet stable and thriving for millennia.

Collective Action, Not Individual Shame

Ultimately, transcending our culture of climate guilt means letting go of the idea that we can earn salvation through personal eco-asceticism. The changes needed are systemic, not individual. They’re about pragmatism and science, not purity and sin.

So by all means, make choices that align with your values. Bike to work if you enjoy it; embrace plant-based meals if they speak to you. But let’s drop the internal ledger of eco-virtue and vice. And let’s not pretend that putting a checkmark on a piece of paper once every four years is sufficient to avert a global crisis.

Instead, let’s pour our energy into advancing the real climate solutions:

  • Helping to create an overview of our global emissions, sector by sector, and their relative importance to global well-being
  • Demanding carbon emission cuts from sectors that pollute the most and benefit us the least
  • Speaking out in favor of institutions that are working toward industrial de-carbonization, regenerative agriculture, and circular economic models
  • Pressuring companies to be transparent about emissions across their entire production chain, and demanding meaningful corporate action
  • Volunteering for organizations that can independently fact-check corporate emissions reports
  • Redirecting financial investments toward renewable energy, infrastructure, and public transit
  • Talking openly with friends and family about not needing to feel guilty

If we focus on these systemic changes, we could acknowledge the realities of living in a fossil-fueled society without flagellating ourselves for it. We could take the energy we’ve been pouring into eco-penance and channel it into something more positive, more constructive, and far more powerful: a long list of options that empower each of us to help create a livable future for the next generation.