Carbon Footprint

English
Written By Miranda Massie

WEAPONIZING OUR CONSCIENCE

In 2004, BP invented and popularized the concept of the individual carbon footprint. Far from taking any responsibility for the devastation they have caused, Big Oil has convinced us that climate change is caused by our individual consumption, rather than by their own ravenous exploitation of fossil fuels. The industry has channeled our escalating distress and our yearning for solutions into a narrative that blames and thereby silences us.

Even as intensifying catastrophes lead more and more people to see that the problem goes well beyond our individual consumer choices, we live with a stomach-churning sense of complicity and cognitive dissonance. Feeling both that it is our fault and that our actions are too miniscule to matter, most of us stay silent on climate.

Because of this silence, we feel outnumbered and alone–when in fact a supermajority of US adults support strong climate justice policies. The silence is self-perpetuating, until the supermajority starts to speak out.

The truth is that any modern life is embedded in a fossil fuel system. What will reduce our individual carbon footprints to a point of ecological sustainability is not a little bit more recycling or a lot more guilt—it is an end to the system of exploiting fossil fuels.

“AS LONG AS FOSSIL FUELS ARE THE BASIS FOR THE ENERGY SYSTEM, YOU COULD NEVER HAVE A SUSTAINABLE CARBON FOOTPRINT. YOU SIMPLY CAN’T DO IT.”
–BENJAMIN FRANTA, FOUNDING HEAD OF THE CLIMATE LITIGATION LAB, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Miranda Massie
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