<
https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-talk-about-the-carbon-footprints-of-the-rich/>
"What can you do, as a single individual, to help halt global heating? Social
science research suggests that one of the most powerful things you can do is
talk about the climate crisis in your networks. But according to many climate
activists, the one thing you should not do is discuss people’s personal carbon
footprints.
Talking about individual carbon footprints, these activists argue, is, at best,
a distraction from the essential work of raising a climate movement and, at
worst, a naive and counterproductive embrace of propaganda developed by oil and
gas companies to dishearten people and divert them from building a movement for
collective action. But this view of climate communication and carbon footprints
rests on the mistaken idea that there is a universal individual whose personal
carbon footprint is always an irrelevant distraction. The truth is we need to
talk about curbing the individual carbon footprints of the rich in order to
halt global heating.
First, let’s look at the argument that it’s bad to talk about personal carbon
footprints. In the early 2000s, the major oil company BP weaponized the
scientific concept of the carbon footprint, placing it at the center of a
multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that made resolving the climate crisis
a matter of individuals reducing their consumption. The effect of their
strategy was and is to make people feel personally responsible not only for
causing the climate crisis by simply living their lives, but also for solving
it by no longer driving or flying or eating beef or using plastic straws or
whatever the case may be.
This strategy is a feint that puts public attention on the wrong things. The
responsibility for causing the climate crisis lies with the oil and gas
executives and government officials who, for decades, knew and covered up that
fossil fuels cause global heating — and who continue to block the kinds of
climate policy that can end the general use of fossil fuels. And the burden of
resolving the climate crisis lies on governments. Only governmental
institutions have the capacity to meet the systemic challenges of
decarbonization. Even if every individual person on the planet reduced their
discretionary carbon footprint to zero, the electrical, industrial and
agricultural systems of our economies would continue to emit greenhouse gases
and make global heating worse."
Via Joyce Donahue, who wrote "This. What each person does to reduce their
carbon footprint is insignificant if energy corporations continue their current
path."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
