杏吧原创

a) In the clothes shop

A difficult choice: there鈥檚 a nice blue shirt but its label reads 鈥�50%
polyester鈥�. Or there is one made of 鈥減ure natural cotton鈥� but it鈥檚 almost twice
the price! Should I be prepared to pay that much more for something 鈥渘atural鈥�
that will surely be a greener product? YES/NO

b) On to the supermarket

Nothing makes me madder than to see heaps of disposable nappies for sale.
Everyone knows the enormous harm they do, choking landfills for years before
they rot away. And this is in stores that are advertising lots of green and
organic products! I decide to confront the store manager and tell him what I
think. Am I crazy? YES/NO

c) It鈥檚 time for a sandwich鈥�

I鈥檓 in a rush to get back to the office and dash into the local branch of a
takeaway food chain to snatch a 鈥渞eady to eat鈥� sandwich. It鈥檚 a difficult choice
between the traditional bacon, lettuce and tomato baguette, and the avant
garde vegetarian sushi. I decide to stay traditional. Good sense? YES/NO

d) 鈥�and a cup of coffee?

I nearly bought a cup of coffee too but they were going to serve it to me in
a polystyrene cup! Everyone knows that their manufacture is really damaging to
the environment. I opt for a bottle of pure natural French spring water instead.
Wise choice? YES/NO

e) Back to the office

As usual there鈥檚 a small crowd outside the office door, having a smoke.
鈥淭hink of the damage they鈥檙e doing to their health,鈥� I say to my friend. 鈥淭hat鈥檚
not the only damage they are doing,鈥� she replies. I expect she鈥檚 referring to
the effects of passive smoking. Could she mean anything else? YES/NO

f) home and into the garden

At least I can be proud of my large lawn, which I keep well clipped. Mowing
the lawn is good because it keeps the grass growing, and growing grass absorbs
carbon rapidly鈥攎y very own answer to global warming. Overall, I鈥檓 doing
pretty well? YES/NO

g) Contemplating my dustbin

It really upsets me to think of all the unnecessary packaging and other waste
that ends up in my bin. If I鈥檇 been born a century ago, everything would have
come in reusable jugs and jars and the amount of household waste would have been
a tiny fraction of what it is now. Wouldn鈥檛 it? YES/NO

h) Kill those cats

While I鈥檓 in the garden I throw a couple of rocks at the neighbour鈥檚 cats.
How can they be so selfish as to keep these evil creatures that do more to
destroy the natural environment than any mammal other than humans! Am I
overreacting? YES/NO

i) Something to celebrate

At least we are all using computers more and more and that should have one
big advantage. Instead of getting all that junk mail through the door, I should
be just getting electronic marketing messages, which saves a lot of trees. But
the trouble is, I think I鈥檓 getting more junk mail than ever. Am I right? YES/NO

j) Time for a baked potato

Getting hungry again and feel a senseless desire for a baked potato. Shall I
cook it the traditional way in a hot oven and have a potato with a delicious
crunchy skin? Or just go for a mushy microwaved version? I decide I can鈥檛 wait
and go for the microwave. Good decision? YES/NO

k) Into the bathroom

Every time I clean my teeth it鈥檚 the same. About 30 seconds after I start I
suddenly feel guilty about the running water and remember to turn off the tap.
But I can鈥檛 really be wasting a lot. How much water do I use if I leave the tap
running?

A: It only adds up to a couple of cups every time I brush

B: It might be a bucketful a day鈥攁bout 9 litres

C: Brushing morning and night would fill a bath every two days

l) and finally a bath鈥�

All this worrying has left me longing to lie in a hot bath. But I鈥檓 feeling
so guilty now about wasting water on a bath rather than a shower that I decide
to invite my partner to share the bath with me. Still can鈥檛 get rid of the
guilty feeling though. I wonder, to really make this bath more economical than a
shower, how many partners would I need to share it with?

A: 2 B: 3 C: 7

Answers

a) No. Sadly, intensively grown cotton is widely regarded as the world鈥檚 most
polluting crop. It needs far more agrochemicals than food crops鈥攑erhaps 10
pesticide treatments a season鈥攁nd huge amounts of water. Demand for
鈥渘atural鈥� cotton has led to it being grown in unsuitable areas, such as around
the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, which are turning into wastelands. Tip: search for
organic cotton

b) Yes. Life cycle analysis shows there is no clear advantage to washable
nappies. Unfortunately, washing them needs so much very hot water and detergent
that they have a big, bad environmental impact of their own, in energy use and
water pollution

c) No. Unless you have been very lucky, either choice would be bad. Many
shops selling prepackaged sandwiches make them centrally and transport them in
gas-guzzling refrigerated lorries. One company in central France ships
sandwiches more than 450 kilometres. The producer can still make money but does
not have to pay for the impact on global warming, increased traffic, noise and
so on

d) No. Polystyrene cups used to be villains when they were blown with CFCs
that damaged the ozone layer. This is no longer so. Your bottle of water has a
large environmental cost. Getting it to where you are left a trail of CO₂
emissions. After you鈥檝e drunk the water, the bottle鈥攇lass or
plastic鈥攚ill probably end up in a landfill for hundreds of years

e) Yes. Growing and preparing tobacco causes environmental and social damage.
Tobacco needs rich soils and in developing countries quickly supplants the best
food-growing areas. Most tobacco is also dried by burning wood. For every 300
cigarettes produced worldwide, one tree is cut down for curing

f) No. Not if you live in Europe, where no emission standards for
petrol-driven mowers are set. In terms of pollution, one official estimate
reckoned that running a mower for an hour was equivalent to driving a used car
80 kilometres. The US set emission controls in 1997, but Europe has yet to
follow suit. Pressure for change is coming from firms that want to market 鈥済reen
尘补肠丑颈苍别蝉鈥�

g) No. Every age has its own waste problems and a century ago those problems
would have included mountains of coal ash from domestic fires and lots of horse
manure. One study shows that the citizens of Manhattan were producing more waste
per head in the 1900s than they do today. If only we could cut back on
unnecessary packaging鈥攏ow accounting for 30 per cent of domestic
waste鈥攚e鈥檇 be able to see real gains over the century

h) No. Every year in Britain, pet cats kill about 120 million birds and
mammals鈥攁nd about 6 million reptiles and amphibians. Thanks to feeding by
humans, this predator has achieved densities that no natural ecosystem could
support, to the detriment of wildlife. In Australia, the situation is far worse,
with ferocious felines hunting endangered natives like the bilby

i) Yes. Although billions of e-mails are zipping round the world, they are
not replacing junk mail at all. In North America the volume of ad mail increased
by 37 per cent between 1990 and 1998. In Britain, it has doubled in the past
decade. The greater the competition the more is spent on advertising

j) Yes. A microwave consumes about one-third as much electricity as an
electric oven. If that electricity comes from a fossil-fuel power station, then
the microwave is really helping to reduce CO₂ emissions and global
warming

k) C. Leaving the tap on wastes between 25 and 45 litres every time you
brush, enough for a 100-litre bath every other day. At the higher rate, a family
of four would fill an Olympic pool before the youngest child reached 21

l) A. Strictly speaking, you鈥檇 probably manage three short showers from a
bathful of water, but there鈥檚 a catch. Britain鈥檚 Building Research Establishment
has shown that when you add a shower to a house with a bath, the inhabitants
take more showers than they used to take baths. So, on a daily basis, water
consumption hardly changes. The moral? Going green is never as easy as you
think

How did you do?

If you got all the answers correct, you must be an angel. But you鈥檙e
obviously obsessing on hidden environmental costs. Celebrate by having a long,
hot bath all to yourself鈥攅ven angels need time off. If you got between 6
and 12 answers right, you鈥檝e lost touch with your impact on the planet. To get a
halo, you鈥檒l have to brush up on your recycling skills and use the bottle bank
more. It鈥檚 good exercise, especially after a heavy night out. If you got less
than six answers right, you鈥檙e an environmental devil. Start by putting out that
cigarette, switch off the air conditioning and trade your Jag in for a bike