Is Your Carbon Footprint BS?

July 29, 2021·48 min·3 clips

The average American's carbon footprint is 16 tons per year against 50 billion tons globally, making the individual contribution 0.00000003—'a decimal point and then nine zeros and then a three.'

Anna brings Ayanna and Alex a sibling argument. She and her brother agree on plenty, but they keep running into the same fight: personal choices or systemic, policy based climate action. The hosts take that seriously without letting it get stiff. A listener dispute becomes a sharper question about where limited attention can cut emissions fastest. Electric vehicles come up as one clear path in transportation. Refrigeration gets time too, with natural refrigerants treated as a practical fix for a major industry problem, not some misty future hope. Shame does not travel very far. The conversation pushes back on trying to solve climate change one bike ride, one vegan choice, or one private pledge at a time. Bill McKibben brings the math. Climate change has huge numbers, brutal timelines, and very little room for tiny symbolic wins. Katherine Wilkinson's point lands hard as a warning against spending all your energy trimming a personal footprint. Then BP becomes the punchline. Its 2019 carbon footprint calculator tweet gets held up as corporate theater, and the irony is loud. The episode still leaves room for action. It just aims at guilt that keeps people busy while policy, industry, and structural cuts do the heavier work.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed climate argument about leverage, not guilt.

Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Bloomberg frame a familiar climate dispute around leverage: where can action do the most good? They take a listener's tension about individual versus systemic change and, with Katherine Wilkinson and Bill McKibben, steer it toward the biggest…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When you want the carbon-footprint debate cut down to what actually moves climate action.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from How to Save a Planet