There’s been a spurt of new websites lately, helping people calculate their carbon footprints or compare cars and other goods.
The latest, in Australia, lets people compare consumption trends across the country and map it against greenhouse pollution, energy use and other indicators.
It’s also a clever way of promoting the findings of a new research paper that highlights the environmental threats from consumption in the country. It makes the claim that spending is the biggest contributor to pollution levels, rather than energy use, as EnvironmentGraffiti reports:
“This report has highlighted the crucial relative importance of consumption of food and other consumer products, which far outweigh the direct impacts of energy and water use in the average Australian home. Further, it demonstrates the strong and troubling link between increased wealth and increased environmental impact.”