I've written a blog piece before on why the "carbon footprint" narrative perpetuates the notion that human existence = destruction and could end up being counterproductive. Yet perhaps, it is not meant to be productive. The fossil fuels companies who created and promoted the term sure didn't want it to be.

Much like how Coca Cola promotes recycling, BP aggressively promoted their carbon footprint calculator as an effort to shift the burden of climate change towards consumers. All of that came together to craft a contemporary environmentalism that focused on individual lifestyle changes rather than the systemic, paradigmatic revolution that we truly need.

I'm not saying that we must not use the term. There is a potential for individual reductions to be a powerful first step towards greater collective change, and as far as possible we should each be doing our parts. Yet we also mustn't let the attention be diverted from the real problem.

We need to reclaim, not co-opt, the 'Carbon Footprint' narrative.

Some key resources: