How can you cut through the noise and reduce your carbon footprint? Professor Mike Berners-Lee presents the answer, with a guide to the carbon footprint of practically everything.

When it comes to the climate crisis, we all know that the clock is ticking. But few of us truly understand how to meaningfully change our lifestyles and play our part in ensuring the Earth remains healthy and habitable for future generations.
Is locally sourced meat better or worse than air-freighted fruit? Do data centres do more damage to the planet than volcanos? Will building a house, having a child or going into outer space unleash more carbon into the atmosphere?
Ten years ago sustainability expert Mike Berners-Lee wrote How Bad Are Bananas?, a guide to the carbon footprint of everything – offering a definitive, empirical account of how to calculate and meaningfully reduce our individual environmental impact.
Now the guide is back – with updates to include things that didn’t exist back in 2020, like Tweets, Bitcoins and the Cloud.
From the World Cup to space tourism, electric scooters to Google searches, plastic bags to swimming pools, this livestreamed talk will survey the modern world through an empirical lens, offering facts and anecdotes in the tradition of Bill Bryson and other great communicators – and teach you how to do your part in ensuring our planet has a robust and healthy future.

Praise for Mike Berners-Lee:

‘It is terrific. I can’t remember the last time I read a book that was more fascinating and useful and enjoyable all at the same time.’ – Bill Bryson
‘An engaging book that manages to present serious science without preaching. It offers tools that any reader will be able to use and make informed choices, and even seasoned ecoenthusiasts will be in for plenty of surprises’ – New Scientist
‘Enjoyable, fun to read and scientifically robust. A triumph of popular science writing.’ – Chris Goodall