It may come as a surprise to some to learn that that the term ‘carbon footprint’ is an invention of the fossil fuel industry. While Canadian ecologist William Reese coined the term ‘ecological footprint’ in the early 90s, an advertising company hired by oil giant BP, came up with the term ‘carbon footprint’ for a heavily promoted advertising campaign.
The purpose? To deflect responsibility for the damage they cause onto the rest of us. They wanted us to focus on our carbon footprint so that we didn’t look at theirs. This from a company which earns billions in profit each year, while it happily reaps the rewards of government tax benefits (taxpayers money) around the world, to extract and sell resources.
According to The Australia Institute, tax incentives allowed BP Regional Australian Holdings to reduce its total income from $17.4bn to zero taxable income in 2020-21. Similarly Ampol Ltd shrunk its registered total income from $20.06bn to a taxable income of zero. Exxon Mobile reduced its total income from $11.1bn to $645,312 and also paid no tax. While Chevron paid a whopping $30 in tax after reducing its total income from $9.16bn to $113.06m.
This impossible expectation for individuals to take responsibility for corporate greed is happening more and more, not just in the corporate domain, but governments too. The Victorian government is demanding that taxpayers contribute a levy to fund the essential emergency services desperately needed to respond to climate emergencies which are being turbocharged by fossil fuel companies.
I’m not suggesting that emergency services don’t need funding. Of course they do. And they’re going to need a heck of a lot more than what the emergency services levy will provide. But the climate catastrophes we’ve seen in recent years are not normal.
They are the direct result of too much carbon being spewed into the atmosphere. The CSIRO’s State of the Climate Report from 2024 confirms this. For too long the fossil fuel industry has been given carte blanche to f$ck up our environment and get paid handsomely while they do it.
Regional Victorians are angry with the Victorian Government over the essential services levy, and they have a right to be. One Nation is now exploiting this anger and has announced it’s running candidates in regional seats on this very issue. But One Nation will not be their saviour. Pauline Hanson is now cosying up with Trump fan Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person whose fortune was kickstarted by wealth her father made mining asbestos in Western Australia’s Wittenoom Gorge. The environmental legacy of that mining disaster is the southern hemisphere’s largest contaminated site which has been left to the Banjima Traditional Owners to deal with.
This is a monumental injustice. It’s time to make companies pay for all of the environmental damage they do. Make fossil fuel companies pay for the emergency services needed to respond to the climate disasters they’re causing. Yes, they already contribute some funds for these purposes but in comparison to their profits it’s chicken feed. They should pay for the bloody lot! And get them to clean up their plastic mess that’s choking the planet while we’re at it.
The ecological enshittification we are in has been caused by the greed of a small group of obscenely rich humans. But guess what? Humans can solve it. For decades we’ve had the technology and solutions for just about every problem you can mention. What we lack are politicians with the guts to implement them.
