I do understand your argument though. Carbon footprint calculators that guilt you with generalisations and factors out of your control don’t empower you to make a difference personally. I’m saying Mike Berners-Lee’s book ‘How Bad Are Bananas?’ was intended to arm the individual with the info they need to reduce the greenhouse emissions of their lifestyle.
The 2010 edition aimed to help readers get down to a 10 tonne CO2 (e) lifestyle and the recent edition aims for 5T.
The (e) means equivalents. I’ve explained more in some of the earlier articles on my Substack, but in essence he uses CO2(e) to incorporate other emissions beside CO2 into the calculations, as they too have a climate effect. It’s a standardising unit.
Thank you so much for the comments! I purchased a copy of that book but have not yet gotten to reading it. I plan to feature it in both Intertwine (my newsletter on climate and livign better) and in my newsletter Arguments with Books. No idea what angle I will because I haven't read it yet, but the Arguments with Books newsletter is where I am sorting thorught the various readings on topics that interest me. I will be very interest to see if this book yoru recommend can provide the detail and specificty I am looking for. So far, no calculators have been able to do so.
But because you see the principles at work and the book also estimates embodied emissions and shipping emissions, ( eg electric vehicles have a heavy initial footprint because of manufacture), it gives you the thinking tools to apply these facts to your own life. For each item discussed there is a range eg an Apple from your backyard vs one purchased regionally in season vs one imported out of season.
Hey! Me again! As I said before, How Bad Are Bananas is about doing exactly that. It’s written in such a way that you can use your common sense once you have the figures to know how those figures apply to you for a wide range of purchases. I wrote a piece a few months ago called ‘No Flowers By Request’ ( here on Substack ) which illustrates how it can be applied. It shows the effect of greening the grid too, as we can see how the effect of boiling a kettle or using the tube in the UK changed between 2010 and 2020, during which time the UK grid added lots of wind and solar power.
I do understand your argument though. Carbon footprint calculators that guilt you with generalisations and factors out of your control don’t empower you to make a difference personally. I’m saying Mike Berners-Lee’s book ‘How Bad Are Bananas?’ was intended to arm the individual with the info they need to reduce the greenhouse emissions of their lifestyle.
The 2010 edition aimed to help readers get down to a 10 tonne CO2 (e) lifestyle and the recent edition aims for 5T.
The (e) means equivalents. I’ve explained more in some of the earlier articles on my Substack, but in essence he uses CO2(e) to incorporate other emissions beside CO2 into the calculations, as they too have a climate effect. It’s a standardising unit.
Thank you so much for the comments! I purchased a copy of that book but have not yet gotten to reading it. I plan to feature it in both Intertwine (my newsletter on climate and livign better) and in my newsletter Arguments with Books. No idea what angle I will because I haven't read it yet, but the Arguments with Books newsletter is where I am sorting thorught the various readings on topics that interest me. I will be very interest to see if this book yoru recommend can provide the detail and specificty I am looking for. So far, no calculators have been able to do so.
I look forward to reading your write-up. Is Arguments With Books on Medium? If so I can look out for it there.
The articles eventaully show up there. But this is probably better: https://argumentswithbooks.substack.com/
But because you see the principles at work and the book also estimates embodied emissions and shipping emissions, ( eg electric vehicles have a heavy initial footprint because of manufacture), it gives you the thinking tools to apply these facts to your own life. For each item discussed there is a range eg an Apple from your backyard vs one purchased regionally in season vs one imported out of season.
Driving a small vehicle vs a large one etc etc
Hey! Me again! As I said before, How Bad Are Bananas is about doing exactly that. It’s written in such a way that you can use your common sense once you have the figures to know how those figures apply to you for a wide range of purchases. I wrote a piece a few months ago called ‘No Flowers By Request’ ( here on Substack ) which illustrates how it can be applied. It shows the effect of greening the grid too, as we can see how the effect of boiling a kettle or using the tube in the UK changed between 2010 and 2020, during which time the UK grid added lots of wind and solar power.