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Tim Helm's avatar

In terms of reproductive fitness the carbon footprint is a brilliant concept. It is an idea containing every element necessary for viral success.

It individualises the problem, which redirects attention from politics to lifestyles, ensuring the problem remains. It also creates a new angle for product marketing, which shifts from "price and quality" to "price and quality and new attribute/moral status". It creates a self-sustaining industry of consultants available to measure an organisation's carbon footprint and advise on how to reduce it (or at least shift it to Scope 3/indirect emissions which are not typically reported). It also allows for individualised blame, which allows people otherwise lacking in coherent identity to define themselves and to self-actualise (to a point).

With this column you are effectively critiquing the musical merits of Baby Shark.

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drsmithy's avatar

"Unfortunately with greenhouse gas emissions, we don’t have a clear understanding of the problem—after all, the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising doesn’t automatically make it a problem. "

The people studying it seem to think they have a fairly good understanding.

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