Mike Berners-Lee 
How Bad Are Bananas? [EPUB ebook] 
The Carbon Footprint of Everything

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.



The book puts our decisions into perspective with entries for the big things (the World Cup, volcanic eruptions, the Iraq war) as well as the small (email, ironing, 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. Solidly researched and referenced, the easily digestible figures, statistics, charts, and graphs (including a section on the carbon footprint of various foods) will encourage discussion and help people to make up their own minds about their consumer choices.

Table des matières

Acknowledgements

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Introduction

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A quick guide to carbon and carbon footprints

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Under 10 grams / 1 ounce

A text message

A pint of tap water

A web search

Walking through a door

An email

Drying your hands

A plastic carrier bag

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10 to 100 grams / 1 ounce to six ounces

A paper carrier bag

Ironing a shirt

Cycling a mile

Boiling a liter of water

An apple

A banana

An orange

An hour’s TV

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100 grams to 1 kilo / 6 ounces to 2 pounds

A mug of tea or coffee

A mile by bus

A diaper

A basket of strawberries

A mile by train

A 500 ml bottle of water

A letter

1 kg of carrots

A newspaper

A pint of beer

A bowl of porridge

A shower

An ice cream

A unit of heat

A unit of electricity

Spending $1

1 kg of trash

Washing up

A toilet roll

Driving 1 mile

A red rose

1 kg of boiled potatoes

A pint of milk

1 kg of cement

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1 kilo to 10 kilos / 2 pounds to 20 pounds

A paperback book

A loaf of bread

A bottle of wine

1 kg of plastic

Taking a bath

A pack of asparagus

A load of laundry

A burger

A liter of gasoline

1 kg of rice

Desalinating a cubic meter of water

A pair of trousers

A steak

A carton of eggs

1 kg of tomatoes

1 kg of trout

Leaving the lights on

1 kg of steel

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10 kilos to 100 kilos / 20 pounds to 200 pounds

A pair of shoes

1 kg of cheese

A congested commute by car

A night in a hotel

A leg of lamb

A carpet

Using a cellular phone

Being cremated

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100 kilos to 1 tonne / 200 pounds to 1 ton

London to Glasgow and back

Christmas excess

Insulating an attic

A necklace

A computer (and using it)

A mortgage

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1 tonne to 10 tonnes / 1 ton to 10 tons

A heart bypass operation

Photovoltaic panels

Flying from Los Angeles to Barcelona return

1 tonne of fertilizer

A person

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10 tonnes to 100 tonnes / 10 tons to 100 tons

A car crash

A new car

A wind turbine

A house

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100 tonnes to 1 million tonnes / 100 tons to 1 million tons

Having a child

A swimming pool

A hectare of deforestation

A space shuttle flight

A university

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1 million tonnes/tons and beyond

A volcano

The World Cup

The world’s data centers

A forest fire

A country

A war

Black carbon

The world

Burning the world’s fossil fuel reserves

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More about food

How the footprint of food breaks down

Low-carbon food tips

A guide to seasonal food

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Further information

Assumptions revisited

The cost efficiency of selected carbon-saving options

Where the numbers come from

Carbon tables for countries, people, industries and products

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Notes and references

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Index

A propos de l’auteur

Mike Berners-Lee is founding director of Small World Consulting, an associate company of Lancaster University (UK) specializing in organizational responses to climate change. His research, often in partnership with Lancaster University or the Crichton Carbon Centre, includes the development of leading footprint tools based on environmental input-output analysis, life cycle analysis, and hybrid methodologies.
Berners-Lee’s commercial client work is focused primarily on enabling realistic and credible understanding of greenhouse gas impacts for the purposes of practical decision making. Berners-Lee’s clients include major supermarkets, architecture firms, and numerous small- and medium-sized businesses interested in reducing their carbon footprint, including farms, hotels, and breweries.