A Reporter at Large: Big Foot: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_specte...1 of 8 3/31/2008 9:20 AMAA REPORTER AT LARGEBIG FOOTIn measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science.by Michael SpecterFEBRUARY 25, 2008little more than a year ago, Sir Terry Leahy, who is the chief executive of the Tesco chain of supermarkets, Britain’s largestretailer, delivered a speech to a group called the Forum for the Future, about the implications of climate change. Leahy had neverbefore addressed the issue in public, but his remarks left little doubt that he recognized the magnitude of the problem. “I am not ascientist,” he said. “But I listen when the scientists say that, if we fail to mitigate climate change, the environmental, social, andeconomic consequences will be stark and severe. . . . There comes a moment when it is clear what you must do. I am determined thatTesco should be a leader in helping to create a low-carbon economy. In saying this, I do not underestimate the task. It is to take aneconomy where human comfort, activity, and growth are inextricably linked with emitting carbon and to transform it into one whichcan only thrive without depending on carbon. This is a monumental challenge. It requires a revolution in technology and a revolution inthinking. We are going to have to rethink the way we live and work.”Tesco sells nearly a quarter of the groceries bought in the United Kingdom, it possesses a growing share of the markets in Asia andEurope, and late last year the chain opened its first stores in America. Few corporations could have a more visible—orforceful—impact on the lives of their customers. In his speech, Leahy, who is fifty-two, laid out a series of measures that he hopedwould ignite “a revolution in green consumption.” He announced that Tesco would cut its energy use in half by 2010, drastically limitthe number of products it transports by air, and place airplane symbols on the packaging of those which it does. More important, in aneffort to help consumers understand the environmental impact of the choices they make every day, he told the forum that Tesco woulddevelop a system of carbon labels and put them on each of its seventy thousand products. “Customers want us to develop ways to takecomplicated carbon calculations and present them simply,” he said. “We will therefore begin the search for a universally accepted andcommonly understood measure of the carbon footprint of every product we sell—looking at its complete life cycle, from productionthrough distribution to consumption. It will enable us to label all our products so that customers can compare their carbon footprint aseasily as they can currently compare their price or their nutritional profile.”An excessive carbon footprint has become the equivalent of wearing a scarlet letter. Photograph by Horacio Salinas.A Reporter at Large: Big Foot: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_specte...2 of 8 3/31/2008 9:20 AMLeahy’s sincerity was evident, but so was his need to placate his customers. Studies have consistently demonstrated that, given achoice, people prefer to buy products that are environmentally benign. That choice, however, is almost never easy. “A carbon label willput the power in the hands of consumers to choose how they want to be green,” Tom Delay, the head of the British government’sCarbon Trust, said. “It will empower us all to make informed choices and in turn drive a market for low-carbon products.” Tesco wasnot alone in telling people what it would do to address the collective burden of our greenhouse-gas emissions. Compelled by economicnecessity as much as by ecological awareness, many corporations now seem to compete as vigorously to display their environmentalcredentials as they do to sell their products.In Britain, Marks & Spencer has set a goal of recycling all its waste, and intends to become carbon-neutral by 2012—theequivalent, it claims, of taking a hundred thousand cars off the road every year. Kraft Foods recently began to power part of a NewYork plant with methane produced by adding bacteria to whey, a by-product of cream cheese. Not to be outdone, Sara Lee will deploysolar panels to run one of its bakeries, in New Mexico. Many airlines now sell “offsets,” which offer passengers a way to invest inprojects that reduce CO2emissions. In theory, that would compensate for the greenhouse gas caused by their flights. This year’s Super Bowl was fuelled bywind turbines. There are carbon-neutral investment banks, carbon-neutral real-estate brokerages, carbon-neutral taxi fleets, andcarbon-neutral dental practices. Detroit, arguably America’s most vivid symbol of environmental excess, has also staked its claim.(“Our designers know green is the new black,” Ford declares on its home page. General Motors makes available hundreds of greenpictures, green stories, and green videos to anyone who wants them.)Possessing an excessive carbon footprint is rapidly becoming the modern equivalent of wearing a scarlet letter. Because neither the goals nor acceptable emissions limits are clear, however, morality is often mistaken for science. A recent article in New Scientistsuggested that the biggest problem arising from the epidemic of obesity is the additional carbon burden that fat people—who tend to eata lot of meat and travel mostly in cars—place on the environment. Australia briefly debated imposing a carbon tax on families withmore than two children; the environmental benefits of abortion have been discussed widely (and simplistically). Bishops of the Churchof England have just launched a “carbon fast,” suggesting that during Lent parishioners, rather than giving up chocolate, forgo carbon.(Britons generate an average of a little less than ten tons of carbon per person each year; in the United States, the number is about twicethat.)Greenhouse-gas emissions have risen rapidly in the past two centuries, and levels today are higher than at any time in at least the past six hundred and fifty thousand years. In 1995, each of the six billion people on earth was responsible, on average, for one ton of carbon emissions. Oceans and forests can absorb about half that amount. Although specific estimates vary, scientists and policy officials increasingly agree that allowing emissions to continue at the current rate
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