How do I tell my child?: Whether Christmas is damaging to the environment

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Fridtjof Küchemann

editor in the features section.

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to Whom the protection of the environment at heart – and that he should all – who knows in a Rough way, what he has to do: avoid Unnecessary packaging, only buy things you really need, as little as possible, throw away, certainly no food, and if something had to go away, then please be nice to the Recycling. Adults have this responsibility with the motto aware, we have borrowed the world, finally, only of our children. And children are often so hungry for animals and plants and the nature that you actually, of course, is to take care of you.

And yet we’re preparing a Feast, for many, the favorite festival in the whole year, a whole series of these principles, duly ignored: at Christmas, all packaged again with wrapping paper and, often enough, still decorated, only to unwrap it again. Under each tree at least one gift, the donee, with the best will, it’s nothing. Even the Christmas tree: About 25 million Christmas trees are bought every year in Germany, and about ninety percent of it, so 22.5 million trees without roots, so to Throw away. There is to eat oodles of it, a lot of people moan about the gluttony of Christmas, and we throw anyway, way too much Food again: After a six-year-old check-up per head, an average of 81.6 kg of food a year, more than half of them unnecessarily – 53 kg of food to the value of 235 euros.

The power consumption is on Christmas day, a third higher than on an average day. With this 120 million kilowatt-hours more in a single day could be supplied for a whole year, 34,000 households. And since we haven’t even spoken of traveling: millions of people travel for the holidays to their parents, grandparents, children or take a vacation somewhere where it is warmer or guaranteed to be whiter than at home. All of the exhaust gases, all energy consumption! to describe

A possibility, what is the impact of our Actions on the climate, is the so-called CO2 balance. It summarizes how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we release in kilograms. All right, hold on: With all the Extras at Christmas – the Roast, the lighting, the domestic flight if there is an – caused every German on average 338 kg of carbon dioxide alone at the Christmas holidays. In some people, there are about two tons. The average CO2 emissions of 11.5 metric tons per year.