The Complex History of the Carbon Footprint
The carbon footprint is an essential part of the eco-friendly lexicon, as familiar to us as recycling or composting. Many students often partake in calculating their carbon footprint in schools and even Keep Knoxville Beautiful has done school education programs to help students calculate their carbon footprints. To many, reducing their carbon footprints is one of the most tangible ways in which we can slow down climate change.
They aren’t incorrect, but the reality is more complicated than that. The reality is that the carbon footprint isn’t a solution for climate change; in fact, its history is mired in corporate oil.
INDIVIDUAL, NOT CORPORATE, RESPONSIBILITY
In the early 2000s, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, BP, unveiled the first carbon footprint calculator. This allowed individuals to calculate how much carbon they are emitting by driving their cars, buying food, and showering. Within the success of the carbon calculator lies the problem of it as well. With the calculator, the responsibility of slowing down climate change has now shifted onto individuals. Individuals are now carpooling to work, eating less meat, taking shorter showers, and diligently recycling. And while these are all great things that help the environment, they are not the only thing that has caused climate change.
Photo from LA Times
In 2010, BP was responsible for the largest oil spill in history. From April to July, the Deep Horizon oil spill released 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill had catastrophic effects on the wildlife in the Gulf – stillborn dolphins washed ashore daily and fish embryos exposed to the oil developed deformities. More recently, a 2019 study by The Guardian revealed that BP is the sixth largest contributor to carbon emissions with 34.02 billion tons released since 1965. With this in mind, what might their carbon footprint score be? These contributions to climate change are surely more significant than my day-to-day activities, such as driving my car instead of biking to work.
But that is precisely where the brilliance of the carbon footprint calculator lies. It makes the fact that I drive instead of bike seem more detrimental to the environment than large oil company emissions. The responsibility lies with the individual, not with large corporations, even though we know that only structural change will significantly reduce carbon emissions.
A NEW PLAN
In April of this year, President Biden announced a new plan to cut carbon emissions and achieve a 50-52% reduction in greenhouse gas pollution by 2030. The plan focuses on those larger systemic changes with the responsibility falling on the government and big businesses. The plan is already being put into action with strategies to move towards electric vehicles and solar power, but some critics are doubtful that this bill could achieve bipartisan support and pass the House and Senate.
If the bill does become bogged down in bureaucratic red tape, that can create an even greater sense of helplessness for the individual. With hurricanes ravaging the coastlines and heat records being broken in the northwest, politicians debating the cost-effectiveness of these measures can feel like watching a slow car crash. We don’t have time to debate climate change anymore, because it’s here.
Photo from City of Knoxville
As Greta Thunberg famously said in her speech to the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019, “If you [politicians] really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.” The anger she expressed is one that many feel as our world leaders stall. When politicians fail to act, it can cause concerned citizens to look for their own ways to effect change. That is why the carbon footprint calculator is such an enduring symbol for the future of the climate. At least with it, we can feel as if we are actively involved in the process of stopping carbon emissions and slowing down climate change.
TANGIBLE ACTION
Perhaps instead the action we can take is by trying to affect systemic change. Instead of looking at our individual actions, let’s look at the collective actions we can take. That can include calling our representatives, advocating for structural change, and shopping locally to divert profits away from large companies. Corporations are concerned about the bottom line, so becoming a smart consumer is one of the best ways to make corporations listen.
Photo from UT Daily Beacon
Even though I haven’t made the switch to biking, I could instead reduce the number of trips I take and carpool when possible so that I am using less gas. When it’s time to buy a new car in a few years, I can be intentional about buying an electric one. While these actions might lower my individual carbon footprint, it also reduces the amount of money that I am giving to oil companies, which hopefully, in the long run, will make an even greater difference.
STEPS TO TAKE:
Contact: Senators Blackburn and Hagerty | Representative Burchett