From Dave Holtum, Bath, Somerset, UK
Graham Lawton’s article on the true cost of goods when emissions are factored in led me to wonder about the true cost of a copy of New Scientist. The only applicable research I could find was done in Sweden by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology’s Centre for Sustainable Communications in 2007. It compared print and e-newspapers. Using this, I came up with a figure of about 2 kilograms of carbon dioxide per printed copy of New Scientist. The cost of carbon can be anything from £5 to £200 per tonne depending on the source. Using an average of £100 per tonne would add 20 pence to each printed copy of New Scientist. I would happily pay that, so long as it went towards carbon offsetting (2 December 2023, p 40).
