Buy one pound, get one free!

Today, I purchased a package of grapes. On the label of the grapes, it says that the fruit was “grown in Chile.”

This doesn't surprise me. In my birth-given rights as a wealthy American, I deserve to consume any piece of food I feel like consuming at any given point in time, even if this requires shipping the piece of food halfway around the world for my personal self enjoyment. Obviously.

So, how much CO2 is produced by shipping grapes around the world? Let’s find out.

Some rough estimates:
The middle of Chile is about 5270mi from the middle of the US.
A 747 cargo plane uses about 6.8 gal/mi. Yikes.
At full capacity, a 747 can carry an impressive 450,000 pounds of cargo.

So, we use a little math magic and we get
(6.8 gal/mi x 19.4 lbs of CO2/gal gasoline x 5270 miles) / 450,000 lbs cargo =
1.5 pounds CO2 per pound of fruit

This is actually much less than I had expected. To put this number into perspective, the average American produces a whopping 122 pounds of CO2 daily. Although, eating grapes in April is rather unnecessary, and every pound I can keep out of the atmosphere makes a difference.

I’ll make up for myself at the farmer’s market this weekend, to free myself of liberal guilt.