Slightly more than a quarter chose the “Other” option, with Melanie, Lee, Kathrine, and “J” noting that both are important.

It’s hard to disagree with that answer, but what if we made choosing it answer a bit more difficult? If you have to choose one, either all of our efforts focused on individual actions, or focused on regulating large emitters, which would it be?

What are your thoughts on the concept of a carbon footprint? In the past, this metric, used to measure the amount of carbon an individual’s lifestyle generated, was one of the most prominent features in environmental messaging. It seemed to offer a neat, well-defined way to understand exactly how much your lifestyle contributed to climate change, and, accordingly, some direction in how to reduce that.

While not without value, the carbon footprint concept was popularized by the public relations arm of the oil giant BP, principally as a way to emphasize the need for individual action, with the goal of diverting attention from the need to regulate activities of corporations such as itself.

Just to give a sense of individual vs corporate responsibility, global subsidies to fossil fuel interests in 2020 amounted to nearly $6 trillion. This is what fossil fuel companies are desperate to protect. On the other hand, if every single person on the planet were to stop eating meat, stop purchasing fast fashion clothes, and minimize their air travel, GHG emissions would be reduced by only 25% of what is necessary to meet the Paris Accord goal of limiting warming to less than 1.5°C.

Finally, one person reached out via email saying they would like to explore this issue further, asking if there was any way to facilitate a more in-depth conversation about it.  If anyone would like to get involved in a discussion on this, or, for that matter, any other issue, let us know. We’d be happy to help facilitate that.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments, below.