The Carbon Footprint of Everything

Starred review from March 1, 2022
This new edition of How Bad Are Bananas? (2010) comes with a new title and updated numbers. The numbers are, as Berners-Lee states, "the best estimate we can get of the full climate change impact of something." His ideal for everyone on this planet is to adopt a five-ton lifestyle, referring to a person's carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) footprint per year; in the U.S., the average person's CO2e footprint is about 21 tons per year, so this is no small hurdle. In order to clarify what we do and use that generates this large of a footprint, chapters are divided by the amount of CO2e emitted, starting from less than 10 grams (like a cup of water or an email) to billions of tons (like wildfires and war) to those things that have negative emissions (like planting trees). Within each chapter are footnotes and references as to how Berners-Lee arrived at the numbers. He also includes chapters on what options exist to remove atmospheric CO2 and what each of us can do to lower our individual CO2e impact. This book, a user-friendly reminder of our environmental impact, will find an audience among patrons concerned about climate change.

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February 15, 2022
An up-to-date life guide for carbon-conscious readers. In this "extensively revised and updated" edition of his 2010 book, How Bad Are Bananas, Berners-Lee offers an easy, often amusing read. Unfortunately, despite the traditional what-we-can-do-to-fix-it final chapter, the end result is not more than mildly encouraging. Since the author wrote Bananas, the global climate crisis has gotten much worse. Temperatures are rising faster than predicted; weather has deteriorated; trees are flowering sooner than they should; polar ice is melting, and sea levels are rising. The author adds that humans produced 56 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, and emissions continue to rise, "as if humans had never noticed climate change." The average American has an annual carbon footprint of 21 tons, while the global average is just over seven. Berners-Lee proposes five tons as a sensible goal. This may sound impossible, but he reminds readers that America is a very unequal society, and the extremely wealthy drive the average up by their "carbon-profligate lifestyles." However, since a single commercial flight from New York City to Seoul burns around 4.7 tons, many readers will remain doubtful. With the unpleasantness out of the way, readers can enjoy the fun (at least at the beginning) as Berners-Lee reveals the carbon footprints of hundreds of elements in our lives, starting small--tap water, email, a paper bag, a diaper; then moving up to a roll of toilet paper, washing dishes, driving a mile, taking a bath, using a smartphone--and ending with the big stuff: making a ton of steel, a plane flight, space travel, wildfires, wars, deforestation. Ending on the traditional positive note, the author shows more good sense than usual. Individual efforts (recycling, bicycling) are trivial, but we should do them to create a new norm. If enough of us live within our carbon budget, wasting it (the norm today) will become uncool. More bad news about climate change but entertaining and often practical.

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