Book Tip No. 62 (2023): Mike Berners-Lee: How bad are bananas? The carbon footprint of everything.

New Edition. Updated and Expanded. New York 2020.

By Hans-Christian Riekhof

Do you know the carbon footprint of bananas, avocados, flight mangoes, swimming pools, diesel cars and electric cars? Or of flights, cruises and trips in an almost empty ICE?
One might think that this could become a boring read after 10 pages and a few good and meaningful statistics would have been enough.

But far from it. Mike Berners-Lee manages to prepare the topic of carbon footprint with exciting comparisons, with methodological background knowledge, with vivid everyday examples and small anecdotes.

Clearly presented, it is also suitable as a reference work, because you don’t want to remember all the numbers and data. What the book definitely achieves: a sensitization for your own CO2 footprint. Ultimately, almost all our activities that we undertake on this earth contribute to CO2 emissions.