A carbon footprint corresponds to the whole amount of greenhouse gases produced to support a person’s lifestyle and activities. It’s generally accepted that if you care about the climate, you’ll figure out what your carbon footprint is so you can take steps to reduce it.

I care about the climate.  But I was finding it really hard to sit myself down to figure out what my own personal impact on it was.

Taking stock of our personal emissions profile is psychologically threatening.   We all like to think of ourselves as good people, so how can we rationalize that in going about our daily lives – going to work, heating our homes, preparing meals  – we are contributing to a global disaster that has already turned millions of people into climate refugees and killed scores of others?

This mental conflict can be so uncomfortable that people will take great steps to avoid looking too closely at their own emissions or behaviours.  Just raising the topic among friends kills conversation, or worse,  prompts a discussion of other people’s climate hypocrisy – “Yeah, but they eat a lot of meat don’t they?” – so powerful is our instinct to defend our psyches.

I also worried that in clearly establishing what my emission levels are, I would feel an obligation to take action to reduce them.  But what if that called for taking steps that I am unable or unwilling to take?  It would create a troubling inconsistency in my self-image. I was afraid of that.

Before I could review my carbon footprint, had to confront my own fears that by opening this black box, I would risk feeling shame, and guilt or that I’d be exposing myself to criticism.   

Climate Change: Mostly A Mental Problem?

Researchers and policymakers realize that climate change is not only a scientific problem, it is a psychological one.  Figuring out how to help people think about climate change, so that they believe, engage and act on the issue is in many ways, just as important as developing the technologies required to cut emissions.

The problem is that the realization that an individual’s actions contribute to climate change can threaten their self-interest and compromise their psychological integrity. That threat to self-interest is at the root of ‘denialism’- a refusal to accept and even deny scientific evidence.  

Even if someone is not an outright denier of the data, the three dominant ways through which people think of climate change provoke a lot of negative emotions.  These “mental frameworks”: apocalypse, uncertainty and high costs/losses, provoke overwhelming negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, anger, despair and fear.   Those negative emotions don’t help people to engage constructively in the issue, they are more likely to cause us to withdraw, freeze, and give up rather than take action.

Reframing My Way Forward 

Psychologists and communications experts believe that reframing how we view the topic of climate change is a critical step in changing human behaviour and encouraging individuals to take action.  Stressing immediate local benefits, thinking of the climate as a moral issue and promoting positive, hopeful narratives are among the ways that experts suggest people reframe their thinking.

So as I sat down to confront my own reluctance to assess the emissions that I was personally responsible for, the following points were helpful to me in changing how I thought about the issue:

1. Blaming and shaming each other is not a plan – so don’t buy into it. When you stop and think about it, berating individuals into giving up their way of life is no way to solve the climate crisis.  Research has shown that providing individuals with feedback on their past climate behaviours is among the least effective forms of intervention to promote pro-environmental behaviours.  Behavioural scientists recognize that promoting feelings of shame also risks increasing defensive responses in individuals, including anger, rejection and avoidance. 

Solving the climate crisis requires transitioning our global economy from a fossil fuel-based system to one based on renewable energy.  That is going to require a massive collective action – the sort of action only governments can bring about.   Being overly focused on individuals can be harmful because it takes our attention away from the thing that is really important- rapid and effective government policy development and implementation.

2. Drop the guilt – Emissions are a by-product of life.  Just to stay alive we all produce waste.  We need to breathe, stay warm, build shelters, and cook our food – and in doing so we produce emissions.  It’s a fact of life. It creates a problem that needs solving, but it’s not productive to feel emotional about it.

In a similar way, in the course of living humans produce sewage – but you don’t feel guilty for pooing do you?  As human societies grew and evolved into cities, we had to develop systems to cope with the growing problem of sewage.  It would have been silly and a waste of time to try to get people to “stop pooing” or “poo less”.   We had to create plumbing and sewers and treatment plants. 

Thinking of greenhouse gasses as a “sewage” problem that society needs to address, takes the “finger-pointing” out of the conversation and helps us remain focused on developing the new systems needed to solve the issue.

3. Don’t empower the oil industry’s efforts to deflect responsibility onto individuals.  Recognize that the idea to shift the focus of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions onto individuals was a deliberate plan created by the fossil fuel industry to deflect accountability and protect their business model. 

It has been well reported that in the 2000s, with concerns about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate mounting, British Petroleum, one of the world’s largest non-state oil companies, hired the advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather to help promote the idea that greenhouse gas emissions are not the fault of oil companies, but rather the responsibility of the individuals who use their products. 

It was BP that first came up with and promoted the notion of the “carbon footprint” – the implicit message being that it is individuals and households that are responsible for emissions.  In 2004, BP released the first-ever carbon footprint “calculator” so that individuals could be more precisely distressed about how their daily activities were affecting the planet, and focus less on the activities of oil companies and the government systems that supported them.

So if it was an oil company tactic, should you measure your climate footprint?  Absolutely – it’s often the first step in empowering individuals to take positive actions to help the climate.

But whatever your emissions “number” turns out to be – don’t buy into the idea that it’s all on you – it’s not.  There is an entire societal structure surrounding you that needs to change in order to cut emissions – energy policy, infrastructure, electricity grids, transport systems, building codes, and manufacturing regulations to name a few elements.  

Instead, you should feel proud that you can be counted among those taking constructive steps to solve humanity’s most pressing problem.

4. Be assured that you don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do – but do something.  The other big cognitive peril we face is that once we know our own emissions profile – we will feel compelled to do something about it.  For many, the solutions we hear most about call for us to make a massive change in our lifestyles (going vegan?, giving up your car?) or major financial commitments (buy a Tesla?, replace your home’s energy system?).  Perhaps most famously Greta Thunberg decided in 2019 that she would take a sailboat across the Atlantic to attend a climate meeting rather than fly.  Are these the kinds of commitments we’ll feel like we have to take on if we acknowledge our own responsibility to reduce carbon emissions?

Of course not.   Everyone’s climate journey starts in a different place, with different life circumstances, with varying capacities to take action.  Many of us have limited options when it comes to things like where we live, how we commute and what energy options are available to power our homes. We can only take steps that we are capable of and comfortable with. 

5. The example of your action is more important than how much you reduce your emissions.  The worst possible outcome is for people to think that the expectations of them are so great and so unacceptable, that they throw up their hands and check out of taking any action at all.

I can’t speak for Greta, but I’ll suggest that the value in her taking a sailboat instead of a plane to cross the Atlantic, is not to say that we must all do the same thing – that’s completely impractical.  The value is in the message about how important the climate crisis is and what some people are willing to do to solve it.

It is the examples of others that get people thinking and acting. We all influence each other.  Researchers have shown behaviours to reduce emissions are heavily influenced by peer groups, even more than cost or convenience. It could be that the most important way an individual can impact emissions is through the effect of social contagion.

If there is anything that we learned from the pandemic, it’s that contagion is exponential – it starts small but quickly becomes a powerful force.   As more people take action, the more that message grows.  As that message becomes stronger and clearer, the more likely it is that leaders and policymakers will feel like they have support to make the kinds of changes that will be transformational for the climate.

So don’t feel pressured into taking steps that you may not be comfortable with.  Do what you can and feel good about it.  Notice what others are doing and compliment them.  You’re getting the ball rolling and that helps create the conditions for large-step changes across societies.

Final Thoughts

Reframing my thinking about climate change was really helpful in getting me over some of the mental barriers holding me from acting.  A certain amount of “eco-anxiety” is needed to spur us to act, but an excessive amount is unhelpful and can lead to paralysis of action.  Remaining positive and hopeful, taking stock of progress and recognizing that our future is a choice are all essential perspectives to maintain balance and keep us moving forward.

In the end, I did figure out my footprint, which I will (gulp) write about in a future post. ■