大象传媒

Remember when I said we should make Drake drag around a balloon the size of a blimp to illustrate his carbon emissions, to see, in living bling, his invisible carbon footprint? Of course you don鈥檛, because it was a muddy and vague visual. Barry Saxifrage has conveyed this idea so much more brilliantly by . And, well, it induces shock and straw.

Saxifrage examines the disconnect between how Canadians want to see ourselves (climate leaders!) and what we really are (climate laggards!) by going deep on trying to represent the average Canadian vehicle鈥檚 carbon emissions with straws. He uses two plastic straws to represent each gram of CO鈧�. In so doing, he can quickly visually articulate our emissions. When driving, we emit the equivalent of 15 straws every second, or 400 straws per kilometer. Yes, 400 straws EVERY KILOMETER. (Note: he鈥檚 using plastic pollution to convey our overall climate pollution. See handy and frightening chart below.)

Canada has the dubious distinction of , with the U.S. coming in a very close second. (Readers in other parts of the world, !) Our cars produce an average of 206 grams of climate pollution per kilometer. Which is how Saxifrage arrives at the 400 straws shooting out of our tailpipes every kilometer. 

Saxifrage鈥檚 other super salient visual representation uses plastic bags. The average Canadian burns 44 kilograms of CO鈧� every day. But it鈥檚 impossible to visualize what that means. Well, it鈥檚 the equivalent of littering 7,400 plastic bags a day. Aack.

I share all these representations not to induce guilt in myself or anyone else but to illustrate how little we know when it comes to seeing the pollution we produce. And to highlight that knowing this stuff does inform better choices. Research bears this out!  about carbon labeling suggests that just knowing a bit more about our emissions really shifts our purchasing habits. Participants reduced the climate impacts of their choices by 25% after choosing to learn about the emissions intensity of their products. Sarah DeWeerdt writes in Anthropocene:

The findings suggest that carbon labeling of food has the potential to shift behavior among those who aren鈥檛 looking for the information鈥攁nd even among those who are actively trying to avoid it. But to do that, the label will have to be carefully designed: for example, the information needs to be presented simply, and in a can鈥檛 miss spot on the front of the package. 鈥淚f a label is difficult to avoid, the effects are likely to be considerably larger,鈥� the researchers write.

DeWeerdt writes that you simply can鈥檛 unknow your food鈥檚 carbon footprint. And this rings true for me. A Toronto newspaper had a long-running feature about the unfathomable calorie counts of certain epic restaurant dishes. I like to think I don鈥檛 care about this stuff at all, but after  (a walnut chocolate chip disc the size of Kansas that really is the best piece of food on the planet), I could never unknow the fact that it clocks in at 1400 calories.  

Of course I鈥檓 alert to studies and information that reinforce my belief in the importance of making emissions visible to people. Not just so we鈥檒l reconsider our flights, but so we鈥檒l advocate for top-down policies that change things at scale, because we cannot stem the stream of straws alone, . At the same time, knowing about the straws and plastic bags is motivating.

I鈥檇 somehow made myself feel OK about purchasing a friend鈥檚 old car a few months ago鈥�we were going stir crazy, living in a tiny walkable radius no wider than a few blocks, and we wanted to go hiking outside the city. These weekend hikes have been our salvation, but we鈥檝e also put hundreds of thousands of straws of pollution into the atmosphere each time we take a drive to the forest. Picturing our emissions, spewing like so much suckery, makes me want to get back to public transit as soon as possible and commit to an EV if we are going to remain car owners after this GD pandemic ends. My exhaust exhausts me. And I can see it clearly-er now.

THIS WEEK

Got any tricks for visualizing emissions? I鈥檇 love to know!

LAST WEEK: Body cues for climate blues

Lots of feedback on body awareness. Writes N: My body has been falling apart for the past year. My spine x-ray showed my chiropractor I had the spine of a 45-year-old woman鈥擨’m only 25 lol.

Please take care of your spines!

And an extra dose of inspo!

Wednesday was Florida activist and wit Marjory Stoneman Douglas鈥� bday! I wrote a comic about her a while ago. I love her the most. It seems like a good time to :

Join a local environmental society, but see to it that it does not waste time on superficial purposes鈥� Don鈥檛 think it is enough to attend meetings and sit there like a lump鈥�. It is better to address envelopes than to attend foolish meetings. It is better to study than act too quickly; but it is best to be ready to act intelligently when the appropriate opportunity arises鈥�

Speak up. Learn to talk clearly and forcefully in public. Speak simply and not too long at a time, without over-emotion, always from sound preparation and knowledge. Be a nuisance where it counts, but don鈥檛 be a bore at any time鈥� Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action鈥�.

Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption, and bad politics鈥攂ut never give up.

Don鈥檛 sit there like a lump! I love it.

People dancing

 is the only thing keeping me from losing my mind as we enter our third stay-at-home order. !

Thanks much for reading. If you鈥檙e new here, I鈥檓 . I work on communicating the importance of good climate policy and carbon pricing by day, and this newsletter and my dance moves by night.

If you like MVP, you can support it by telling all your friends and frogs about it. Let me know when the newsletter is on the right track. Send me a note when it鈥檚 not! I鈥檓 always open to new ideas!

Sarah

P.S. This is my newsletter for the week of April 9, 2021, published in partnership with 大象传媒 Media. You can sign up to get Minimum Viable Planet newsletter emailed directly to you at .