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There are three key statistics everyone should know about reducing your carbon footprint.
1. 0.2 tons: the amount of carbon dioxide a household eliminates per year by recycling efficiently. Even when all your cardboard boxes and every aluminum can and bottle are properly sorted and processed, the carbon savings are only equivalent to avoiding about 750 miles of driving.
2. 2.4 tons: the amount of carbon dioxide a person can eliminate by going car-free for one year.
3. 4%: This is the percentage of Canadian high school science textbooks that list the top four most effective climate actions as giving up a car, skipping trans-Atlantic flights, following a plant-based diet and having fewer children.
Together, these numbers highlight something concerning about our society. This misinformation has set our society up for failure.
In the early 2000s, British Petroleum hired a public relations firm to introduce the concept of the “personal carbon footprint.” BP had one objective: shift the moral weight of climate change from the fossil fuel industry to the individual. By 2007, three years after the seed was planted by BP, the term “climate footprint” became Oxford Dictionaries word of the year. BP got what it wanted, and from that point on, the carbon footprint calculator became a fixture of corporate sustainability websites. The message was clear: the problem is you, the solution is that you change.
Researchers Seth Wynes and Kimberly Nicholas quantify the deficit that this disinformation created. Going car-free saves 12 times more carbon per year than comprehensive recycling, and a single roundtrip trans-Atlantic flight costs more than three years of perfect recycling. The actions at the top of the list, that impact the atmosphere the most, are almost entirely absent from the pamphlets, school curriculums and government guidance that most people encounter. But shouldn’t one assume the Bay Area is doing better?
For residents of the Peninsula, this gap is easily closed. Reusable bags are ubiquitous, and recycling compliance is high. And yet this region also has some of the longest commutes in the country.
Now, research doesn’t say to make hard decisions; it says to make structural decisions, one-time or infrequent choices that reconfigure the emissions profile of daily life without requiring ongoing effort. Replace a gas furnace with a heat pump when it fails. Choose an electric vehicle when a car needs replacing, or replace a commute with a carpool.
A household that installs a heat pump does not have to remind itself to turn off the heat. A household that goes down to one car does not wake up each day and recommit to the choice; it’s already ingrained in their life. The emissions reduction is locked in, and the cognitive burden that comes with it is essentially zero. This is what makes structural decisions so much more impactful.
Local governments, schools, and community organizations in the Bay Area have the power to change that. However, given that the current federal administration believes that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” this challenge becomes harder. Regardless of the federal government’s position, California is in a unique position to act. A structural decision made in Menlo Park (switching a furnace or replacing a car) reduces emissions, whether or not the federal government believes it will.
Which brings us back to those three numbers: 0.2, 2.4, and 4. The blue bins at every street corner isn’t the issue, and neither are the people throwing their Starbucks in them. The problem is that for 20 years, the most powerful and actionable information about climate change has been withheld by those in power.
California has decided not to make that decision, and neither should the people who live here.
If your furnace breaks down in Atherton, a lease ends in Menlo Park or a car breaks down in Woodside – that singular moment means more than all the tedious recycling you can do. The math has always been there. Now you have it.
Gabriel Sanders is a resident of Portola Valley and a student at Menlo School who is passionate about having a positive impact on the environment in the most efficient way possible.
