The polar ice caps are melting which is why the CheckMyBus elves are getting a bit concerned. After all, their boss Santa travels around the whole world every year and that cannot really be such an eco-friendly endeavour. They couldn’t help but wonder: are flying reindeer a modern and low-emission mode of transportation or is there a better alternative?
Santa’s Not-So-Holy Night
The elves decided to take a closer look at Santa’s carbon footprint and the results where staggering! Every year Santa releases 35.4 billion lbs of CO2 during his 212-million-mile ride – that’s got to secure him a spot right on top of the naughty list!
Santa’s Carbon Footprint
If you believe the University of Tromsø, a normal reindeer releases 0.11 lbs of methan per day. But Santa’s reindeer are anything but normal! After all, they have to pull a 320,000-ton heavy sleigh and need to travel 11,000 times faster than the speed of sound in order to cover 212 million miles in only 24 hours. Taking all of this into consideration, the elves claim that Santa’s reindeer release about 171 million lbs of methane and since this is 23 times more potent than CO2, it equals 167.08 lbs of CO2 per mile!
What if Santa delivered the presents by coach?
“There has to be an eco-friendly alternative”, the elves thought. After some research, they came to the solution that a coach is just perfect to deliver presents. Fair enough, Santa’s trip would take a bit longer – 364 years to be exact – but he could also save a total of 35.3 billion lbs of CO2.
This amount of CO2 equals the CO2 that is sequestered by 411 million Christmas trees, enough to cover the surface area of London five times or to fill 172,666 Wembley Stadiums with Christmas trees. Also, if Santa ditched the reindeer – a.k.a. the culprits in this “carbongeddon” – he could also compensate the CO2 emissions needed to produce 8,3 million tons of finest Costa Rican coffee. Despite their lack of sleep during the festive season, not even the CheckMyBus elves could drink this much coffee!
