Dear Umbra, In all sorts of corporate environmental reports, you see claims that compare apples to oranges -- "By reducing our emissions by X pounds this year, we've saved the equivalent of 17 gazillion trees." Or "If every person in the U.S. bought our eco-friendly product, we could save all the baby harp seals." OK, perhaps I exaggerate a little bit. But where do people come up with these eco-unit conversions? I'm making a presentation to our board of directors and I wanted to use a similar easy-to-visualize comparison of our annual energy use. I've Googled to no avail. Can you point me in the right direction? Ronald K.
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The Woodlands, Texas