Original subtitles

(man) All right, let's do this.

Ah, okay.

Picnic day, Sammy.

Let's pack up.

Plates made from 100% recycled leaves.

Spoons made from 100% recycled plates,

and napkins made from 100% recycled old newspapers.

Ooh.

"Dewey Defeats Truman."

(laughing)

♪

Sammy, don't be a litterbug.

People like us started pollution and we can stop it.

All it takes to save the environment

is for each of us to do our part.

Actually... (screams)

(coughing, hacking)

Actually, that kind of thinking will lead us

to a trash-tastrophe.

Oscar the Grouch!

No, I'm Adam the Conover.

Less a grouch, more a cultural critic,

and this is "Adam Ruins Everything."

♪

Look, trash man,

if you're here to lecture me on going green,

put a lid on it.

That's a trash can joke.

If I use green products, pick up my own litter,

and make small sacrifices in my life,

I will stop climate change.

No, you won't.

Those things will never be enough.

And that personal responsibility you feel

is just the result of an old ad campaign.

(man) Some people have a deep abiding respect

for the natural beauty that was once this country.

And some people don't.

People start pollution.

People can stop it.

I remember that ad.

It was the moment I realized it's everyone's responsibility

to keep the planet clean.

Well, everything about it is wrong.

What you talking about, Adam?

"Diff'rent Strokes."

First of all, the "Indian" in the ad,

Iron Eyes Cody,

was actually an Italian man named Espera de Corti.

This guy lied for his entire life

about his heritage and was basically

the Native-American Rachel Dolezal.

How...

(Italian accent) did I get away with this for so long?

(sighs)

And that's not even the worst part.

The filthy truth is, this message was designed

by the can-and-bottle industry to shift the blame

from them onto you.

Come on, I'll show you.

For decades, we had an effective system for reducing litter.

After people finished their soda, they returned the bottles

and the manufacturers would wash and reuse them.

Cutting production waste is out of this world, Daddy-O.

But in the 1950s, a group of greedy companies switched

to disposable cans and bottles to cut costs.

One man's trash...

is that same man's treasure.

After they went disposable, we started

going through twice as many bottles and cans.

We can't have this much trash.

The switch caused so much outrage that in 1953,

Vermont introduced a law

that actually banned disposable bottles.

Our farms are filling up with bottles

and our big, beautiful cows are eating 'em and dying!

(cow mooing) (gasps)

This was actually happening.

A disposable container ban is utterly essential.

Ha! He really milked it.

Oh, man, I love dad jokes.

Their business model threatened,

the container industry whipped up a plan.

People are blaming us for the litter problem.

Well, I won't stand for it!

(crowd exclaiming) Hear, hear!

Coca-Cola is tired of making a bunch of garbage

and then getting yelled at for making all that garbage.

Philip Morris concurs.

When you think about it, it's the customer's fault

for throwing our garbage away.

(man) Dixie Cup agrees.

We'll blame the customer.

(man 2) I know a better word for them.

Litterbugs.

(cheering and applause)

And so, with the help of over 20 companies,

they founded the original anti-litter group,

Keep America Beautiful.

Wait, Keep America Beautiful was founded by litter companies?

Yep, these companies actually popularized

the term "litterbug"

and shifted the litter blame from themselves onto you.

And all of this culminated

in Keep America Beautiful's most famous ad,

the crying Indian.

No. No, not that beautiful ad.

I'm afraid so.

The most famous PSA in history

was actually a piece of corporate propaganda.

And all of this totally worked.

Bottle bans were struck down

and Americans started blaming ourselves

for the litter problem.

Eating that can didn't kill Bessie...

I killed Bessie!

I'm a litterbug!

And today, we're stuck with disposables,

and every year, over 100 billion

beverage containers end up wasted,

either in landfills or incinerators,

or yeah, just plain littered.

Now, look, I want to be clear.

If you litter, you're a jerk.

But these companies threw out an effective recycling system

and instead asked us to pick up their trash,

and their marketing campaign helped create

an entire green culture that blames

individuals for pollution

rather than the companies making it.

That's terrible.

Well, from now on, I'm going to stop supporting companies

that pollute and I'll only buy green products,

like my hybrid.

And pretty soon, I'm going electric

with a brand-new Tesla.

Wait, you already have a hybrid

but you're gonna buy a brand-new electric car?

That choice can actually hurt the environment.

Hurt the environment! Yay!

Oh, she learns quick.

You serve me well, hybrid.

But still, you burn some gas and so...

you disgust me.

Soon, I'll be slashing my carbon footprint

with a sexy new Tesla.

400,000 preorders can't be wrong.

I cannot wait!

Huh. Ah!

You can and should wait.

If you're selling that perfectly good car

to buy a brand-new Tesla, you're not doing a good deed.

You're just buying a bright, shiny,

ecologically problematic...

toy!

What just happened? Where are we?

We're in your daughter's toys.

I know, it's a little forced, but I really like stop motion.

Adam, how could a Tesla be bad?

It's electric.

Boogie-woogie-woogie-woogie!

Yep, electric cars like the Tesla

are the sexy new thing.

Ooh, wow.

Check out his brand-new electric car.

That's hot.

Like our planet.

And a big part of their appeal is that car companies

have marketed them as greener

than a pocket square on St. Patty's Day.

(man) A road trip completely sponsored

by the power of the sun.

(man 2) 100% electric Nissan Leaf.

Innovation for the planet.

Innovation for all.

Wow! If I buy a Nissan, polar bears will love me!

Yeah, turns out that message is pretty sketchy.

Look, electric cars are more energy-efficient than gas cars,

but where do you think that energy comes from?

It comes from nature.

As soon as I get a Tesla,

I'll drive with all the colors of the wind.

"Pocahontas."

Nope, it comes from the energy grid.

If you buy an electric car today,

you're just shifting your fuel source

from the gas pump to a power plant.

And if those power plants burn coal,

driving an electric car can actually put more C02

into the air than a hybrid.

According to one study,

even if a third of all drivers switch to electric cars,

the carbon savings could be tiny.

But that's just right now.

Soon, all electricity will come from solar,

wind, water, and... heart.

Go planet!

Yeah, but that dream is a long way off.

In fact, your new Tesla will probably break down

before that happens,

and in the meantime, you're gonna be pumping out

a ton of CO2 from everything

that goes into just making the car.

Wait, what?

Aren't electric cars made from plants

and old Ralph Nader stickers?

You wish.

Building an electric car requires steel, copper,

and aluminum, just like a regular car,

but worse, their batteries are made of rare metals

that take intensive mining.

Hey, stop that!

The floors are bamboo!

And even the mere act of putting the car together

produces greenhouse gases.

Add that up and if we all ditched our trusty old cars

in favor of brand-new electrics,

we'd actually end up increasing our carbon footprint.

Wayne, meet Mike Berners-Lee.

He's an expert on carbon emissions

who's written extensively on this subject.

That's an expert? Looks like a toy.

Oh, you just have to pull his lever.

Hello, Wayne. Adam is right.

While electric cars are more efficient,

manufacturing typically adds about 50%

to the total carbon footprint,

so if you buy a new car too often,

you could completely undo all the carbon savings

that you might get from buying an electric car.

If you really... (voice slows, stops)

Whoops, needs another yank.

If you really want to help save the environment,

the best thing you can do is to reduce the amount you drive

and to drive your current car as long as possible,

provided it's reasonably efficient.

But if your car is beyond repair

and you absolutely need to buy a new one,

then go ahead, buy yourself a nice small electric car,

perhaps even a used one.

I never thought of it that way.

Anything else I should know?

The cow says...

(cow mooing)

Oh, guess that's it.

Wayne, when it comes to saving the planet,

the efficiency of your car's engine is small potatoes.

The real problem is that Americans bought 17.5 million cars last year

and drove a total of 2.7 trillion miles.

I'm sorry, but buying another car just isn't gonna fix that.

But I just want a Tesla!

And I want to help the environment.

Well, you can't have both.

And if you're not careful,

these companies will use that desire

to help the planet to sell you more stuff

that's hurting the planet.

Buying green products won't solve the problem,

because buying stuff is part of the problem.

We need to reduce what we buy and reuse what we have.

We can't shop our way out of this.

Fine, I won't buy a Tesla.

In fact, I'll do you one better.

I'll walk everywhere.

Yeah, walking.

A surefire way to stop climate change.

Oh, this one's actually really interesting.

In many cases, walking can actually increase

your carbon footprint.

If I wasn't a pacifist,

I would pass my fist through your face.

We'll walk to the grocery store, Sammy.

That way, we'll reduce our carbon footprint

and be guilt-free.

Ahh, ahh! Ah, yes.

People today are obsessed

with reducing their carbon footprints, but the fact is,

that's a lot harder than you probably think.

What are you talking about?

It's everyone's responsibility

to use as little fossil fuel as possible.

I even won the low footprint competition at work.

And all because I love to walk.

Walking is the greenest thing you can do.

Not always.

In fact, our carbon system is so complex

that a lot of what we think will reduce our carbon footprints

actually makes things worse.

Let me explain.

Ugh!

I gotta stop hanging out in trash cans.

Anyway, let's say you and Sammy go to a fast food place.

You each ate a burger and went for a walk,

so the burger fueled your walk,

but that burger came from a cow

and the cow got most of its fuel from grain

and cows need a lot of grain to survive,

and producing all that grain takes a ton of energy,

which often comes from coal, gas, and oil,

AKA fossil fuels. (cow mooing)

You have to burn 54 calories of fossil fuel

just to make one calorie of beef protein.

And because we have so many cars and farms,

agriculture accounts for up to one-third

of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Add all that together and this fuel can actually have

a larger carbon footprint than this fuel,

so if your walk to work is powered by burgers,

you're not a hybrid, you're a gas guzzler.

Hey, well, joke's on you, Al Bore.

I'm a vegetarian.

Asparagus powered my walk today,

and made my pee smell fantastic.

Well, asparagus can actually be one of the most wasteful foods.

Wait, what? This was likely flown

a long distance to get here,

and air-freighting produce is a hundred times worse

for the environment than shipping by boat.

Get your asparagus!

An exotic delicacy from a faraway land!

And when they're out of season, the same is likely true

of baby corn, baby carrots, snap peas, small green beans,

okra, shelled peas, lettuce, blueberries,

raspberries, and strawberries.

The truth is, when you grab a vegetable,

it can be almost impossible to tell

how big its carbon footprint really is.

Even in a fancy organic store,

the produce aisle is full of carbon landmines.

(explosion)

There has to be something carbon-free in here.

Oh, what about bananas?

I read that they're shipped by boat,

they pack a ton of nutrients,

and they come in their own packaging.

Yep, all true.

Yes!

From now on, my "shh" is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Gwen Stefani.

But even bananas aren't perfect.

But you just...

Ahh! They're still part of the same system

that's destroying our planet.

If you really want to calculate your carbon footprint,

you have to look at the whole picture.

Think about the banana company's corporate offices,

which create their own emissions,

like the coffee they supply to their employees,

coffee that required water and energy to grow and ship

and that shipping company provided uniforms

for their drivers, uniforms that required zippers,

zippers made out of metals

which needed to be mined from the earth.

And during lunch at the zipper mine, what did they serve?

Bananas.

(beep)

We live in an infinite web of carbon pollution.

The number of variables at play is so vast,

they're impossible for a single person to even calculate,

let alone reduce.

Tell me, stock boy.

Is the zinc on the zippers of the factory workers

who drove the trucks that shipped the coffee

to the banana corporate offices mined

in an eco-friendly manner?

Tell me!

You're hurting me. Ah!

I'm sorry, Trent. Let's go.

Why are you doing this?

I'm just trying to help.

And that is commendable,

but the fact is, this problem is way too big

for our individual consumer choices to solve.

Our entire way of life is the problem.

Some time ago, humanity discovered vast deposits

of fuel buried deep within the earth.

We learned to extract it, burn it for energy,

and release it into the air,

and about 150 years ago,

we rebuilt our entire civilization

around that energy source.

We burn it to travel, we burn it to eat,

we burn it to live.

Fossil fuels brought about one of the greatest increases

in standard of living in human history.

We could never go back.

But by burning this incredible fuel source,

we are also inexorably heating the earth.

2015 was the hottest year

since we started keeping records in 1880.

And thanks to rising ocean temperatures,

average sea levels have already risen

about eight inches.

And we're in for a lot worse.

This is Dale Jamieson.

He's a professor of Environmental Studies at NYU.

Wayne, we've already done so much damage to the atmosphere

that we'll be lucky if we can hold the warming

to two degrees Celsius.

Two degrees? Well, that's just the difference

between a jacket and a slightly lighter jacket.

Not to the earth, it isn't.

Just two degrees of warming could cause huge draughts,

massive wildfires, the loss of many species,

the collapse of our agricultural productivity,

and the rising sea levels

could make our coastal cities uninhabitable.

And remember, two degrees of warming

is the best we can realistically hope for.

The question isn't, will warming happen?

The question is, how bad will it be?

That's terrible.

Isn't there something I can do?

The sad truth is that we've already put

so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

that we're more than halfway towards

that two-degree centigrade limit.

And right now, companies and countries already own

enough fossil fuel in reserves

to meet that limit five times over.

Five times over?

To keep it in the ground,

they'd have to give up trillions of dollars

and we'd have to change our entire way of life.

And what happens if we burn it?

What happens to our planet then?

I don't know, but it won't be our planet anymore.

♪ (birds chirping)

Oh, Sammy...

everything I've done,

all the green products I buy, the trash I pick up...

even the car I drive...

it wasn't enough.

I guess the only thing left to do is... to prepare you

for the post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" future.

Wayne, listen to me.

The world is not ending.

Despite everything,

there are still tremendous reasons for hope.

Come on, I'll show you!

(engine revving effect, tires screeching effect)

Come on, Okay, buddy, spit it out.w you!

Can I stop the climate apocalypse or not?

By yourself, no.

We have to do it together.

Buying greener stuff and walking to work is great,

but it's not enough.

The entire world has to come together to solve this problem.

That's never gonna happen.

Well, it already is.

In 2015, nearly every country in the world met as one

and for the first time, signed a treaty

to curb carbon emissions.

It was called the Paris Agreement.

You know, we could stop Saran-wrapping

our croissants individually.

That would be real nice for New Orleans.

And we could stop burning tires just to pass a good time.

Yeah. (chuckles)

New Orleans isn't a country.

Eh, my writing staff loves Cajun jokes.

What can I say? Oh, hey, Dale.

Each country agreed to be accountable

for reducing its emissions every five years.

That's a big deal.

It proves that international cooperation

on climate change is possible.

That's amazing. So the planet is saved?

No, the Paris Agreement is just a first step.

Its emissions limits are non-binding and by itself,

it won't stop us from exceeding two degrees of warming.

(sighs) So we are doomed.

I feel like Miles Teller I got so much whiplash.

Wayne, you're missing the point.

This isn't pass/fail.

This isn't about saving the planet

or destroying the earth.

No matter how tough things are now,

we can always make things better for Sammy

and for the kids that come later,

and the Paris Agreement is a big step on that road.

Just... tell me what I can do to help.

Well, in addition to reducing and reusing

and all those good things,

you have to take individual action

to encourage collective responsibility.

You can tell your politicians to uphold the Paris Agreement

and build on its success,

and you can raise your voice

and encourage others to do the same.

And most importantly, you can teach Sammy

to take responsibility and to continue the fight

when she grows up.

Humans have changed the earth in profound ways,

and we're gonna keep changing it.

But it's up to us what kind of earth we're making.

Thanks, Adam.

That makes me feel, well, kinda sad.

But also kinda hopeful.

Like a Demi Lovato song.

Hmm, not familiar, but I trust you.

I should probably get her to bed.

Of course.

Sammy...

I know we messed up a bit.

But we built all this.

So that means we have the power to change it.

And I promise to do everything I can

to leave you a better world.

Adam, tell us again

about how we can't measure our carbon footprints!

No! I wanna hear about how prescription drugs

are the real epidemic!

Guys, I already told you all those things.

No! Again, again!

We wanna hear 'em again!

We love your facts, they never get old.

Yeah, Adam.

You're just such a fascinating guy.

I feel truly lucky to be your friend.

I should go, right?

Yeah.

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