Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey there,
Speaker 1: brain stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. If you're out there
Speaker 1: saving humanity from supervillains, doesn't matter how many pounds of
Speaker 1: carbon you used to do it. Gotham City would have
Speaker 1: been obliterated a hundred times over if Batman weren't constantly
Speaker 1: bailing it out of trouble. But that batmobile sure is
Speaker 1: a gas guzzler, not to mention the Batwing airplane, and
Speaker 1: the electricity bill for the bat Cave is probably astronomical.
Speaker 1: So is all that do gooding really doing good? After all?
Speaker 1: Some researchers from Stanford University presented a poster at the
Speaker 1: American Geophysical Unions Fall meeting entitled Stop Saving the Planet
Speaker 1: Carbon Accounting of Superheroes and their Impacts on Climate change.
Speaker 1: The point of the project was to bring awareness to
Speaker 1: the fact that everybody on this planet has a carbon footprint,
Speaker 1: which is a calculation of how much carbon each of
Speaker 1: us uses in our daily activities, such as driving, eating,
Speaker 1: and heating and cooling our houses. The average Americans carbon
Speaker 1: footprint is around forty four thousand pounds. That's abouts of
Speaker 1: carbon per year. An average person in the United Arab
Speaker 1: Emirates uses a good bit more, and the average Peruvian
Speaker 1: uses considerably less. But what about your average superhero, Well,
Speaker 1: according to the study, they're all over the map. Take Superman.
Speaker 1: According to the comics, the Man of Steel is entirely
Speaker 1: solar powered, which nets him a carbon footprint of zero.
Speaker 1: Bless him. Jessica Jones probably comes in slightly below the
Speaker 1: average Americans carbon use thanks to her small Brooklyn apartment
Speaker 1: and reliance on public transportation and swamp thing, what with
Speaker 1: his power to make plants grow, might actually have a
Speaker 1: negative carbon footprint. That's not the case for every good
Speaker 1: Samaritan in a cape, however. The Oracle firstwhile bat girl
Speaker 1: turned computer hacker might weigh in at a conservative estimate
Speaker 1: of one and fifty one thousand pounds or sixty eight kilograms,
Speaker 1: but the figure might be as high as thirty two
Speaker 1: million pounds or a hundred and forty five million kilograms,
Speaker 1: depending on how many servers she's running. An iron Man
Speaker 1: who makes a concerted effort to employ green energy sources
Speaker 1: would come in higher than the average American because of
Speaker 1: the sheer amount of tech that he uses, and the
Speaker 1: flash who can run near the speed of light, might
Speaker 1: require an insane number of calories to accomplish this feat,
Speaker 1: possibly as much as eighty nine million pounds or forty
Speaker 1: five million kims worth of carbon. But isn't this kind
Speaker 1: of a silly question for serious scientists to spend their
Speaker 1: time exploring? Poster co author Miles Treyer, a post doctorial
Speaker 1: researcher at Stanford, told EOS, if I calculate my own
Speaker 1: carbon footprint, that's depressing. If I calculate Batman's carbon footprint,
Speaker 1: that's hilarious. So let's go with the hilarious. It's a
Speaker 1: way of tricking people into learning. Next, Trayer is setting
Speaker 1: his sights on the carbon footprint of supervillains. One of
Speaker 1: my favorites, he said, is Mr Freeze, because refrigeration carries
Speaker 1: a pretty horrendous carbon footprint. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Usling Shields and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other environmental topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.