4.7 • 219 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
The concept of a “carbon footprint” began as a distraction from Big Oil: get people to focus on their own actions rather than the impact of large emitters. Oil companies come up with PR campaigns all the time, but the carbon footprint took off because it taps into a question we keep coming back to, can our choices lower emissions? If so, how? And if they don’t, why bother? This week, Akshat is joined by Kira Bindrim, the editor of Bloomberg Greener Living, which focuses on consumer choices, to talk about what she’s noticed in a year of editing stories about products, misconceptions, and how much people just love to read about electric cars. Plus, we break down her carbon footprint.
Read more:
Listen to related episodes of Zero:
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Gilda Di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshutrati. |
0:03.0 | This week, choices, controversies and carbon footprints. |
0:08.0 | There are plenty of controversial things about climate change. |
0:21.7 | That it is not happening is not one of them. |
0:25.2 | The science is clear. |
0:26.6 | Humans burning fossil fuels is the primary reason behind heating the planet. |
0:31.5 | And cutting those emissions to zero will stop the rise in global average temperature. |
0:36.9 | Where the legitimate controversies lie is on how we get to zero. |
0:41.0 | That's because there isn't one solution or even one set of solutions |
0:45.5 | that will help achieve that goal in every country on the planet. |
0:50.8 | There's plenty of good debate to be had about why one solution is better than the other |
0:55.0 | and what are the best ways to deploy those solutions. |
0:59.0 | There are also legitimate concerns around who should be responsible for those solutions, |
1:04.0 | corporations, governments or individuals. |
1:07.0 | Today we are going to delve into understanding the agency that individuals have to affect change. |
1:13.6 | While it's clear there's no way to get to zero without systemic changes, |
1:17.6 | it's also true that there's a growing role that individuals can play as consumers or as agents of systemic changes. |
1:26.6 | However, often the conversation around individual action on climate starts off on a |
1:32.8 | controversial metric, carbon footprints. |
1:35.8 | The very idea of any individual feeling accountable to this is something that the oil |
1:39.5 | companies who are far more accountable would like you to believe. |
1:42.8 | It's a proxy for talking about blame. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.