From the Telegraph's Literary Life:
"A recent report, with the catchy title Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the US Book Industry, reveals that American publishers are responsible for 12.4 million tons of carbon dioxide every year: that is 8.85 lbs per title, some footprint."

Although the blame is now shifting to rising levels of methane in the atmosphere, not CO2, and there is nothing humans can do about methane.

Naomi, it's one of those things that might well tip the balance in favour of e-book readers, if you ask me. Chopping down acres of trees to print books might start to seem sinful.

Naomi, we can do something: we can stop growing cows. Everyone can turn veggie. God, if I, Miss No Willpower, can stay veggie for more than ten years, then so can the rest of the world.

Veggie it most certainly is Em.

Indeed, the only way we'll ever be able to feed everyone on the planet going forward AND replenish vital forests is if we go veggie (vegan is best: methane farting cows are kinda central to the whole milk thing!!)

Takes far, far less land and water (water is v. v. important to the eco-veggie argument) to grow food for us rather than food for another mammal to eat which we then eat -- a bonkers (and very cruel) system.

Unfortunately killing off our farm animals is not going to help, em. When the permafrost in Siberia starts to melt the amount of methane released into the atmosphere will dwarf all those pig and cow burps. And then there's the frozen methane on the seafloor....

Hey, Naomi. Do you know where methane ice comes from? I've never read a proper explanation in an official textbook about why there's so freakin' much of it and how come it's there in the first place (personally I believe in a very wacky theory to do with abiogenic hydrocarbons).

Ooh, plus, wouldn't fixing the atmosphere before those methane deposits are released be a good idea?

Naomi: it isn't a case of "killing off" all farm animals in one huge, oxymoronic veggie culling session.

We just stop breeding them.

We breed at a tremendous rate. Stop breeding them and in a jiffy the amount of other mammals eating what should be human feed, drinking what should be human water, taking up masses of space, adding hugely to deforestation (for grazing, and for food for them not starving people!) -- as well as farting -- goes away.

The vegan solution is actually incredibly far-reaching and far-sighted. It won't catch on, but if it ever did we'd sort out waste, water, space and many other issues. And we'd ameliorate a massive methane problem even if we didn't fully solve it ...

I'm going to have to find a way to live without cheese. Anna recommends an excellent (sounding, at least) book called Veganomicon. I wish I'd thought of that.

Em: If you can take the very (ahem) American feel to the book's stlye, John Robbins' "The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World" (1573247022) is very useful.

Nutrition is important, of course, especially when pregnant, so info from www.vegansociety.com may be worth getting hold of ...