tropical carbon

Everyone has heard that local food reduces your carbon footprint. But how much are you saving? Recently I read an article on Planet Green that summarizes the impact of tropical foods. I sum it up below:

• 4 oz. of banana..........8 lbs of CO2
• 4 oz. of mango...........8 lbs of CO2
• 1 lb. coffee..................1 lbs of CO2
• 1 cup of tea................20 g of CO2
• 4 oz. of mixed nuts...0.43 lbs. CO2

Since you can get about 32 cups of coffee out of a pound, it works out to about 14 grams of CO2 per cup of coffee. It feels good to get some numbers on this. To put it into perspective, the average American puts out 7.5 tons of CO2 a year, that's 16,800 pounds. For those of you having a banana and cup of coffee for your breakfast everyday, that's almost 3000 pounds already....17% of your carbon footprint. Maybe a small caffeine habit doesn't have an astronomical impact, but maybe we should lay off those tropical fruits and trade them in for what's in season around here. It's not so bad to enjoy some peaches or blueberries on your cereal instead of that banana tomorrow is it?