The concept of "Carbon footprint" was fabricated by Ogilvy & Mather a PR company hired by BP, with the purpose of deflecting attention away from Oil&Gas industry and onto consumers.[0]
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...
What's "fabricated" about it? Are consumers not responsible for the carbon they emit through the gas they buy? If you drive a SUV or fly half way across the world for your vacation why should you be able to pass on the buck to BP/American Airlines?
If I run a nuclear power business commissioning power plants I am responsible for the nuclear waste that is generated. That means that I have to internalize the cost of proper waste management to avoid environmental impact.
If I run an Automotive business or a Refinery the emissions are a by-product of my activity. A costumer wants to go from A to B in a car they don't want to spew NO2 and physically reduce the longevity of everyone around them.
For anything related to fossil fuels the industry has largely got away with externalizing the environmental costs of their activity.
This is exactly the same as the plastic usage in packaging. Polluting saves on the industry bottom line, the externalized cost is somehow expected to be picked up by governments/citizens. This is the main point were we all disagree with you.
If you drive a diesel car, you can actually swap the diesel fuel with used cooking oil(after removing the impurities and doing a few modifications to the engine/car)
Yet, it is still not legal in France(among other countries) to do so for example. Why? because the government does not want people to stop paying 60% taxes each and every time they go to the pump to refill their tank.
Supposedly it will be legal soon but guess what, they are still going to tax the used cooking oil as if it was oil from the ground. So where is the incentive to switch?
This has been know for the last 15 years if not more. So yeah, I ll say consumers are not responsible for this mess.
Give people cheap EV and people will drive them. Where are they today? I am not a Musk die hard fan, but if Tesla had not shaken up the car companies and threaten them we would not even have electric vehicles today.
What did we have 10 years ago? A hybrid from Toyota and a few other car makers and that was it.
No this has been known for more than half a century.
In 1958 Bell Labs Bell Science hour broadcast on public 'The Unchained goddess' a 1 hour documentary. Human caused climate change is addressed at about 50:00 mark. [0] Note this is a public documentary not confidential research.
Since the early 80's Oil&Gas have adapted there oil platforms designs to deal with incoming sea level rises. [1]
We have been conned into an Antropogenic Climate Crisis for profit.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ph_7C1Jq4
[1] https://gizmodo.com/how-big-oil-rigs-the-system-to-keep-winn...
>Give people cheap EV and people will drive them. Where are they today? I am not a Musk die hard fan, but if Tesla had not shaken up the car companies and threaten them we would not even have electric vehicles today.
>What did we have 10 years ago? A hybrid from Toyota and a few other car makers and that was it.
The way you juxtaposed this is weird. You're implying that if there isn't some pain-free way for consumers to quit fossil fuels then they're not responsible and it's all on governments/corporations. Fossil fuels are currently used because they're the cheapest source of energy, so it's entirely unreasonable to expect that you can quit them without making personal sacrifices.
>Yet, it is still not legal in France(among other countries) to do so for example. Why? because the government does not want people to stop paying 60% taxes each and every time they go to the pump to refill their tank.
>Supposedly it will be legal soon but guess what, they are still going to tax the used cooking oil as if it was oil from the ground. So where is the incentive to switch?
That makes sense considering that the fuel taxes are for funding roads, not as some sort of carbon sin tax.
That's my point. Alternatives exists already but the governments are not enticing people to switch to EV or alternative fuel sources such as in my comment used frying oil.
Instead they tax the alternative as if it was regular oil coming from the ground.
You can't say that people need to switch/change habits if the alternative is no different than what you currently have.
> That makes sense considering that the fuel taxes are for funding roads, not as some sort of carbon sin tax.
That is not factually correct. The budget for road maintenance is not derived from these taxes. These taxes are simply used to plug the various gaps in the governments coffers.
Do some of these taxes end up being used for road maintenance? Certainly so but their primary purpose is simply to generate revenue for the governments.
See the articles seen on HN regarding the UK grappling with the fact that each year the fuel tax brings in around 30 Billion pounds that will need to be replaced once the transition to EV has been completed.
its the same in France FYI.
Sure we are responsible, but it's not our choice that this gas is emitted... we aren't the ones responsible to make the choice toward theses combustibles on the planes sadly.
Shifting it over the ones that actually have control over whether they use more or less gas, is a great way to incentive them to go toward the one that use less gas, as they only want the cheaper options, not the best options.
At the end of the day, we are still paying for it, but the one that do have the power to change it, now is the one that see it over their balance sheet.