Rethinking carbon footprints

By focusing public attention on individual choices, your commute, your cup of coffee, your weekend city break, the 'carbon footprint' campaign diverted scrutiny from the systemic scale of fossil fuel extraction and combustion

Dr Michelle McKeown: "In 2004, BP (formerly British Petroleum) amplified the term through a glossy marketing campaign centred around an online 'carbon footprint calculator'. Suddenly, climate responsibility had a personal, almost confessional dimension. You, dear consumer, were being asked, how guilty are you? It was a masterstroke of corporate sleight of hand."

When was the last time you thought about your carbon footprint? Chances are it was while hovering over a recycling bin, agonising about whether a greasy pizza box belonged in the 'compost waste', 'recycled waste', or 'general waste'. The term has seeped so deeply into our collective vocabulary that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. But here’s the thing, the concept of the carbon footprint, far from being a grassroots tool of eco-activists, was popularised by the very industry most responsible for pumping carbon into the atmosphere... Big Oil.

A footnote on origins