[spondyl]

A reminder that the idea of a carbon footprint originated from BP as a way to shift blame to the consumer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint

> The use of household carbon footprint calculators originated when oil producer BP hired Ogilvy to create an "effective propaganda" campaign to shift responsibility of climate change-causing pollution away from the corporations and institutions that created a society where carbon emissions are unavoidable and onto personal lifestyle choices. The term "carbon footprint" was also popularized by BP.

[game_the0ry]

> A reminder that the idea of a carbon footprint originated from BP as a way to shift blame to the consumer...

Also a way to deflect blame from rich folks who fly in private jets, are chauffeured in gas-guzzling SUVs, and who also travel too often.

[dangerlibrary]

It literally doesn't matter who consumes it. As soon as the oil is out of the ground, we've already lost. That stored carbon is going into the atmosphere or into new a plastic / other petroleum product (which is often eventually burned and sent into the atmosphere).

Extraction taxes/bans are the only policy that matters. We need to leave the carbon that's already in the ground in the ground. Expensive new ways to re-sequester a fraction of the extracted carbon are just a shell game. Efficiency efforts will always be hindered by some variant of Jevon's paradox. [0].

Companies (like BP) that are heavily invested in extraction technology and capital - drilling rigs, pipelines, etc. - will try to convince you that we can extract as much as we want indefinitely, and figure out how to get the carbon out of the atmosphere later. It's a stupid, obviously wrong, bad-faith argument from an amoral, economically motivated set of actors.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

[abyssin]

Given the central place of energy in the economy, I don’t think taxes would work: they would merely increase prices provide incentives to develop technologies leading to more Javon’s paradox, as you said. The only solution I see is banning extraction. But banning something? Unthinkable!

I wonder why I still strive to limit my carbon footprint. Nobody’s impressed nor inspired by my behaviour.

[gruez]

>I don’t think taxes would work: they would merely increase prices provide incentives to develop technologies leading to more Javon’s paradox, as you said. The only solution I see is banning extraction.

1. Not all technological developments contribute the the Javon's paradox. I can see how more fuel efficient engines contributes to that, but electric cars (along with renewable energy generation) don't.

2. the point of taxes isn't solely to eliminate fossil fuels, it's also to provide compensation for the damage that fossil fuels create. If we determine that a tonne of carbon emitted causes $100 worth of damage, and we levy a $100 tax on carbon, that means governments can fully offset the damage. That makes for a far better state of affairs, even if we continue burning fossil fuels. I'll even go as far to say that it's a perfectly acceptable state of affairs.

>The only solution I see is banning extraction. But banning something? Unthinkable!

It's unthinkable for good reason. What do you do about critical industries that depend on fossil fuels? The whole point of carbon pricing is to use the market to force the least efficient/easiest to switch carbon users to stop emitting carbon, so that the costs of transitioning is as low as possible.

>I wonder why I still strive to limit my carbon footprint. Nobody’s impressed nor inspired by my behaviour.

Most of what you said applies to voting as well. Do you also wonder why you vote in elections?

[goodpoint]

> I wonder why I still strive to limit my carbon footprint. Nobody’s impressed nor inspired by my behaviour.

Please don't fall into cynicism and despair. A lot of people are putting efforts into decreasing their environmental impact and you are not alone.

True, we are a minority, but doing the right thing matters.

[dangerlibrary]

If you tax extraction sufficiently, you can make it prohibitively expensive (regardless of technological improvements) to extract carbon-intensive fuels.

Take it to the extreme to verify this effect - a $1000/barrel tax on extracted oil is effectively a ban.

[Aachen]

I understand that I'm advocating for the devil here but think about the semantics for a minute:

Big evil corp says something that's false for marketing. Nobody believes it. This is the most common by far, how often do you hear advertising that's way overblown? Probably trillions are sunk into this globally every year.

Alternatively, big evil corp might actually say something true and it's still in their favor so they spend money on spreading the word here, too.

People use this argument "it came from an evil corp" (usually phrased as propaganda, signaling you must be stupid to even listen) as a shortcut for "it must be false". I don't know whether it is in this case: we need to weigh it critically. Is it not possible that this corp saw an advantage and used it, regardless of whether the argument was true?

It seems like a shortcut that's easy to subscribe to and be able to move on with your day because you're not too blame. Maybe true, maybe not. I'm not sure, but this is not the way to find out.

[Aachen]

If I see the behavior of rich individuals as well as companies (large and small, rich and poor), it does seem to me as though we need to work on both sides. Implying that personal responsibility is zero... we're eight billion people and about a billion of those are rich. That includes the vast majority of the people reading this (as well as myself—I'm writing this comment from a train which I chose over going by car today for environmental reasons). Can we really say that we are not to blame for any of this? We don't want capitalism with supply and demand, where we're creating the demand? What alternative is being proposed, that corporations just stop doing environmentally harmful things but we keep trying to get fuel at the pump/airport?

It doesn't add up. If all these consumers shift patterns, of course we'll have a major shift in business priorities. It also sets a good example for your peers if you make one choice per day for the environment, multiplying your individual impact. Either that or the government has to force the issue, so no one can have an unfair advantage by doing a bad thing.

[fvaleye]

Oh thank you for sharing this! I'm happy to know more about the origin of this concept (and the associated propaganda from BP).

[DoingIsLearning]

To add to this, another 'green' idea - plastic recycling - is equally a marketing ploy by the industry. [0]

They always knew full well that it would never be feasible for the large majority of plastic types but to claim that it 'could' be recyclable somehow makes it seem like it is on you. When really we would have to live an ascetic live to avoid plastic as a consumer.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

[gruez]

>corporations and institutions that created a society where carbon emissions are unavoidable and onto personal lifestyle choices

I mean, it's tempting to blame "corporations and institutions" for the lack of climate-friendly options, but how much of that is them being evil, and how much of that is due to aggregate consumer preferences? If say, 70% of consumers chooses the cheapest option available (disregarding climate impact), and the remaining 30% doesn't constitute a critical mass for a separate line of climate-friendly products, can you really blame "corporations and institutions" for following what the majority of consumers want?

[lozenge]

What's the consumer preference re child labour? What's the consumer preference re slavery or conflict diamonds? What's the consumer preference re leaded gasoline? How about factories polluting rivers, as was common in the US not that long ago? Should we have told people to prefer undyed fabric because it would create less pollution?

Let's not limit society to just what "consumer preference" determines. We should be using our institutions (ie the government) to make things better.

[throwaway894345]

> Can you really blame corporations

Yes, because carbon isn't priced into the economy, and corporations lobby to maintain that status quo. Moreover, consumers can't choose between "cheap" and "environmentally friendly" because corporations don't publish information about the carbon footprint of their products (although they do lots of greenwashing--advertising "environmentally friendly" with no actual accountability).

The solution is pricing carbon emissions into the economy so the market will figure out how to use those emissions most efficiently. The function of "blame" here is to make it less advantageous for corporations to obstruct the path toward averting climate change.

Note also that corporations aren't the only ones who deserve blame: there are also the politicians in their pockets on both sides. Obviously the Republicans who deny climate change, but also those Democrats who preach it and then do next to nothing to stop it (throwing a few billion at the least-effective conceivable climate initiatives) or use it for cover for trillions of dollars of progressive social spending (via "climate justice").

[gruez]

>Yes, because carbon isn't priced into the economy, and corporations lobby to maintain that status quo.

I don't disagree that corporations are blameworthy by lobbying against climate change legislation. That said, you're changing the topic here. The entirety of that sentence was about the "lack of climate-friendly options" and the comment I was replying to was talking about "a society where carbon emissions are unavoidable".

>Moreover, consumers can't choose between "cheap" and "environmentally friendly" because corporations don't publish information about the carbon footprint of their products

Is this really an issue? Just assume anything that doesn't have strongly worded environmental claims is not environmentally friendly. Given that a supermajority of consumers care about the environment (at least in the abstract), if a product is actually environmentally friendly, it's probably going to be predominantly labeled.

[throwaway894345]

> I don't disagree that corporations are blameworthy by lobbying against climate change legislation. That said, you're changing the topic here. The entirety of that sentence was about the "lack of climate-friendly options" and the comment I was replying to was talking about "a society where carbon emissions are unavoidable".

I don't see how I'm changing the topic. As you noted, the original topic was "corporations and institutions that created a society where carbon emissions are unavoidable and onto personal lifestyle choices". You seemed to be arguing that the landscape of goods and services is carbon intensive because consumers demand cheap products irrespective of climate concerns. I'm rebutting that with "consumers don't have the information to choose between climate and cost, they can only compare costs". Specifically, I noted (or rather implied) two ways to facilitate that information: require every product to publish information about its carbon footprint (with accountability mechanisms) or just price it into the cost of the item via carbon tax or similar.

> Is this really an issue? Just assume anything that doesn't have strongly worded environmental claims is not environmentally friendly. Given that a supermajority of consumers care about the environment (at least in the abstract), if a product is actually environmentally friendly, it's probably going to be predominantly labeled.

Yes, because "strongly worded environmental claims" is meaningless. There's no accountability that products making these claims outperform their competition at all, and even if they do outperform the competition, a consumer can't know by how much (am I paying 50% more for a product that emits half as much carbon, or only 1% less?). There's virtually no regulation here.

[gruez]

>I'm rebutting that with "consumers don't have the information to choose between climate and cost, they can only compare costs".

Fair point, I apologize for the accusation.

>Yes, because "strongly worded environmental claims" is meaningless. There's no accountability that products making these claims outperform their competition at all, and even if they do outperform the competition, a consumer can't know by how much (am I paying 50% more for a product that emits half as much carbon, or only 1% less?). There's virtually no regulation here.

But voluntary labeling seem to work fine with "organic"/"non-GMO" products? I agree that being able to compare two conventional products and choose the least bad option has value, but the lack of a pesticide content label didn't prevent the proliferation of organic products on supermarket shelves.

[throwaway894345]

Organic and non-GMO are USDA regulated labels. Corporations will punish them for fraudulent use of the label. https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/labeling

[yongjik]

I could believe that carbon footprint was intended as a stalling tactic, but if that was the original intention, then it kind of backfired, because fossil fuel consumption must go down when citizens demand lower carbon footprint for the society.

To emit CO2, someone must be producing fossil fuels, and someone must be paying money to buy and burn it. IMO, everybody is responsible (some more than others), and if anyone starts arguing that it's the responsibility of (those different group of people), I get suspicious because that is a classical stalling tactic.