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How often do you travel by plane?
How much electricity do you use? These days everyone is worried about the size of their carbon footprint. In order to reduce global warming we need to make our carbon footprints smaller. But how much CO2 are we responsible for?
A new book by Mike Berners Lee (a leading expert in carbon footprint) might be able to help. How Bad are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything looks at the different things we do and buy, and calculates the amount of CO2 all of the following created: the ingredients, the electricity used in the brewery, the equipment, the travel and commuting of the beer, and the packaging. It’s amazing how many different things need to be included in each calculation. And it’s frightening how much carbon dioxide everything produces.
But all of this can help us decide which beer to drink. From Berners-Lee’s calculations, it’s clear that a pint (568ml) of locally-brewed beer has a smaller carbon footprint than a bottle of imported beer. This is because the imported beer has been transported from far away, and it uses more packaging. The local beer only produces 300g of CO2, but the imported beer produces 900g! So, one pint of local beer is better for the environment than three cans of cheap foreign lager from the supermarket.
Berners-Lee has even calculated the carbon footprint of cycling to work. Nothing is more environmentally-friendly than riding a bike, surely? Well, it depends on what you’ve had to eat before. To ride a bike we need energy and for energy we need food. So if we eat a banana and then ride a kilometer and a half, our footprint is 65g of CO2. However, if we eat bacon before the bike ride, it’s 200g. In fact, bananas are good in general because they don’t need packaging, they can be transported by boat and they grow in natural sunlight.
So, does this mean that cycling is bad for the environment? Absolutely not, for a start, if you cycle, you don’t use your car, and the fewer cars on the road, the fewer traffic jams. And cars in traffic jams produce three times more CO2 than cars traveling at speed. Cycling also makes you healthy and less likely to go to a hospital. And hospitals have very big carbon footprints!
So maybe it’s time for us all to start making some changes. Pass me a banana and a pint of local beer, please.
1. According to Berners-Lee, which of the following produces the most carbon dioxide?
A. A pint of local beer we drink.
B. A pint of imported beer we drink.
C. A banana we eat before a bike ride.
D. The bacon we eat before a bike ride.
2. Why are bananas good in general?
A. They grow naturally.
B. They produces less CO2.
C. They don’t need packaging.
D. They provide energy for cycling.
3. The underlined word “brewery” in Paragraph 3 most probably means “___________”.
A. a factory where beer is made
B. a machine which makes beer
C. a container where beer is stored
D. one of the things from which beer is made
4. To make our carbon footprints smaller, we should often ___________.
A. cycle to work
B. drink more local beer
C. calculate the amount of CO2
D. buy cheap things from the supermarkets
5. What’s the most suitable title for the passage?
A. Bikes, Beer and Bananas
B. Starting to Make Changes
C. How Big Is Your Carbon Footprint?
D. The Carbon Footprint of Everything
