Thread by @mczepkiewicz

Carbon footprint is a useful tool for climate science and policy. Once in a while, an article criticizing it for being "invented by big oil" appears in the media. This time it was Rebecca Solnit's essay in @guardian. It's a wrong take. Here's why 🧵 1/x theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

The carbon footprint was not "invented" by BP, just popularized by it. CF is a component of ecological footprint, first described by William Rees and @MaWackernagel in the early 90s. For example, in this article from 1996: 2/x sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Yes, BP used the carbon footprint to deflect attention from its role in the climate crisis. But scientists soon co-opted the term to study how countries, social groups, products, etc., differ in their impact on the climate. Here is a recent review: 3/x sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Capitalism is very good at co-opting academic terms for its own interest. Think "sustainable" or "resilience". But carbon footprint is not the case. It's the opposite. 4/x grist.org/article/is-res…

By studying carbon footprint, we can see that the "richest 10% is responsible for almost half of total lifestyle consumption emissions" while the poorest 50% contribute merely 10%. Like in this report published by @Oxfam last year 5/x oxfam.org/en/press-relea…

Carbon footprints show that wealthy countries, such as the US, Australia, much of Europe, etc., are in a huge overshoot of the safe emission levels (which is net-zero with an intermediate goal of about 2 tons per person by 2030) 6/x
oecd.org/environment/ca…

The mode of living of the wealthy global North is based on externalizing waste - in this case, greenhouse gas emissions - and overusing the atmosphere - which belongs to all living beings on Earth - as its "sink". Much more than other modes of living do. 7/x

Yes, we need political action to end fossil fuel extraction and use—no doubt in that. But we also need to change the way we live. Reducing the footprints of the "affluent citizens of the world" is key to that. 8/x nature.com/articles/s4146…

Solnit writes that "individual and collective action don’t have to be pitted against each other". Yes! But such articles do exactly that. They suggest that we do political action *instead of* focusing on "personal virtue" of reducing one's footprint. That's not how it works. 9/x

Do you know anyone who worries about their personal carbon footprint and is not politically active in climate change mitigation in some way? I don't. These two go together. And there is no trade-off between, say, not eating meat and going to climate protests. 10/x

It's important that we realize the importance of lifestyle emissions. Otherwise, our political action will focus on just one side - the fossil fuel supply. We need political action on the other side too: reducing driving, flying, meat consumption, energy use & more 11/x

So when you see an oil company saying that you are personally to blame for the climate crisis - don't believe them. They are way more guilty than you are. But it doesn't mean we don't have to change the way we live. Collectively and individually. 12/12