Fight Climate Change

Whilst the world watches the Olympic Torch processions across the globe, one burning question has got lost amongst the daily images of the Tibet protests and that’s “what is the carbon footprint” of the torch. This beacon of a united world is touring Europe, America, Africa, Australia before spending 3 months around China – that’s some distance!

At a time when we’re all being encouraged to cut down on our CO2 emissions, travel and unnecessary energy waste, we have an Olympic and media entourage circumnavigating the earth with a propane/butane flame – the same gas used in your soon to be outlawed patio heater!

According to The Guardian (who in turn quote Atmosfair.de) “the total distance travelled by the torch will be responsible for 52 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the same as the lifestyle-related emissions of five Britons over the course of a whole year”.

However those 52 tonnes are dwarfed by the 55,000 tonnes quoted by Wired.com. They take into account the whole entourage and estimate that £11million of CO2 will be emitted once the flame reaches it’s destination for the Beijing Olympics.

The good news though is that the London 2012 committee are already looking for ways to have a carbon neutral Olympic Flame as they hope to have the greenest games to date (The BBC). There’s no information about the torch procession for 2012 though, but the easiest way to make that carbon neutral (and controversy free) is simply not to have one!