Carbon Literacy Project ᨒ ོ ☼

There was a carbon literacy session led by the UAL Carbon Literacy team which I decided to attend as it was recommended by the tutors and I could receive a certificate! To be very honest I was not super intrigued before the session, imagining a dry lecture-like session, and I have never properly learnt about carbon footprint, nor heard about Carbon Literacy Project. I’m very glad that I joined the session as it deepened my understanding of carbon footprint, climate emergency network, and what we could do collectively to slow down this concerning process – I’ve always felt a sense of emergency towards the exacerbating climate but did not know what I could do to help.

Many of the things we went through overlapped with what I’d learnt in high school biology class, which was my favourite subject. It felt nice coming back to it after 3/4 years and was nostalgic, surprised by how I remembered these in the back of my head. The game we played “Carboned Out” really allowed me to visualise the carbon footprint each everyday life activity emits. For example, I found it challenging to understand the concept of cloud storage and how that impacts the environment – but through playing this game, it was revealed that 50GB of cloud storage for a year would emit 90.7 kg of CO2E. It was shocking, thus I stated in my pledge that I would start using a hard drive instead to save my work! I believe that visualising the emission helps people to reflect on how their unconscious behaviour (eg; using the hand dryer in the bathroom, the choice of bank, use of social media, and what they consume…) could have a large impact on the planet. Changing these could be difficult as it’s “unconscious”, but if we could turn it into a conscious action I believe we could slow down the speed of harm that is being done to the environment.

I enjoyed the session more than I expected, and I’m happy that I now feel like I have a better understanding of what we could do to contribute. I think this session would be beneficial for people struggling with climate anxiety, which I sometimes feel as well – but after the session I’m not as worried as I used to be, knowing that there is a way to approach this gigantic problem.