Mike Berners-Lee

Part green-lifestyle guide, part popular science, How Bad Are Bananas? is the first book to provide the information we need to make carbon-savvy purchases and informed lifestyle choices and to build carbon considerations into our everyday thinking.

The book puts our decisions into perspective with entries for the big things (the World Cup, volcanic eruptions, the Iraq war) as well as the small (email, ironing, a glass of beer). And it...

"Almost every year since records began, our species has had more energy at its disposal than it had the year before. For the last 50 years, the growth rate has averaged 2.4% per year, more than tri-pling in total over that time. For the century before that it was more like 1% per year, and as we go back through history, the growth rate looks lower still but nevertheless positive, give or take the odd blip. We have been getting continually more powerful,...