The Low-Carbon Diet

(or how to lose half a tonne in just one month)

Sunday January 21, 2007
The Observer

Global warming is alarming, but there's no need to be defeatist: our future is in our own hands. Here Lucy Siegle offers 36 positive suggestions on how we can change our lives, reduce carbon emissions and help save the planet - all in the form of three simple and enticing menus, calculated not in calories but 'carbs'. And best of all, if you reduce your carbon footprint you can treat yourself, with a gloriously clear conscience

When I became the Observer Magazine's ethical living columnist two years ago I was inundated with questions from readers about recycling. Today, my postbag is still bursting with your questions, but now most of them concern spiralling carbon emissions. This only confirms what many of us now realise: that our addiction to a carbon-rich lifestyle is threatening the life of our planet. And, as everybody from Al Gore to Oprah Winfrey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Nicholas Stern and even Arnold Schwarzenegger told us last year, we must all radically 'decarbonise' the way we live.

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If you follow the diet described below, you will be taking the first steps to reducing the size of the one thing you have direct control over - your carbon footprint. Almost every aspect of your life affects the size of your carbon footprint. Leaving some appliances plugged in, for instance, increases energy consumption, and this increases the amount of fossil fuels burnt in power stations, which affects the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Other aspects of your lifestyle affect your carbon footprint in less obvious ways: your kids, for example, may have plastic toys produced in China - in which case China has emitted the CO2 on your behalf.

Responses to the CO2 problem vary. Tony Blair, fresh from occupying one of Robin Gibb's sun-loungers in Florida, recently pronounced curbs on long-haul flights 'impractical'. He's hoping technology will provide alternative, low-CO2 aviation fuels. But while he waits for Richard Branson to begin running a transatlantic fleet on hemp oil, the climate-change bomb is already ticking. A low-carbon lifestyle should begin inside your own four walls. Individuals are responsible for 85 per cent of the UK's total CO2 emissions. We therefore have the power to reduce emissions significantly by making low-carbon choices.

The past year has seen concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere continue to soar, and they are set to increase by 2.5 per cent annually. This is leading the planet into uncharted territory: higher temperatures, rising tides, the destruction of ice shelves, drought, failing crops, the mass movement of climate change refugees. The alarm has been sounded, now is the time for action...

It is in this spirit that we have come up with this carbon-saving diet: a one-month detox to reduce your planet-destroying size-11 carbon footprint into a dainty size 4. Good luck.

What is a carb?

To make the diet user-friendly, we have developed our own unit of measurement: the carb. One carb represents 100g of CO2. The aim is to lose as many carbs as possible until you meet your target 'weight'. As the average person is responsible for emitting 11 tonnes of carbon a year we have divided this by 12 to produce a monthly figure of 9,167 carbs. This is your starting 'weight'.

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Read the article.

Also see

It's carbon judgment day