– The carbon footprint of roses from Holland – which are almost always grown in heated greenhouses _ is six times the footprint of those shipped from Kenya.

– Watching a plasma TV for three hours every day contributes 250 kilograms of carbon to the atmosphere each year, but an LCD TV is responsible for half that number.

– factories throughout the world are burning 18 million gallons of oil and consuming 41 bn. gallons of fresh water every day, solely to make bottled water that most people don’t need.

– Each glass of orange juice contains an equivalent of 2 glasses of petrol once the transport cost is included.

– it is more “green” for those on the East coast of the US to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. *

Epicurus would say, were he alive today, that we should start a vegetable garden, walk everywhere and lead a simple life.  And yet, although maybe all of us try to do a few, probably marginal, things to ease global warming the whole social and political set-up under which we are brought up and live makes it very difficult to do anything meaningful.  The U.S is deliberately set up for high consumption with its in-your-face extreme capitalism.  It’s literally impossible for anyone there to do without a car for a start.

*Quoted in New Yorker 23 Feb 2008