but what about something simple like...

my lunch

this delicious BLT sandwich!

What path did it take to reach my plate?

What footprint did it leave on the planet?

♫ GOOD QUESTION ♫

Luckily, scientists have mapped every step of this sandwich's journey.

Let's start with the slices of bread

For this much bread you just need a ten by ten inch square of soil

A single-serving field!

A tractor plows that tiny field

burning a single drop of diesel

and releasing a puff of carbon dioxide

- about enough CO2 to fill a pint glass

The tractor comes back - this time to plant the seeds

Another drop of fuel,

another puff of CO2

And now the tractor smooths the soil

It's time to add a little fertilizer - about half a tablespoon

You'd probably use a tractor to spread that fertilizer

But there's more ... that fertilizer was brewed up in a factory

creating a couple gallons of CO2 in the process

Some of that fertilizer helps the wheat grow

but some of it is broken down by microbes in the soil

They belch out the equivalent of another gallon of CO2

Now it's harvest time!

Our little field has yielded ... a third of a cup of grain

Now come a bunch of steps that require electricity electricity that comes in part from burniing fossil fuels

Time to dry it

Drive it to the mill

And grind it into flour.

Then on to the bakery!

A little water, sugar, yeast - each with their own carbon journey

And into the oven!

Our slices are put in a plastic bag

(a plastic bag that was also made in a factory)

And shipped off to the store where I picked the up.

Every step took a little carbon that was in the form of fuel

and put it into the atmosphere as CO2

You can see the biggest chunk of carbon comes from the fertilizer.

But wait - that's just the bread!

We could follow our leaves of lettuce from their field

The tomatos from their nursery

All the ingredients in our mayo

Each journey puts a little more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere

But the biggest footprint comes from those four strips of bacon

Not only do we have to raise, process, and transport 1/1000th of a pig

We have to cultivate the plants to feed that pig

To get this one sandwich we've released

800 grams of CO2 (equivalent)

That's enough gas to fill 100 of these gallon jugs

Eat one of these sandwiches every day for a year, and you'd release the same amount of CO2

as you would if you drove a car from New York to Chicago

It turns out this simple sandwich isn't so simple

Of course - nothing is.

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