It’s good to be mindful of your carbon footprint. But it’s also important to remember that the very idea of an individual “carbon footprint” was invented by BP, a massive oil company. There’s a famous 2016 cartoon by Matt Bors that has since become a meme, in which a medieval peasant says, “We should do a little better for society.” The smug man, trying to catch the peasant in his hypocrisy, replies, “And yet you’re participating in society! Curious!” When it comes to climate change, too many of us have adopted a smug attitude. Maybe we can’t afford to buy an electric car or a heat pump yet. Maybe we just can’t bring ourselves to stop eating meat or driving long distances. Maybe we’re sometimes lazy about recycling. We may be worried about climate change and want to do something about it. But after years of being fooled by our “carbon footprints,” we can feel like we’re too hopelessly compromised to do any good. I’m here to tell you not to be too hard on yourself. Yes, focusing on individual carbon footprints distracts from the need to make fundamental changes where they can have the biggest impact: at the corporate and government levels. The vast majority of people in this country want action on climate change, but too many of us are afraid to ask for it. “The consumer carbon footprint makes people so anxious and guilty that they feel like they don’t have the right to say what they think because they think they’re directly responsible for climate change,” Miranda Massie, founder of the Climate Museum in New York, which seeks to inspire people to take individual action, said in an interview. “It was a masterstroke of cartoon villainy.” Tim McDonnell of Semaphore recently noted that changing consumer behavior has the potential to cut 5 % from global emissions. He published a chart based on research by Diana Ivanova of Leeds University and others that shows how much individual consumption choices can save carbon. Using her data, I created a similar one of my own: A person who hands over their gas-guzzling SUV to a repo man; stops eating animals and dairy; gives up their annual vacation to Greece; installs a heat pump and solar panels; and sends their dog away to a nice farm in the upstate where he can run and play, saving up to six tons of carbon dioxide per year. (Mark Gongloff, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)