BBC Bloom: Science-Based Advice on Individual Carbon Reduction

The BBC Bloom website offers sound advice on specific carbon reducing actions image

What Actions Really Do Cut Carbon?
Is a vegan diet the greenest, or does eating a little meat make more ecological sense? Should you keep your old car or buy a hybrid? These are the types of questions that we TreeHuggers concern ourselves with every day – and sometimes the answers are not clear cut. It's great then to see a new climate-related site from the BBC called ‘Bloom’ that offers sound scientific advice on specific actions, and how much carbon they can really save.

I have yet to explore the whole site in detail (it is a little irritatingly Flash heavy), but so far there are a number of interesting topics explored – from solar phone chargers (the jury is still out on that one), to sharing a house with friends or lodgers (a sure fire winner on the carbon front), Bloom lays out the impact of each action, along with any debate or controversy that may still exist. Encouragingly, while the site does try to point out what actions may not cut as many emissions as you might think, it’s not all reduced down to a simple CO2 ratio – Bloom also discusses whether gadgets like solar chargers, while offering minimal to negligible emissions reductions in themselves, may serve to promote renewable energy among the general population. Good solid stuff from the BBC.

::BBC Bloom::via site visit::