Thanks for taking the time to respond, Anthony. I appreciate the distillation of your point. I still think the general concept of a carbon footprint is useful and can spur change.

As to your vegan point, no, we can't know with accuracy how much precise impact eschewing meat and dairy can have. But when things are complex, as most things climate-change-related are, sometimes a simple, intuitive computation might help? I.e., industrial animal agriculture is harmful in many ways, and a driver of climate change; eating less meat and dairy seems like a good idea. To me, it counts among the "obvious things" a person could do.

The calculations seem universally challenging. Is it better to get rid of my 2004 truck that runs on gas for a new EV? The truck still has plenty of life in it; won't someone else just end up driving it? And what about the supply chain for that new EV? Do we reduce helpful aerosols when we quit coal and wind up actually accelerating warming? Are cities a more a cause or a solution for climate change? And what's true and accurate about the effects of a greening planet?

Admittedly, I haven't looked deep enough into carbon footprint to understand why you might characterize it as "wildly inaccurate to the point of making it meaningless." Maybe I should play closer attention to your articles! I could just be arguing semantics. But, at base, I'm just loathe to discourage anyone from doing anything that promotes awareness of their environmental impact, or even just gets people thinking along those lines.

This went on way longer than I intended. Sorry!