1 HN user recommended this commentary1 month2022–2026score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Cited in discussions of carbon footprints and corporate greenwashing, for the claim that the concept came from BP marketing.
Climate Town argues that the personal carbon footprint idea shifts blame to individuals and traces it to oil company marketing, urging collective and political action.
“The Climate Town channel on Youtube has lots of video's on this” (HN, 2026)
You know the carbon footprint concept was literally created by BP marketing, to place the blame for climate change on society, and distract from all the evil stuff they did to promote more fossil fuel consumption and sabotage climate science. The Climate Town channel on Youtube has lots of video's on this, such as this one: [this video]
Climate Town on BP marketing origin of the carbon footprint
> Maybe consider your carbon footprint when performing that next full code compile? Why "Carbon footprint" is a lie. [link] [this video] [link] That said being efficient is not a bad idea. There is a market for chips with less power consumption. A 250GB seasonal DL is kinda wasteful. But the solution to climate change (and it's not a crisis) is not atoning for our eco-sins. That's a misapplication of the JudeoChristian myth of sin/salvation.
Climate Town on why carbon footprints shift blame to individuals
Carbon footprints are a scam: [this video] Carbon offsets are a scam: [link] Hearing people talk about these give me the same vibes as techbros talking about stocks and crypto.
Climate Town argues the carbon footprint concept is a scam
>Given all those rhetorical shaming of individuals to consume less, it's illuminating to actually look at the data and see what's the actual the effect even if you could literally force (instead of shaming) everyone to live that lifestyle. Yeah, almost like the entire notion of a "carbon footprint" was a piece of propaganda produced by a literal oil company[0] to move the blame of polluting the planet from the corporations that knowingly did it, to earnest and empathetic individuals like the original person I replied to, causing them to abstain from vacation (and more) for negligible benefit while the corporations continue to pollute with impunity. [0] [this video]
Origin of the carbon footprint idea in oil company marketing
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
4 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes
Read more