"carbon footprint" is a creation of big oil

Apr 13, 2022 10:37:08

This has been laid at my feet more than a hundred times:

- the phrase "carbon footprint" is a creation of big oil

- if you talk about "carbon footprint" it is proof that you are a big oil stooge/shill/troll/etc.

- the only path to change is to get the bad guys to stop being bad, therefore, personal change makes zero change

My response to this is

- big oil and other bigs desperately need people to keep buying their shit; so my message scares them

- big oil and other bigs have hired a thousand people to go all over the internet and say

o keep buying our stuff
o one person cannot make a difference, so keep buying our stuff
o if you want to do something, do it on the rigged playing fields we have set up
- write to politicians
- write to companies
- complain on social media
o keep buying our stuff

Therefore: it is the actual shills/stooges/trolls pointing at me calling me a shill/stooge/troll.

I am advocating a path where a billion people can add luxury and coin to their lives while taking funds from the companies causing the problems.

I believe the people complaining about this message are hired by those same companies and are desperately trying to keep this billion people buying their stuff.

Of course, I could be wrong. This is just a guess.

Apr 16, 2022 09:55:40

paul wheaton wrote:- the phrase "carbon footprint" is a creation of big oil

- if you talk about "carbon footprint" it is proof that you are a big oil stooge/shill/troll/etc.

- the only path to change is to get the bad guys to stop being bad, therefore, personal change makes zero change

So sad that people respond this way. They could be shills. And/or they could just be so convinced (probably in part by the corporations) that they have no power and can't make a difference, that they may as well not try. Or they just don't want to actually look at what is going on and what they can do about it, because that would be uncomfortable and require them to change their behavior. So in their eyes, anyone suggesting that change actually is possible and personal action can make a difference, must be bad/wrong/crazy/a shill/etc.

Regardless of their reason for doing it, when I encounter people who talk like that, it makes me think of this great quote from Brene Brown, "If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgement at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.”

Apr 16, 2022 10:12:36

Heather Sharpe wrote: quote from Brene Brown, "If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgement at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.”

That is an excellent quote!

Apr 16, 2022 11:09:30

Although the fossil fuel industry did not develop the concept of "carbon footprint", it is technically correct that the industry, specifically British Petroleum, marketed the idea of "personal footprint" to achieve three goals. First, to create the impression that the industry was deeply concerned about, and committed to, solving the climate problem. Second, to shift attention away from the industry and onto individual consumers. Third, to allow consumers to avoid making truly meaningful energy reductions (e.g., avoid auto/air travel, reduce home heating/cooling, reduce meat in diet, etc.) while still convincing themselves that they were actively solving the problem ("I downloaded a carbon calculator! I bought a different lighbulb! I seperated glass and plastic in my trash!").

Of course, the danger for the industry in pushing for personal responsibility is that the concept is valid -- if enough people *do* take meaningful personal action, there might eventually be a significant drop in fossil fuel use and attendant profits.

From wikipedia:

Carbon Footprint

The idea of a personal carbon footprint was popularized by a large advertising campaign of the fossil fuel company BP in 2005, designed by Ogilvy. It instructed people to calculate their personal footprints and provided ways for people to "go on a low-carbon diet". This strategy, also employed by other major fossil fuel companies, borrowed heavily from previous campaigns by the tobacco industry and plastics industry to shift the blame for negative consequences of those industries ... onto individual choices.

The term "carbon footprint" was also popularized by BP ... BP made no attempt to reduce its own carbon footprint, instead expanding its oil drilling into the 2020s. However, the strategy had some success, with a rise in consumers concerned about their own personal actions, and creation of multiple carbon footprint calculators.

Aug 25, 2022 07:45:56

The psychological warfare here is amazing. It’s easy to spot in hindsight, but even if I was paid a handsome salary I’m not sure I could ever come up with something so cynical and effective.

It’s ubiquitous, everyone interested in “The Earth” throws the phrase around. It’s pretty easy to understand that the people as a whole minus outliers take what they are given.

Do we have a permaculture antithesis to this phrase that we can spread around? Ideally something 2 or 3 words.

Aug 25, 2022 10:50:28

paul wheaton wrote:
I am advocating a path where a billion people can add luxury and coin to their lives while taking funds from the companies causing the problems.

I believe the people complaining about this message are hired by those same companies and are desperately trying to keep this billion people buying their stuff.

I feel more aligned with Daniel's Quinn's take on this idea:

“Pharaohs

It took Khufu twenty-three years to build his Great Pyramid at Giza, where some eleven hundred stone blocks, each weighing about two and a half tons, had to be quarried, moved, and set in place every day during the annual building season, roughly four months long. Few commentators on these facts can resist noting that this achievement is an amazing testimonial to the pharaoh’s iron control over the workers of Egypt. I submit, on the contrary, that pharaoh Khufu needed to exercise no more control over his workers at Giza than pharaoh Bill Gates exercises over his workers at Microsoft. I submit that Egyptian workers, relatively speaking, got as much out of building Khufu’s pyramid as Microsoft workers will get out of building Bill Gates’s pyramid (which will surely dwarf Khufu’s a hundred times over, though it will not, of course, be built of stone).

No special control is needed to make people into pyramid builders—if they see themselves as having no choice but to build pyramids. They’ll build whatever they’re told to build, whether it’s pyramids, parking garages, or computer programs.

Karl Marx recognized that workers without a choice are workers in chains. But his idea of breaking chains was for us to depose the pharaohs and then build the pyramids for ourselves, as if building pyramids is something we just can’t stop doing, we love it so much.”
― Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure

Thus, no need to hire private spokespersons to pummel the masses with corporate messaging when the lemming effect, covering deep unrecognized fear, will do the job with insidious efficiency.

Oct 10, 2022 14:12:23

EVERYTHING GREEN AND GROWING USES CARBON DIOXIDE TO MAKE ITS FOOD.
Carbon dioxide is not the climate killer it's methane. More carbon dioxide means faster and more abundant plant growth.
If this wasn't then those who pump it into their greenhouses and grow rooms would use something else.
IMHO

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