0.000005%
For years we have been told climate change is coming. We see the beginning of its effects everyday. Shoulder seasons are shorter, ocean temperatures are rising, natural disasters are stronger and more common, and species continue to go extinct at a rapid pace. 'Carbon footprint' was first coined in 1999 by a BBC vegetarian food magazine.1 The source of most people's encounter with the phrase 'carbon footprint' does not come from a vegetarian magazine though. Instead, its roots likely reach to the marketing agency Ogilvy. The funding behind their 2005 campaign came from fossil fuel mega-giant BP. It is one of the most effective pieces of propaganda in the modern era. They were able to spin a crisis which is almost entirely caused by 100 companies,2 and place the blame on the average man, woman, and child. Since then, concerned citizens of the world have been driving less, eating vegan, and shopping second hand in an attempt to slow the progression what seems to be an inevitability. The scale of the variance is the even more astounding than the goal of the campaign itself. The average american contributes only 0.000005% of the emissions produced by BP per year: the average american at 16 tons of carbon emissions and BP at 340 million tons.3,4 For reference, it would take over 20 million people, the population of New York state, to match the emissions of BP. The important piece is that BP is not the only company responsible for tremendous emissions: Apple produces about 1.5 million times more emissions than the average person5 and the US military emits a whopping 51 million tons.6
Yet these large corporations (and government entities) have put the onus on everyday people. We have been coerced into believing if we make small changes in our daily lives it will save the planet. To some extent this is true. By some estimates if the entire United States replaced all beef consumption with beans it would reduce its overall carbon footprint per year by almost 335 million tons.7 A round trip flight from New York to London emits about one ton of carbon emissions. A family avoiding a vacation every year thus reduces the average American's emissions by 6%.8 Both of these measures combined would reduce the US carbon footprint by about 700 million tons of carbon emissions; equivalent toa measly two years of BP emissions.
To some it may not be a huge ask to cut out meet or avoid a summer vacation. There is some merit to asking people do a little for the greater cause of humanity. Sociologically it is good to have a rallying point, it drives innovation and excitement. Small changes can make a difference, especially if a vast swath of the population is on board. On the other hand, life loses a bit of its brightness if every choice we make is to combat the impending doom of climate change. An occasional cheeseburger and milkshake or family vacation should not be the difference that controls the balance of the fate of mankind.
Small changes to a normal person's life will never be a large enough to offset the true villains of behind climate change. In the end individual choices make no difference when large corporations and governments continue to emit at astronomical numbers. The common cause for mankind should be to call upon mega-emitters to make changes which reduce their emissions. A 5% reduction of BP's emissions would offset the carbon footprint of over 1 million Americans. Repeat this across all of the top 100 emitters in the world and it would make tremendous strides towards slowing climate change. The best part is that by doing so it means the rest of the world can choose to live happy lives, and our planet Earth and all its inhabitants can continue to do so as well.
Sources
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint#cite_note-97
2. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
3. https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability-indicators/carbon-footprint-factsheet
4. https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/bp-2022-emissions-unchanged-around-340-mln-t-co2-equivalent-2023-03-10/
5. https://www.theverge.com/23870317/apples-watch-series-9-carbon-neutral-climate-goal
6. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/01/military-emissions-climate-cop28/677151/
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7184671/
8. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year