How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of EverythingGreystone Books Ltd, 2011 - 232 síður Is it more environmentally friendly to ride the bus or drive a hybrid car? In a public washroom, should you dry your hands with paper towel or use the air dryer? And how bad is it really to eat bananas shipped from South America? Climate change is upon us whether we like it or not. Managing our carbon usage has become a part of everyday life and we have no choice but to live in a carbon-careful world. The seriousness of the challenge is getting stronger, demanding that we have a proper understanding of the carbon implications of our everyday lifestyle decisions. However most of us don't have sufficient understanding of carbon emissions to be able to engage in this intelligently. Part green-lifestyle guide, part popular science, How Bad Are Bananas? is the first book to provide the information we need to make carbon-savvy purchases and informed lifestyle choices, and to build carbon considerations into our everyday thinking. It also helps put our decisions into perspective with entries for the big things (the World Cup, volcanic eruptions, and the Iraq war) as well as the small (email, ironing a shirt, a glass of beer). And it covers the range from birth (the carbon footprint of having a child) to death (the carbon impact of cremation). Packed full of surprises-a plastic bag has the smallest footprint of any item listed, while a block of cheese is bad news-the book continuously informs, delights, and engages the reader. Highly accessible and entertaining, solidly researched and referenced, packed full of easily digestible figures, catchy statistics, and informative charts and graphs, How Bad Are Bananas? is doesn't tell people what to do, but it will raise awareness, encourage discussion, and help people to make up their own minds based on their own priorities. |
Efni
Introduction | 1 |
A quick guide to carbon and carbon footprints | 5 |
grams 16 A text message | 16 |
A cup of tap water 17 A web search | 17 |
Walking through a door | 19 |
An email | 20 |
Drying your hands | 21 |
A plastic carrier | 22 |
Being cremated | 115 |
kilos 220 pounds to 1 ton 116 New York City to Niagara Falls 405 miles and back | 116 |
Christmas excess | 118 |
Insulating an attic | 120 |
A necklace | 122 |
A computer and using | 123 |
A mortgage | 126 |
ton to 10 tons 129 A heart bypass operation | 129 |
grams to 100 grams 24 A paper carrier | 24 |
Ironing a shirt | 25 |
Cycling a mile | 26 |
Boiling a quart of water | 27 |
An apple | 29 |
A banana | 31 |
An orange | 32 |
An hours | 33 |
A mug of tea or coffee | 37 |
A mile by bus 39 A diaper | 39 |
A basket of strawberries | 41 |
A mile by train | 42 |
A 500 mL 16 oz bottle of water | 44 |
A letter | 45 |
A bowl of porridge | 52 |
Spending | 61 |
A red rose | 70 |
kilo to 10 kilos | 77 |
Taking a bath | 83 |
A quart of gasoline | 89 |
A steak | 97 |
kg 2 2 lbs of tomatoes | 99 |
kg 2 2 lbs of trout | 100 |
Leaving the lights | 102 |
kg 2 2 lbs of steel | 103 |
kilos to 100 kilos 22 pounds to 220 pounds 105 A pair of shoes | 105 |
kg 2 2 lbs of cheese | 106 |
A congested commute by | 107 |
A night in a hotel | 108 |
A leg of lamb | 111 |
A carpet | 112 |
Using a cellular phone | 113 |
Photovoltaic panels | 130 |
Flying from Los Angeles to Barcelona return | 133 |
ton of fertilizer | 136 |
A person | 137 |
tons to 100 tons 139 A car crash | 139 |
A new | 141 |
A wind turbine | 144 |
A house | 147 |
tons to 1 million tons 149 Having a child | 149 |
A swimming pool | 150 |
A hectare 2 5 acres of deforestation | 151 |
A space shuttle flight | 153 |
A university | 154 |
million tons and beyond 157 A volcano | 157 |
The World | 158 |
The worlds data centers | 160 |
A forest fire | 161 |
A country | 162 |
A | 168 |
Black carbon | 169 |
The world | 170 |
Burning the worlds fossil fuel reserves | 173 |
How the footprint of food breaks down | 176 |
Lowcarbon food tips | 180 |
Further information 183 Assumptions revisited | 183 |
The cost efficiency of selected carbonsaving options | 188 |
Where the numbers come from | 189 |
Notes and references | 196 |
Acknowledgments | 224 |
226 | |
Aðrar útgáfur - View all
How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything Mike Berners-Lee Engin sýnishorn í boði - 2010 |
How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything Mike Berners-Lee Engin sýnishorn í boði - 2020 |
Common terms and phrases
10-ton lifestyle accessed October 2009 air-freighted bananas boil Booths bottle carbon cost carbon emissions carbon footprint carbon impact carbon intensive carbon savings China climate change co2e average co2e per kilo co2e per pound consumed consumption cycle assessment deforestation Defra discount rate drive Ecofys efficient electricity embodied emissions embodied energy energy equivalent estimate farming fertilizer food miles footprint comes fossil fuels g co2e gallon gases global emissions grams greenhouse gas greenhouse gas emissions grid half heat industry input–output model Land Rover Discovery landfill less life-cycle look low-carbon manufacture methane milk million tons co2e nitrous oxide numbers option payback plastic production recycled reduce refrigeration scenario spend stuff supermarket supply chains take account there’s things tion total footprint transport tricity turbine typical wash waste wind turbine worth