Your 'Carbon Footprint' Is A Scam

Your "Carbon Footprint" Is A Scam – Second Thought

New video every Friday!

Citations and Further Reading:
Ecological Politics for the Working Class

Big Oil Coining “Carbon Footprint”

Ecological Footprint

BP ad

1 million website visitors

Exxon private research and 10 year public catch-up

Oil industry kills electric cars

Carbon emissions drop during the 2020 pandemic

Oil Industry Misinformation/Disinformation/Lobbying/Ads

Individual consumption related to political action

“Voting with your dollar”

Collective Action

Big Oil Spends 1% on Renewables

Follow and Support Second Thought!
CashApp: $JTChapman

Watch More Second Thought:

About Second Thought:
Second Thought is a channel devoted to education and analysis of current events from a Leftist perspective. Welcome!

[gkplvlv]

It's just another way to blame "personal responsibility", which of course only applies to the working/middle class, and never does a company need to be responsible and held to account. Great video as always!

[claudiax]

While it’s important to be environmentally conscious and responsible, people need to stop lumping regular people with corporations, politicians, and the over consuming rich.

[archdukefranzferdinand]

It’s so sick, when I was in grade school in the 2000s the whole recycling/ “reduce your carbon footprint” craze I feel had kicked in at full effect. They mandated recycling bins in all classrooms when I was in the third or fourth grade. Being a kid who loved animals and nature I bought into it hard. I would pickup cans and any other litter anywhere I saw it and carry it to the trash can, I encouraged people to recycle. Sad to see that childish/naive yet well meaning feeling of making a difference slowly diminish with time. As I grew older the whole environmentally friendly craze only grew yet I would look around and nothing seemed to change, it seemed as though these things were getting worse. To a child it was incredibly disheartening and confusing. Such a disgusting thing to sell people this notion that they could make a difference while perpetuating the behavior in the background that was actually making things worse the whole time. The difference people were trying to make was almost negligible while the real root of the problem only persisted.

[Banana_Split_Cream_Buns]

I proudly failed a core subject at university which had a major assignment asking me to write about Carbon footprints in a positive light. I knew it was bullshit then, but I could not articulate why. This helps me so much.

[FireFox-erqj]

My professor for my Environmental Issues and Changes that I took last semester constantly repeated in order to drill it into our heads that “the greatest scam in history is gas and oil companies convincing everybody that climate change is their own fault and that it is up you as an individual to fix climate change.”

[VarsVerum]

Wasn't it something like a single car factory produces more emissions than the entire population of NYC's individual consumption choices? I don't remember the specifics.

[popkick]

I like how you brought up the fact that our infrastructure is mainly car-centric, which inherently makes walking or cycling very difficult. Take it from me. I live in Houston, an infamously car-centric city. Believe me, places are so spaced out that it’s impossible to get to these places without a car and even dangerous to walk or cycle to those places.

[philleprechaun]

This reminds me of a "graphic novel" I read as a kid. The world was polluted to near toxically fatal levels because of the profit motive methods of the Owner class. Rather than address the pollution output of his factories and industries, a very wealthy man developed a "suspended animation" unit for himself and put himself in hibernation until that future time when mankind had solved the pollution problem. Leaving humanity to whatever fate happened. When he awoke, hoping to find a clean unpolluted world, he exited the chamber his unit was in only to find the world filled with toxic atmospheric pollutants and NO PEOPLE. As he was dying he found a plaque thanking and honoring him for the money he "donated" to building spaceships to get people to safety on a pristine new world. Viewing his indifference to the plight of the people, those people had just "appropriated" his assets and used them to discover and utilize the necessary technologies to leave earth, leaving it to him and people like him to 'survive' in the world he and his kind had killed.

[_Jaybefaunt]

These corporations always want to talk about personal responsibility but never about community responsibility. It's like me spilling a glass of water but then they dump thousands of gallons of water but blame me for the spill.

[OurChangingClimate]

Another great one!! Thanks for spreading the good word about the sham that is the carbon footprint. Loved that Matthew Huber quote!

[claytonkr]

When you realize that your whole life is basically an abusive relationship and the ones responsible for all of the worlds problems are the abusive partner and you have no other choice.

[lilsprugga]

I took that test 3 times making me better and better "behaved" ( eg live in a shared household of 10 & only have solar power, walk everywhere, eat only local food, etc) and it made no difference, I was still a problem. So, I figured it was lying.

[micah_clemente]

This is no different than the goals of plastic companies promoting recycling. Recycling alleviated people's guilt and the carbon footprint highlights consumer's guilt. Anything to shift the blame away from those who are truly responsible; corporations.

[ZERO_OX]

I've been saying this for years and how paying a voluntary "carbon tax" to offset your footprint is an obvious grift. Great analysis and coverage as usual Second Thought.✌️

[TheNocturnalLogician]

Thank you for making this video, I have been telling people for years that the "carbon footprint" thing is scaled for big businesses, not the individual. I'm glad that there is finally a cohesive video I can show people now.

[bradreed]

I’m tired of feeling like there is nothing I can do. I’m tired of feeling like Nietzsche’s “Last Man” who just gratifies his pleasures to distract himself from an inevitable destruction instead of doing something to prevent it.

We are all part of something bigger than ourselves whether we wish we were or not. Individually there isn’t much we can do, but if we each just try: if we each just try to live a little kinder; think a little harder; listen a little more; talk a little louder; care a little more, we can take back what it means to be human. I don’t think any of us are happy with the way things are.

None of us would have clicked on this video in the series of dopamine rushes if we were, if we didn’t want to take out our pacifiers and hear the truth of what’s happening. We live in the age of information and media, which means our attention is constantly occupied and we are being fed what we want to hear. I wish I was free of that, but YouTube has its claws sunk deep in me. The same goes for this video, I wanted to hear we can change things together, that there is hope. There is a little part of each of us that screams for things to change as we accept the status quo. As I occupy myself with diversions so I can avoid the ugly truths of my complacency and our world’s brokenness, a little part of me wants to care, wants to be human and a person again, wants to not just be a number, an investment, and a data profile.

That’s how we stop this, things won’t get better until we start listening to the strength inside of our hearts we want to ignore and exchange for comfort. If we do that together, we can be unstoppable.

[check]

Even if we reduce our carbon footprint significantly, oil companies will produce more CO2 emissions than us. It sounds contradictory that it’s the consumer’s fault and never the companies.

[flippedpickle]

One of the things I envy most about Europe, aside from healthcare, education etc, is the fact that their cities are designed to be mostly walkable and conducive for public transportation. Its ridiculous how much valuable space is devoted to just parking cars in the US.

[mrxwyqe]

"The greatest trick the devil ever pull was convincing the world that he didn't exist"I remembered that quote while watching this video.

[datbarricade]

I 100% agree with you as Carbon Footprint as a marketing tool to shift blame.

At the same time, as long as we are living within such a polluting economy and we have to choose between lesser evils to cover our basic needs. Being aware of our personal choices and their consequences is very much important. I have heard the excuse "My impact is minimal, so I can do whatever I want, it doesn't change anything anyway." too often. We need to change the system, yes, but we still need to change our choices within the system as well. We can not expect to buy the same products and consume the same goods, but suddenly it is going to be ecologically fine. When we change the system at the whole, we cannot expect to keep the products of the old system.