• Bon Appétit’s Online Low Carbon Calculator

    This summer, Carleton’s dinning halls will switch to a new dinning service, Bon Appétit.  Bon Appétit advertises its “food services for a sustainable future”.  While it will be up to Carls to see for themselves just how environmentally sustainable Bon Appetit’s food is, they sure do have a very cool website related to determining the environmental impact of meals.  Simply drag each dish or food item into a digital frying pan and the site will calculate carbon dioxide equivalent points (grams of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases emitted to put that food on your plate).  I used this handy tool to determine that I can cut my carbon emission in half by choosing a veggie omelet over a meat and cheese omelet.  And, it is very specific.  For example, when selecting fruit you can select whether fruits are seasonal or tropical and when selecting meats, you can specify the cut (deli slices, tenderloin, prime rib, etc).  Through testing out various combinations of food, I learned that a grilled tenderloin beef dinner has one of the largest carbon footprints of all meals.    The sight also includes meal specific tips on how to go on low carbon diet (such as, “lose the cheese on that burger”) 
    To begin exploring the carbon impact of your own diet, check out:
    http://www.eatlowcarbon.org

  • An article about Shrinking Footprints at the New Yorker

    New Yorker

    Michael Specter at the New Yorker writes one of the best pieces I’ve read on the dilemmas we face as we try to address global warming. I highly encourage you to read the article.

    The piece covers Britain’s Tesco, a Costco/Sam’s Club-like company, that is attempting to provide carbon footprint information next to the price of the item being sold. While describing Tesco’s carbon accounting methods, he drifts into a lot of fascinating discussions about food and the history of cap-and-trade in a way that can only be done by a columnist for the New Yorker.

    Here are just a few money quotes:

    Stephen Pacala, the director of Princeton University’s Environmental Institute, recently estimated that half of the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions come from just seven hundred million people, about ten per cent of the population.

    Photo by Flickr user Walsh used under a Creative Commons license

  • Battle of the Sexes- Carbon Footprint Edition

    Via Celsias,

    “Men are more responsible for climate change than women, according to a report from Sweden’s Environment Advisory Council. The report found that “women live more sustainably than men, leave a smaller ecological footprint and cause less climate change”, in the words of author Gerd Johnsson-Latham. Breaking down the lifestyle and consumption patterns of men and women in both rich and poor countries, researchers investigated mobility, access to resources, and the ways that we spend money. The results are fascinating, and disconcerting. But why, exactly, would men be more to blame for climate change?”