Banana

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Bananas shipped to Europe from Latin America are actually not too bad ;) Much worse fruit culprits are frozen or dried, and grapes airfreighted from South Africa. Anything airfreighted really is terrible. Mike Berners-Lee minutely examines and calculates the carbon footprint (by weight) of many activities and items in his new book, How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything. This is yet another entry in the single-subject world of non-fiction. The narrowness of focus in books such as Salt and Cod and The Book on the Bookshelf and The Pencil and Longitude seems to be an increasingly preevalent trend in publishing. I am all for it on one level, since I like delving into the abstruse and wallowing in details that leave most people I know colder than a penguin's butt in the middle of the Antarctic winter; but on another level, I want to stop these publishers before they bore again with books inadequately edited and organized. Interesting, fairly well researched - there's a LOT of estimating and "roughly right" stuff here, but it's a fuzzy calculation, carbon footprint is- and every now and then the author says, "I guessed on this number" but he's guessing from a position of knowledge.

Bottled water has 1000x the carbon footprint as the stuff coming out of the faucet. Avoid anywhere you have decent tap water. There is a lot to learn about the impact of the banana on the world. And I would bet that all, or surely most of it, is in this book. Banana was a fun, educational and often surprising read. There is a lot of information to take in, and while you may know some of the info here, it is certain that there is a bunch you do not. Did you know that the banana tree isn’t properly a tree, but a very large herb? Neither did I. Or that the bananas we eat are considered berries? Say it ain’t so. Healthcare has a major carbon footprint, mostly due to electricity for hospital buildings and devices, and transport fuel. Finally, there are ways you can cook more efficiently. When boiling water, always use a lid so that heat isn’t wasted and lower the gas or electricity when you reach a boiling point so that you’re not using excessive heat. Also, make sure the stove and oven are off when not in use and consider using the microwave when it might be more energy efficient. By cooking more efficiently, you’ll be reducing your food footprint by another 5 percent.Most of us would probably guess that paper is better for the environment than plastic, but from the carbon dioxide equivalent standpoint, plastic actually beats paper. Sometimes, on long car trips with LSW, we compete for who can make up the absurdest micro-history title, following the pattern “X: The Y that Changed the World”, where X is the name of an object and Y is the category to which the object belongs. I remember suggesting X=Mauve, and then found out later there is really a book about this, proving that politics is not the only endeavor where satire has become obsolete.) A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world’s most humble fruit The average size of a carbon footprint varies from country to country, but it tends to be bigger in the developed world. In Malawi, for example, the average carbon footprint of a person is around 0.1 metric tons of CO₂e per year. The average person in the United Kingdom, however, measures up at around 15 metric tons per year, while the average North American comes in at around 28, and Australians at 30 metric tons. As for the planet as a whole, in 2007 we produced around 49 billion metric tons of CO₂e. In the chapters that follow, we’ll take a closer look at the steps you can take to adopt this lifestyle.

If you’re riding an electric-powered train, your footprint will vary depending on how many passengers you’re with – the more passengers, the smaller the footprint. On a crowded subway train, each passenger would be around 160 grams CO₂e. On a half-empty intercity train, it would likely rise up to about 300 grams CO₂e.

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A carbon footprint takes into consideration many harmful gases, and the average size varies around the world. So, LSW came home from book club with the suspiciously pat story that my name had been drawn “randomly” to choose a book for book club in the category… micro-history. My desire to avoid responsibility warred valiantly with my much more formidable desire not to cross LSW, who can be very fierce if provoked, I tell you from hard experience. I decided that choosing a micro-history was unavoidable. If you don’t recycle the letters and catalogs you receive in the mail, each letter will add around 200 grams CO₂e while the catalogs add 1600 grams. Over half of this footprint comes from post office procedures, such as sorting and transportation, while just over a quarter comes from the paper itself. Junk mail is the biggest offender of the paper industry, so opt out if you can. The author tried to infuse this work with an overarching drama, which is "a banana blight that is tearing through banana crops worldwide". This is a fact, however there seem to be some solutions in place, and at least several alternatives. In any case, some chapters end with sentences like "this is why the banana you eat today might be the last of its kind you eat. Ever!". Hilarious! But please, go on! Bring us another one of whatever this guy is drinking!!

To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the “apple” consumed by Eve is actually a banana (it makes sense, doesn’t it?). Entire Central American nations have been said to rise and fall over the banana. Since we know how potent all these other gases are in relation to CO₂, a carbon footprint provides an accurate reading on all the major harmful emissions being released. This conversion method is known as carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO₂e. I have always believed that you should get paper bags over plastic at the grocery store, but I'm somewhat ambivalent about that after reading Mike Berners-Lee's book, How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, plastic bags actually produce far less CO2 than their paper rivals. That is, of course, only taking one variable into consideration. Plastic bags don't break down over time and they are difficult and expensive to recycle. Then again, paper bags are also difficult to recycle and, if they are simply thrown away and end up in a landfill, Berners-Lee points out, they will rot and release methane into the atmosphere which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. I guess the moral of the story is don't worry about either option and bring your own reusable carrier bag--just make sure to reuse it and not throw it away, or that may be the worst option of all.Something also important to note with this book is that its information has aged in the 11 years since it has been published. This relevance is not a necessarily a negative aspect of the book as it was written for readers at the time, but reading about ideas new to people in 2007 such as organic foods or GMOs might bore a reader from 2018 who already knows a lot on the subject. Also, since the book doesn’t have the most up to date information on how bananas are fighting Panama disease now, I was encouraged to look up the information online. There's a lot that surprised me in this book (for instance, bananas are not only okay, they have a smaller footprint than carrots or ice cream or a red, red rose) and a lot that made me think. The author points out that much of what we do in the name of saving the planet is foolish- the frequent flyer executive who wrote in to ask if he should use paper towels or the hot air dryer in public restrooms got the eminently sensible answer that hand drying is so minor in comparison to the airplane trips, it's silly to even contemplate changing the one and not the other. When it comes to washing the dishes, your footprint is also going to vary depending on your methods. If you’re careful about the amount of water you use, it can be around 540 grams CO₂e, but if you’re wasteful with the water, it can climb upwards of 8 kilograms.