by user678990655
more info here: interestingengineering.com/culture/carbon-footprint-coined-by-big-oil-to-blame-you-for-climate-change
“The oil giant British Petroleum (BP) actually hired PR professionals to invent a concept designed to blame individuals, not fossil fuel companies, for climate change. And it was BP that revealed the phrase “carbon footprint”, along with a “carbon footprint calculator”, in 2004. “British Petroleum, the second largest non-state owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals,” wrote the science reporter Mark Kaufman, in Mashable. “It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint” in the early aughts. The company unveiled its ‘carbon footprint calculator’ in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life — going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling — is largely responsible for heating the globe.”