Trying to figure out carbon footprints for manufactured products is absurd. Let’s take an extremely simple example. It must be easy to work out how much carbon it would take to produce and sell something as simple as a woodscrew, right?
Take a look at my attempt below and tell me if I’ve put anything in which is wrong (not if I’ve missed anything – I know I have). My aim here is to show how impossibly complex a full analysis would be, not even to try attempt a full analysis. I also want to show that an incomplete analysis doesn’t even give you a rough lower bound – it could even be too high if you don’t take everything into account (although it’s not likely to be).
Continue reading “Screwy Carbon Tax Calculations (unless they’re at source)”