Why Big Oil loves to talk about your carbon footprint — DW Planet A, 2021, 12:46 —https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqZVCEnY-Us

In the early 2000s, the oil giant British Petroleum (BP) popularized the concept of the carbon footprint, loosely defined as the amount of carbon emissions each person produces through their unique lifestyle. BP even created a way for consumers to calculate their carbon footprint, and they heavily promoted the concept through a public relations campaign. Unfortunately, what this has effectively done is to individualize a social problem, thus turning attention away from corporate polluters and other structural factors fueling climate change. While the carbon footprint is appealing in an individualistic culture, and while individuals certainly bear some responsibility for climate change, the emphasis on carbon footprints primarily serves to distract us from more effective solutions to the climate crisis. This is not a new tactic for corporate polluters either. In fact, it mirrors the plastic industry’s emphasis on recycling as a solution to plastic waste.

Who bears the most responsibility for climate change? Where else do we see companies attempt to individualize the harm they create?

From the video’s description: Everybody keeps telling us to cut our carbon footprints. So how guilty should I feel about my personal emissions? And what's Big Oil got to do with it?