ABSTRACT
Although the ‘carbon footprint’ is pervasively mobilized in public spaces as a quantifiable metric or an expression of a will to reduce emissions, this study situates the carbon footprint as a historically important, tension-ridden metaphor in the cultural politics of climate change. Close attention to its many figurations suggests that the carbon footprint is not a singular entity, but a uniquely catalyzing and constantly shifting set of figures that produce a variety of effects, not all of them biospherically beneficial. Rather than dismiss this ambivalence, this study insists on the importance of tracing both: 1) the promises of certain carbon footprint metaphors as disruptive forces that challenges the norms of anthropocentric, fossil fuel intensive, and geopolitically asymmetrical relationships; and 2) the risks of other carbon footprint metaphors as they serve to further authorize existing anthropocentric and market-driven norms that constitute the urgent matter of climate change and keep global asymmetries in place.
