- Environment
What’s Your Climate Shadow?
Published December 18, 2023
5 min read
Amidst the enormity of the global climate crisis, individual actions may seem futile. Do actions like installing LED lighting or keeping car tires inflated really make a difference for saving the polar bears?
One popular method to assess personal contribution to climate change is through a carbon footprint calculator. However, the “climate shadow” has emerged as a more holistic and meaningful alternative.
First coined by writer Emma Pattee, the climate shadow aims to paint a picture of the full sum of one’s choices—and the impact they have on the planet.
What is a climate shadow?
In an article she wrote in 2021, Pattee detailed her concept for measuring an individual’s impact: “[Your climate shadow is] a dark shape stretching out behind you. Everywhere you go, it goes too, tallying not just your air conditioning use and the gas mileage of your car, but also how you vote, how many children you choose to have, where you work, how you invest your money, how much you talk about climate change, and whether your words amplify urgency, apathy, or denial.”
While your carbon footprint may shrink if you place solar panels on your roof, for example, your climate shadow would, in contrast, grow when talking with your neighbors about your choices. Even the social impact of simply displaying solar panels would influence the size of your shadow. Studies show having neighbors with solar panels pressures nearby residents to install their own.
In other words, rather than incentivizing purely individual actions, your climate shadow grows when those actions inspire others, knowingly or otherwise.
The problem with a carbon footprint
By their nature, carbon footprint calculators highlight individual actions while ignoring the impact of large industries or the role governments play in limiting them. Critics of carbon footprint calculators argue, for example, that they have been coopted by oil companies to shift blame and attention away from them and on to everyday consumers.
“A carbon footprint is a quantitative metric measure of righteousness,” explains Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a professor at Texas Tech University. “And people use it to feel good about themselves,