Why is it So Hard to See Our Unsustainable Behaviour?
The fundamental issue comes down to an economy structured around growth at all costs.
Since 1990 the world has emitted over 750 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It’s difficult to imagine 750 billion of anything, let alone a gas you can’t see, smell or touch. This is the problem with the climate crisis, and ‘sustainability’ generally, or rather, the unsustainability of human behaviour. The problem is on such a massive scale that we can’t see how our behaviour feeds into it. How can our little actions lead to a planetary change?
Carbon Visuals was set up in 2009 to help people ‘see’ carbon dioxide. One way they did this was to imagine emissions formed a uniform layer over the Earth’s surface. If they did, a day’s worth of current emissions would make a layer the thickness of a piece of paper. One year’s worth would blanket the planet in a 31-millimeter-thick layer. Ten years' worth would create a planetary-sized blanket 3.1 meters thick.
While useful in helping us visualise just how much carbon dioxide we’re emitting, the Earth has a circumference of 24,901 miles (40,075 km). It’s hard to visualise a blanket 3.1 meters thick that stretches thousands of miles.
