Climate anxiety is growing and it can feel hopeless as an individual trying to turn a global tide. This is especially true if you’re like me and don’t have the skills to improve electric cars or develop renewable energy. So although we can’t focus on fixing carbon emissions, we can focus on getting the most out of carbon emissions. Borrowing the business concept of return on investment, I suggest we take a hard look at our return on carbon footprint.

Finding enjoyment and utility out of pollution may sound outrageous. I mean, shouldn’t we feel guilty whenever we hop in a car or catch a flight? I know Google Flights is trying to guilt trip us by showing the kilograms of carbon with each flight.

But we should remind ourselves that the reason for all this pollution is for us to live a good life. It's incredibly hard for most individuals to affect change in the mix of our energy inputs as those decisions are made at a government and industry level. So instead of focusing on the inputs, I'd argue we should instead be focusing on our mileage. We should make sure that we maximize the life outcomes of pollution. We should optimize for leading happy and productive lives so that all the pollution that powers our society has not gone to waste. This is especially true if you live in an industrialized country like the US or Canada where your carbon footprint is massive relative to the average person in the world.

Now one of the biggest thing that you can control in life that can affect your happiness and productivity is your job. At this point I want to introduce the concept of a bullshit job. Anthropologist David Graeber describes bullshit jobs as

…jobs which even the person doing the job can’t really justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist.

Graeber’s categorization of bullshit jobs include:

Flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important.

Goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer.

Duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently.

Box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not.

Taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it.

I like to believe that most people in industrialized countries and white-collar jobs don’t have bullshit jobs but I accept the reality that most jobs do come with some bullshit. This is my call to action for you. Consider switching jobs if you think your current job is bullshit or find the bullshit parts of your job and eliminate it. While you can’t control the carbon inputs of your life very easily, you can control the by products of all that pollution. Minimize the bullshit in your job because the Earth shouldn’t suffer for pointless meetings, vanity projects, and busywork.