Compared to the 7.3-20 MJ of energy to produce the burger that gives us a range of 3.2 to 8.85. A Big Mac has 540 calories or 2.26 MJ (1 MJ = 239 kcal). The 600 kg of burger emissions are equivalent to about a month and a half of automobile emissions.Ħ times (well 3.2-8.85) as much (primarily fossil fuel) energy goes into a burger as calories in the burger. The average American uses around 500 gallons of gasoline a year (based on this data of 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel) emitting 4,400 kg of CO2. This leads to emissions of 2,920 kg or 13% of an average American’s emissions. If you were to eat nothing but cheeseburgers, like Don Gorske who eats 2 Big Macs a day, you would consume 730 a year. This makes up a little less than 3% of the average American’s 24.5 tons (or 22 metric tonnes) of emissions. On a yearly basis, the average American eats 150 burgers leading to 600 kg of emissions. To put this in to context, a gallon of gasoline emits 8.8 kg of CO2, so a cheeseburger has the same emissions as about 1/2 a gallon of gasoline. 9 kg is from electricity emissions and 2.6 kg is from the cattle eructations and flatulence methane emissions. The carbon footprint of a Big Mac cheeseburger is 4 kg of CO2 equivalent gases (well really 3.4 to 4.82 kg but I will call it 4, see calculations below). I still think my idea of a acres and gallons label would capture most of same information as shown here, but be much simpler for the end user to understand. Hopefully all products will have this soon, maybe using an augmented barcode. I like the idea of the label that he proposes and this goes along with my ongoing look into social and environmental labels. So, I was glad to see the analysis over at Open The Future on the Carbon Footprint of a Cheeseburger based on the Energy Use in the Food Sector report. And yet there are no easily available estimates of the carbon footprints of these goods. If you assume that ratio hold for the rest of energy use and carbon emissions in general, then 2/3 of the average American’s emissions are embedded in the goods and services that they purchase. If you look at electricity usage, only 1/3 is purchased directly by consumers. They don’t help you to understand how much carbon emissions are embedded in the goods and services that you purchase. While there are carbon calculators that help you to determine how much carbon emissions are created by your consumption, they just look at all of the emissions that you use directly. A cheeseburger has the same emissions as about 1/2 a gallon of gasoline.

Cost of a big mac 2008