Today, I want to talk about a very important concept that affects us all: the carbon footprint.
If you are concerned about climate change, you might have tried to calculate your carbon footprint. This is a measure of how much greenhouse gas emissions you are responsible for, based on your lifestyle choices and daily activities. You might have also tried to reduce your carbon footprint by driving less, flying less, eating less meat, recycling more, or buying carbon offsets.
But did you know that the concept of a carbon footprint was actually invented by an oil company? That’s right, the term was coined by British Petroleum (BP), one of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, as part of a marketing campaign in 2004. The campaign introduced a carbon footprint calculator that allowed individuals to assess how their normal life was heating the globe. The message was clear: climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals.
This was a clever way for BP to shift the blame from themselves to the public, and to distract from the real solutions to the climate crisis. As Rebecca Solnit wrote in The Guardian, “Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook” . She argued that personal virtue is not enough to save the planet, and that we need collective action at every scale to end the age of fossil fuels and reinvent our energy landscape.
The fossil fuel industry has a long history of disinformation and propaganda to delay climate action and confuse the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions. They have spent billions of dollars on ads that deny, downplay, or cast doubt on the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. They have also promoted false or misleading solutions, such as natural gas, carbon capture and storage, or geoengineering.
The truth is that individual actions alone cannot solve the climate crisis. The vast majority of global emissions come from burning fossil fuels for energy, transportation, industry, and agriculture. These sectors are controlled by powerful corporations and governments that have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. To change this system, we need systemic change that challenges the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry and supports a just transition to a clean and renewable energy future.
This does not mean that individual actions are meaningless or irrelevant. They can still have positive impacts on the environment and society, and they can also inspire others to join the movement for climate justice. But they should not be seen as a substitute for collective action or political engagement. We should not let ourselves be fooled by the oil companies’ marketing tricks that make us feel guilty or helpless. We should hold them accountable for their role in causing and worsening the climate crisis, and demand that they pay their fair share for the damages they have inflicted on people and the planet. We need to hold the corporations and the politicians who are funded by them to promote their agenda to account.
