Adam McKay wants the world to believe the climate clock is nearly at zero.

The filmmaker and Democratic Socialists of America member has issued another dire warning that civilization could collapse within years and that “billions could die” if governments do not move far more aggressively against fossil fuels.

There is just one inconvenient question McKay still does not seem eager to answer:

What about his own carbon-heavy lifestyle?

For years, McKay has preached climate catastrophe while maintaining a luxury getaway home in Ireland—a property that requires transatlantic travel from his primary home in Los Angeles.

That contradiction has followed him since reports first highlighted it in 2022, after Architectural Digest featured his “quiet and relaxing” Irish estate on 12 acres.

McKay did not exactly rush to surrender the property.

Instead, he has continued demanding that everyone else treat climate change like an emergency.

Now, in a new essay for Current Affairs, McKay has finally addressed the criticism—although not by explaining why his personal lifestyle should be exempt from the sacrifices he demands from everyone else.

His argument is that individual carbon footprints are a distraction.

According to McKay, the real villains are “gigantic multinational corporations.”

And there it is.

McKay's latest essay, titled “The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate,” argues that believing humanity still has decades to address climate change is itself dangerous.

“Thinking we have time left to address climate change… is driving us toward full social collapse,” he writes.

He goes even further.

“If our institutions, news and elected officials continue to feed and water the oil company-conceived mega-falsehood that climate breakdown is something just ‘our great-grandkids need to worry about,’ human civilization as we know it will collapse and billions could die,” McKay warns.

Then comes the deadline:

“We are talking about collapse within years, not centuries. For real.”

That is not exactly a prediction made with room for a leisurely vacation.

Yet McKay's own response to questions about his carbon footprint is essentially that ordinary people are looking in the wrong place.

He dismisses questions about individual consumption as a distraction, arguing that asking, “What’s your carbon footprint?” wrongly focuses attention on individuals rather than corporations.

But that defense creates an obvious problem.

McKay is not merely some random individual who occasionally uses a plastic straw. He is a wealthy Hollywood filmmaker who has maintained homes on two continents while repeatedly demanding dramatically more aggressive action against fossil fuels.

The Ireland property means long-distance travel between California and Europe.

By the figures cited in the original criticism, two round trips could produce nearly 10 tons of carbon emissions—roughly comparable to the annual carbon footprint of the average American.

Apparently, the climate apocalypse has an exception for first-class geography.

McKay's position also resurrects a familiar problem with climate alarmism: the deadline is always approaching, yet somehow the promised catastrophe remains just beyond the horizon.

Al Gore once warned about an impending climate tipping point. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously declared that the world had roughly 12 years to address the crisis.

Now McKay says civilization could collapse within years.

The rhetoric keeps getting more urgent.

The deadline keeps moving.

And somehow, the people issuing the warnings keep living remarkably normal—or remarkably luxurious—lives.

McKay's political ideology makes the contradiction even harder to ignore.

He belongs to the DSA, an organization advocating a sweeping socialist transformation of American society. Yet when ordinary Americans ask whether wealthy climate activists should personally sacrifice, the answer suddenly becomes much more complicated.

McKay even invoked the familiar argument that individual choices are meaningless compared with corporate emissions.

That may be a convenient political talking point.

But it does not answer the basic question.

If the planet really is only years away from civilizational collapse, why maintain a second home thousands of miles across the Atlantic?

If “billions will die” unless humanity changes course immediately, why shouldn't one of the people demanding that transformation lead by example?

And if McKay believes his own travel makes essentially no difference, perhaps the apocalypse is not quite as imminent as the rhetoric suggests.

The filmmaker has faced similar questions before.

In a previous controversy, McKay reportedly reacted angrily when a Vanity Fair reporter questioned the apparent contradiction between his socialist politics and his ownership of a luxury Bentley.

“JUST BECAUSE I HAVE BELIEFS I CAN’T DRIVE A NICE CAR?!!” he reportedly shouted.

Years later, McKay has said he owns electric vehicles and tries to avoid driving as much as possible.

Fair enough.