Should I Care About My Footprint?

Show Notes

This Week’s Reason for Hope

EV Pickup Race is in On

Top three vehicles sold in U.S. in 2021 were all pickups

As demand for EVs increases, manufacturers are shifting

Hummer EV - released late 2021 at price of $108K
Chevy Silverado EV - on sale 2023 starting at $42K (pre-orders of high-level trim sold out in 12 minutes)

Ford Lightning EV

On sale this year starting at $30K
200K in reservations already booked
Planning to double production to 150K / yr

Rivian – on sale now with 55K pre-orders as of 10/31

Tesla’s Cybertruck – released delayed but will start at $40K and has racked up over 1M pre-orders

Sources

Silverado EV RST First Edition Reservations Fill Up In 12 Minutes (msn.com)

These Were the Best-Selling Cars in 2021 - Autotrader

Gas Mileage of 2021 Standard Pickup Trucks 4WD (fueleconomy.gov)

Rivian Reports R1T Production And Delivery Numbers For October (insideevs.com)

Tesla Cybertruck: Release date, News, Pricing, Range, More - Electrek

GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 Pickup Truck Customer Deliveries Begins (insideevs.com)

Does my Carbon Footprint Matter?

History of term carbon footprint

Fossil fuel company British Petroleum (BP) responsible for popularizing term “carbon footprint”

Launched $100M ad campaign in 2004 centered on term carbon footprint
Intended to shift blame of climate change onto individual
Released their own calculator

BP borrowed strategy that mimicked “don’t litter” campaign of 1970s

Plastic bottle makers posed as an environmental group (Keep America Beautiful)
Wanted to shift blame for plastic waste to consumers

2008 MIT study of carbon footprints

Looked at different segments of society including the homeless
Even eating at soup kitchens and sleeping in shelters homeless had a footprint of 8.5 tons of CO2 / yr
2020 average U.S. footprint = 15 tons CO2 / yr

Bill McKibben quote

“Say you have a certain amount of time and money with which to make change – call it x, since that is what we mathematicians call things. The trick is to increase that x by multiplication, not addition. The trick is to take that 5 percent of people who really care and make them count for far more than 5 percent. And the trick to that is democracy.”

Need advocacy to meet climate targets

Individual decisions control only a subset of emissions

Road and air transportation ~ 14%
Residential buildings ~ 11%
Agriculture, Forestry, Land Use ~ 18% (~ 14% meat)

Conservatively, > 60% of emissions out of our individual control

Noam Chomsky quote

“Markets restrict choices, sharply restrict choices. Mass transportation is an example. Mass transportation is not a choice offered on the market. If I want to go home today, the market does offer me a choice between a Ford and a Toyota, but not between a car and a subway.”

Sources

The devious fossil fuel propaganda we all use (mashable.com)

Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook | Rebecca Solnit The Guardian

The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing | Environment | The Guardian

Emissions by sector - Our World in Data

Tackling Climate Change through Livestock: A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities (fao.org)

Leaving our mark | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Per Capita GHG emissions (2016 data)

Canada – 16.93 tons

U.S. – 14.83 tons

Australia – 13.44 tons

Germany – 8.6 tons