File:Carbon Footprint - BP-McKibben-Solnit-Aug2021.jpg

Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook

Climate-conscious individual choices are good – but not nearly enough to save the planet. More than personal virtue, we need collective action

By Rebecca Solnit

Via The Guardian

Aug. 23, 2021

• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook

(T)he concept of the “carbon footprint”, that popular measure of personal impact, was the brainchild of an advertising firm working for BP.

As Mark Kaufman wrote this summer:

>British Petroleum, the second largest non-state owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals. It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint” in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life – going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling – is largely responsible for heating the globe.

Consumers define themselves by what they buy, own, watch – or don’t. Citizens see themselves as part of civil society, as actors in the political system (and by citizen I don’t mean people who hold citizenship status, but those who participate, as noncitizens often do quite powerfully). Too, even personal virtue is made more or less possible by the systems that surround us. If you have solar panels on your roof, it’s because there’s a market and manufacturers for solar and installers and maybe an arrangement with your power company to compensate you for energy you’re putting into the grid.

In my own case, some of what I could tout as personal virtue is only possible because of collective action. I have 100% clean electricity at home because people organized to make that option and the solar and wind power behind it available. I do some of my errands by bicycle because the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition worked for decades to put bicycle paths across the city and otherwise make it safer to get about on two wheels. I can take public transit because there is public transit. Across the Bay, the city of Berkeley led the way in making all-electric houses the standard for the future; more than fifty California cities and counties have followed suit. Paired with the clean electricity California has committed to, this mandate matters. Having an all-electric house or driving an electric car fueled by renewables won’t be a virtuous choice in the future; it’ll just be the norm.

But individual and collective action don’t have to be pitted against each other. Individual choices do add up (they just don’t, in McKibben’s terms, multiply).

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Your Carbon Footprint

More to the Story: 'The Carbon Footprint' Marketing Campaign

Via Mashable 'Social Good' Series

British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint" in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life — going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling — is largely responsible for heating the globe. A decade and a half later, “carbon footprint” is everywhere. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a carbon calculator. The New York Times has a guide on “How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.” Mashable published a story in 2019 entitled “How to shrink your carbon footprint when you travel.” Outdoorsy brands love the term.

“This is one of the most successful, deceptive PR campaigns maybe ever,” said Benjamin Franta, who researches law and history of science as a J.D.-Ph.D. student at Stanford Law School.

Of course, no one should be shamed for declaring an intention to “reduce their carbon footprint.” That’s because BP’s advertising campaign proved brilliant. The oil giant infused the term into our normal, everyday lexicon. (And the sentiment is not totally wrong — some personal efforts to strive for a cleaner world do matter.) But there’s now powerful, plain evidence that the term “carbon footprint” was always a sham, and should be considered in a new light — not the way a giant oil conglomerate, who just a decade ago leaked hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, wants to frame your climate impact...

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Katharine Hayhoe shares her point of view on why to go "carbon neutral"

"I’m a climate scientist. I don’t “believe” in climate change: I crunch the data, look at the numbers, and draw the most sensible and reasonable conclusions. So whoever these believers are, they aren’t me.

"I also talk to people about climate change all the time: and I’ve never once told anyone to reduce their carbon footprint to zero. So whoever’s going around saying that, it’s not me or anyone I’ve ever heard.

"Why don’t I recommend this? BECAUSE MOST OF US CAN’T. We live in a world where the options to remove all carbon emissions from our lives are largely too expensive or unavailable. And even if everyone in the US eliminated their personal carbon footprint, what about emissions from industry and manufacturing?

"That’s why we need system-wide change at all levels. Yes, reducing our personal carbon footprint helps. But the single most important thing I tell people to do is, talk about it! Share with others why it’s so important. Vote on this issue. Ask elected officials what their solutions are, no matter what part of the political spectrum they’re from.

"A thermometer isn’t liberal or conservative. It doesn’t give us a different answer depending on how we vote. But the solutions are: and that’s why we need all voices at the table."

• Katharine the Climate Scientist at Texas Tech / https://youtu.be/Q48BvprCFr0

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Simple Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Calculate your CO2 footprint and see how you can offset it

• http://www.myclimate.org/

• https://co2.myclimate.org/en/offset_further_emissions

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Read More About Bill McKibben

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Bill_McKibben,_planet_citizen

Bill McKibben, planet citizen

SJS/GreenPolicy360 siterunner: Multiply your action as planet citizens, your ripples can become waves!

○ "The Question I Get Asked the Most?" The most common one by far is also the simplest: 'What can I do?' I bet I've been asked it 10,000 times by now... 'What can I do to make a difference?' The right question is 'What can we do to make a difference?' " -- Bill McKibben

Climate change has put our very existence at stake. To avoid catastrophe, it’s essential that we reprioritize for our survival and make real changes at every level.

Planet Citizen Action

-- Bill McKibben, Activist - planet citizen

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