In 2005, fossil fuel company BP hired the large advertising campaign Ogilvy to popularize the idea of a carbon footprint for individuals.

BP oil company pushed the idea that our individual carbon footprints matter so that everyone can share the blame of what the fossil fuel industry has done.

Don’t fall for it. Only corporations pollute enough to matter. Only corporations can provide alternatives to fossil fuels. Only corporations can make a meaningful reduction to greenhouse gas emissions.

The most significant difference individuals can make is to create political and legal pressure by voting and protesting.

BP oil company pushed the idea that our individual carbon footprints matter so that everyone can share the blame of what the fossil fuel industry has done.

The article discusses this, yes - along with how the carbon footprint is a good metric for individual consumption even if corporate propaganda abuses it.

The most significant difference individuals can make is to create political and legal pressure by voting and protesting.

I agree with you that political action is vital. I don’t agree that it’s necessarily more significant than personal action. Feminists used to say “the personal is political”, and it’s still true. How you act in private demonstrates your commitment to the values you endorse in public and gives your voice more weight when you speak your values.

If you reduce your personal footprint, but never talk about it or encourage other people to do the same, your impact is limited to yourself. If you reduce your personal footprint, and make your actions contagious by talking about them with people you know and encouraging them to do the same, you can impact many more people, encourage them to follow your lead and reduce their footprint, and then they can encourage others to reduce their footprint, and so on and so forth.

Limiting the damage from climate change takes collective action. And collective action requires a community, and a community requires communication.

If you assume you are a lone individual and your personal decisions have no effect on anyone else, it’s easy to imagine reducing your personal footprint is meaningless. If you see yourself as part of a community, and by reducing your personal footprint you encourage others in your community to do the same, you can see how much larger your impact can be.

So you’re repeating the BP talking points.

Again, carbon footprint is not a BP talking point. It was a pre-existing concept that was appropriated by BP to prevent climate change legislation by shifting responsibility for climate change to individual consumers.

And then, some years later, once corporations had more solid control of legislatures and were no longer afraid of legislation, they started using the carbon footprint idea in reverse as propaganda - they claimed individual responsibility was a myth, only legal action against corporations will help with climate change, so eat whatever you want and buy all the gas you want and buy all the corporate products you want, and don’t feel guilty about it, because it doesn’t matter.

In reality, both individuals and corporations bear responsibility for climate change, and both of the above arguments are corporate propaganda aimed at getting you to give up, do nothing, and buy shit.

Saudi Aramco accounted for more than 4 percent of global emissions, Gazprom clocked over 3 percent and Coal India accounted for roughly 3 percent.

Total global emissions in 2020, including land-use change, were approximately 40 Gt. This means that Australian emissions are approximately 1.2% of global emissions

There are 26 million people in Australia. That 1.2% is obviously all Australian emissions, but let’s exaggerate and say that’s purely from individuals. That the footprint of all Australian citizens combined was 1.2% of global emissions.

If literally all Australians then brought their personal carbon footprint to 0, it would be a reduction of less than 1/3rd of Saudi Aramco’s emissions alone.

From 2016 to 2022, 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were produced by just 57 companies.

But I’m supposed to believe that I, with my ~ 1/26 million of a percent footprint, have an affect. You’ll have to try a lot harder to convince me of that.

Your vote is also 1 in 26 million. Do you believe that has an effect?

I think you misread. I don’t account for 1 in 26 million of emissions. I count for 1% divided by 26 million of emissions.

This would be like if there was some kind of global election, and ALL Australian votes added together were worth 1.2% of the total vote.

That means my personal vote/emissions in this scenario would be 0.000000046%

And then there were 57 corporations whose interests were largely aligned that accounted for 80% that also got to vote.

Imagine a school/college/workplace had votes that everyone could participate in to make changes to it. But altogether, the student/employee votes could account for at most 20% of the vote, and teacher/management accounted for 80% of the vote.

Would you believe your vote has an affect in such an election?

Why do you think BP produces emissions? They may be evil, but it’s not out of malice, it’s for profit. People, like the 26 million residents of Australia, pay BP to give them more fossil fuels.

A top-down response, where governments just outlaw all extraction and burning of fossil fuels, would be a lovely, quick solution to the climate crisis. By all means, try and make that happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

One thing you can do today to make an impact is to adjust your lifestyle to give less money to the fossil fuel industry. An individual carbon footprint is small compared with a company, just like the money they give to BP is relatively small, when compared with their total profits. But when you add up all the customers, their money adds up to the revenue of the industry, and their carbon footprints add up to the footprints of the relevant companies.