This is a bit tangential, but it is a well-framed commentary which applies when we think about CDR.
cross-posted from: https://aus.social/users/ajsadauskas/statuses/111062337668091472
Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?
Since at least the 2000s, big polluters have tried to frame carbon emissions as an issue to be solved through the purchasing choices of individual consumers.
Solving climate change, we’ve been told, is not a matter of public policy or infrastructure. Instead, it’s about convincing individual consumers to reduce their “carbon footprint” (a term coined by BP: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook).
Yet, right now, millions of people couldn’t prepare a slice of toast without causing carbon emissions, even if they wanted to.
In many low-density single-use-zoned suburbs, the only realistic option for getting to the store to get a loaf of bread is to drive. The power coming out of the mains includes energy from coal or gas.
But.
Even if they invested in solar panels, and an inverter, and a battery system, and only used an electric toaster, and baked the loaf themselves in an electric oven, and walked/cycled/drove an EV to the store to get flour and yeast, there are still embodied carbon emissions in that loaf of bread.
Just think about the diesel powered trucks used to transport the grains and packaging to the flour factory, the energy used to power the milling equipment, and the diesel fuel used to transport that flour to the store.
Basically, unless you go completely off grid and grow your own organic wheat, your zero emissions toast just ain’t happening.
And that’s for the most basic of food products!
Unless we get the infrastructure in place to move to a 100% renewables and storage grid, and use it to power fully electric freight rail and zero emissions passenger transport, pretty much all of our decarbonisation efforts are non-starters.
This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice.
#ClimateChange #urbanism #infrastructure #energy #grid #politics #power @green
Text modified from CNN piece on KAB:
Keep America Beautiful (KAB) formed in 1953 when “a group of corporate and civic leaders met in New York City to bring the public and private sectors together to develop and promote a national cleanliness ethic.” Those leaders came from packaging and beverage corporations such as the American Can Company, the Owens-Illinois Glass Company and later Coca-Cola and the Dixie Cup Company.
Through various ad campaigns in the late ’50s and ‘60s, including the famous “Crying Indian” ad, KAB promoted messages about a growing litter crisis and urged citizens to keep parks and outdoor spaces clean. In doing so, critics noted, the organization shifted the public conversation away from the actual sources of litter — the growing numbers of disposable containers produced by beverage companies.
‘Carbon footprint’ is the KAB of the global warming movement.
