Pollution Footprint

“Consumers may have to make personal sacrifices, by giving up things they use and enjoy, in favor of less familiar technologies.”

William Rees, the man who invented the phrase ecological footprint, said “governments and the corporate sector” don’t wish to make the “changes needed.”

The oil company BP once tried to promote the "footprint as a way of blaming consumers. But BP was careful never to suggest a boycott.

Rees thinks “the [footprint] idea can still be useful…
if the climate movement reclaimed the concept and took it [away from] oil companies.”

“Short car trips … use a shocking amount of energy”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approves permits for fossil-fuel facilities based upon citizens having a "need for them.

“Need” means how often you and I purchase the polluting product.

“Odds are that your biggest single source of ghg emissions each year is air travel.”

"Every time we shop we’re voting with our wallet"

“A single gallon of gasoline or jet fuel creates over 20 pounds of carbon dioxide”.

In general, the better-off / better-educated you are, the bigger your opportunity to radically reduce your pollution output.

What is your fair share?

Try your hand at the pollution footprint budget game?

Peter Kalmus works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In his book, Being the Change, he writes:

“Some…leaders in the environmental movement…have outsized carbon footprints … Burning fossil fuels should be unacceptable socially…our actions speak louder than…words.”

Project Drawdown came up with a quiz about ghg pollution. Test your knowledge?

Our news media often describe global warming as a creature that bothers us, rather than as an atmospheric condition which we create.

“Every energy reduction we…make is a gift to…all life on Earth.”

Wanna leave…footprints on the sands of time? Make a commitment.