Greener Living
Tipping Points Aren’t Just for Climate Catastrophes
A letter from the editor of Bloomberg Green
Solar panels are reflected in the windows of an electric vehicle at a Volkswagen plant.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The personal carbon footprint has a dismal origin. It’s true — an oil company came up with it. An oil company also invented the lithium-ion battery. And now 1 in 10 new cars sold worldwide are electric, according to a recent finding from BloombergNEF.
How it started shouldn’t be confused with how it’s going. Climate change, after all, is the process of something as negligible as carbon-dioxide molecules accumulating bit by bit until the planet shakes. It’s easy to overlook that tipping points aren’t just for desertification, collapsing ice sheets and coral bleaching.