Great answer to “what about YOUR carbon footprint?”

Posted in Community.CitizensClimateLobby.org on January 10, 2022 at 8:21 AM

I believe we need to look at the big picture and not go too far down the rabbit hole of “carbon shaming”.  Climate change is a worldwide problem requiring action at the scale only governments can provide.  Individual efforts help raise awareness and collectively can make some difference, but not at the level needed.  Focusing on individual’s carbon footprint also plays into the fossil fuel and climate denier’s playbook.  As Michael Mann points out in his book The New Climate War https://michaelmann.net/books/climate-war the fossil fuel industry wants to make you feel responsible for using their products so that climate change is your fault for using coal, oil and gas.  That approach does nothing to speed adoption of alternative fuels and does nothing to change business decisions and investments that rapidly reduce our fossil fuel dependence.