One short definition of the collective carbon footprint is “the total greenhouse-gas emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, or product, expressed as carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent.” The gasses include CO2 (from various sources), nitrous oxide and methane (both mostly from agricultural sources—meaning many food sources), hydrofluorocarbons (from refrigeration, air conditioning, and aerosols), perfluorocarbons (from semi-conductors, refrigeration, and aluminum production), and sulfur hexafluoride (from electrical substations and magnesium smelters).
The footprint, therefore, is the cause; climate change is the effect. But skeptics claim that no substantial, tangible evidence exists to support the contention that this is a real global problem. And some say taking serious measures to decrease the impact of the footprint is certainly not worth depleting world economies in the process, even if the Earth as we once knew it appears to be changing right before our eyes.
A case in point lies at the heart of something called the CO2 Coalition, reportedly funded in large part by energy executives and conservative foundations. It is now a component of a panel called the Presidential Committee on Climate Security, which, according to the February 28, 2019 edition of Energy and Environment News, has been formed to “question assertions by the U.S. intelligence community that climate change is a risk to national security.” Scientists worldwide, however, are sounding the alarm that rising sea levels alone pose such a risk.
The familiar slogan “Take only memories (or pictures); leave only footprints” is a cautionary admonishment to visitors of environmentally sensitive wilderness areas not to discard any waste that would detract from the future experience of enjoying the world’s resources in their natural state. Depending on the source, many scientific experts today say we’re leaving a significant, different type of “footprint,” and it’s getting progressively, and some say inexorably, worse—unless the planet’s population acts now.
A Chief Denier
One of the most notable critics of global-warming’s viability is Dr. Patrick Moore, a Canadian scientist since 1971 and now a reputed nuclear-power lobbyist. President Donald Trump referred to him as a founder of the environmental-activist group Greenpeace (which Greenpeace denies), when the president tweeted in March 2019: “The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science!” This, incidentally, came immediately after Dr. Moore’s appearance on the “Fox and Friends” morning TV program.
In testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on February 25, 2014, titled “Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting ecosystems and economies,” Dr. Moore claimed “there is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.”
Moore also questions the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), which he said were based on “judgment” and “not the result of any mathematical calculation of statistical analysis. They have been ‘invented’ as a construct within the IPCC report to express ‘expert judgment,’ as determined by the IPCC contributors.”
Moore also criticizes the use of “sophisticated computer models” when predicting the effects of global climate change, testifying that “we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods.” Instead, he urges looking “at the historical record,” with which “we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time.” [Editor’s note: it is worth mentioning that life on Earth 500 million years ago was largely restricted to the planet’s oceans.)
The Carbon Footprint Believers
What we know today as the carbon footprint evolved from what started—according to a December 26, 2019 article by Anders Hayden, author of the book When Green Growth Is Not Enough: Climate Change, Ecological Modernization, and Sufficiency—as the “ecological footprint (EF),” defined as the “measure of the demands made by a person or group of people on global natural resources.”
Hayden writes that such a measurement, as it applies today, “has been used to highlight both the apparent unsustainability of current practices and the inequalities in resource consumption between and within countries.” The equation Hayden lays out is an estimate of what’s needed “to provide renewable resources that a population consumes and to absorb the wastes it generates—using prevailing technology and resource-management practices—rather than trying to determine how many people a given land area or the entire planet can support.”
“Unsustainability” appears to be the key word in the ecological footprint outlook, which means that “not only must current impacts be calculated,” Hayden writes, “they must be forecast based on accelerated consumption, if life practices in the United States and the world do not change course.”
The consequences include such problems as “deforestation, soil erosion, species loss and water depletion, as well as increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, triggering the cascading effects of climate change.”
Canadian ecologist and University of British Columbia Professor William Rees created the EF concept and later teamed with one of his proteges, an urban planner from Switzerland named Mathis Wackernagel, who developed the concept further in his doctoral dissertation under Rees’s supervision. Together, Wackernagel and Rees wrote Our Ecological Footprint (1996), which outlines the concept in detail.
Today, Dr. Wackernagel is founder and president of the Global Footprint Network, which “envisions a future where all can thrive within the means of our one planet.” Its stated mission is “to help end ecological overshoot by making ecological limits central to decision-making.”
Earth Overshoot
In an August 2018 press release regarding “ecological overshoot,” Wackernagel stated that we’re executing a classic pyramid scam on the environment. “Our current economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet. We are borrowing the Earth’s future resources to operate our economies in the present.” As such schemes work, which have been deemed illegal, time eventually runs out, and, as Wackernagel contends, “they eventually fall apart.” Deeming that “the issue is not only environmental but also political and ethical,” he states, “When it comes to global resources, not everyone is treated equally. One the biggest challenges of climate change is the disparity of resource consumption among classes, countries, and regions.”
Reporting for earthday.org on July 26, 2019, the organization’s communications manager, Brandon Pytel, declared, “It’s official. We’ve exhausted Earth’s natural resources for the year...and it’s only July.” The 29th of July was predicted to be 2019’s date at which “human demand...has surpassed what the Earth can regenerate in a year,” and it was the earliest Overshoot Day since the 1970s. This means that those resources are being depleted 1.75 times faster than they can be regenerated. Pytel concludes his report with a quote from Dr. Wackernagel: “We have only got one Earth—this is the ultimately defining context for human existence. We can’t use 1.75 [Earths] without destructive consequences.”
Carbon Offsets
A recent article by Miriam Cross, an associate editor at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, attempts to demystify the concept of “carbon offsets,” a relatively new way in which people can help compensate for the footprint they’re making.
She writes, for example, that travel by air is a leading culprit on the carbon-footprint list and points out that consumers can “offset” the effects of commercial flight by paying for it via online organizations that, for example, would facilitate your monetary payment into a carbon neutralizing endeavor (carbonfund.org is one such popular purveyor of offsets). The idea is to pay a fee targeted at planting trees and erecting wind turbines “in a bid to counterbalance the damage your flight has done to the environment.” As an example, she cites now-famous Greta Thunberg, the teenage environmentalist from Sweden who shunned flying from England to New York for her appearance before the United Nations and instead took “a carbon-neutral sailboat.”
No matter which mode of travel one uses, Cross says, “carbon-offset sellers will calculate your carbon footprint...and translate the tons of carbon dioxide emissions triggered by your trip into a dollar figure that can help fund carbon-reducing or carbon-prevention projects around the world.”
Those who want more control over how their money is spent, Cross suggests, should “consider donating to a green charity or nonprofit.” The story’s bottom line, however, is actually quite simple: “the best way to reduce your carbon footprint, experts point out, is to cut back on activities and purchases that generate carbon dioxide in the first place.” And if that isn’t possible, carbon offsets and green-minded donations are potential solutions.
“It Would Take Five Earths”
From his office at the Global Footprint Network in Oakland, California, the organization’s founder, Dr. Mathis Wackernagel agreed to an exclusive interview with us for this report.
How do you counter what has been said and advanced by people such as Dr. Patrick Moore, who disagrees with the entire carbon-footprint premise?
Patrick Moore is a character and likes controversy, and I would not characterize his perspective as supported by scientific analysis. Yes, plants capture and feed off carbon dioxide. But the link to climate change not being a threat is a bit tenuous.
What is the average carbon footprint for people in the United States, and what activities or items contribute to its makeup?
If everybody lived like U.S. residents today, it would take five Earths [to sustain our way of living]. Dr. E.O. Wilson, biology professor from Harvard University, advocates that humanity should only use 0.5 Earths in order to maintain a stable biosphere, including preserving a good portion of biodiversity. So, you get a sense how far off we are. In the United States today, 72 percent of the overall demand is carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning.
What activities or items are trending upward or downward in recent years?
On a per-person level, the demand has been decreasing in the United States over the last 20 years. But is still at a very high level.
To mitigate environmental impacts, what is the cost of controlling our footprint to industries, businesses, governments, and individuals?
It is all about cost benefit. What is the cost of overusing the planet versus the cost of reducing our demand? If we continue to overuse, it will be difficult to fuel our future economies. So, a fundamental question is how much we value our future. Is the value of our children’s lives the same as the value of our generation’s lives? Or should they [the children] be valued only at one half or one quarter? If so, then it is okay to live with depletion? If not, then depletion is the wrong business model.
Regarding the concept and business of buying carbon footprint offsets, exactly where does the money go, and how does the system work?
Like with any service—having your clothes washed, for example—there can be a contract. You plant and maintain a tree. I pay you for it. If you do not maintain the tree, you must pay the money back. If you do not pay the money back, I sue you, because I have a contract. So, it is pretty straightforward. Currently, the carbon market is voluntary, meaning that you do not have to offset your carbon. But once you make a contract for your still-voluntary effort, it is a real contract, much like it is voluntary whether you buy a watch or not. But if you buy a watch, there is a sales contract.
Is all the expense, money, time, and effort truly worthwhile and making a tangible difference? If so, exactly how?
If you think depletion is fine, and the future is worth little, then you may reach the conclusion that depletion is just fine. My preference is that we give each generation the same rights—and taking from them would, in my view, be unethical.
Aside from acknowledging the criticality of minimizing the carbon footprint across the general population, what other options exist or are currently being discussed or planned?
Assuming that you do not want more carbon in the atmosphere, there are two options: you can reduce emissions, or increase sequestration. Like a bathtub, you can stop adding water, or increase the drainage.
