Superheroes might save the world, but they’d probably wreck the environment in the process
‘Batman drives around a car that literally shoots fire out the back. That has to be terrible for the environment’
At first glance, Miles Traer seems like any other scientist at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He wears an oversized identification badge on a lanyard around his neck and can discuss at length the role of water in planetary landscape transformation.
But this Stanford University geologist has an alter-ego. Like a real-life Captain Planet (minus the blue skin, plus a deep knowledge of data science) he beats back the forces of environmental destruction and holds the super-powerful to account.
The results are enough to make several people wince as they walk past Traer’s presentation in AGU’s cavernous poster hall. According to Traer’s research, most superheroes would use up hundreds of times more fossil fuels than the average American.
If I calculate my own carbon footprint, that’s a bummer. But if I calculate it for Batman, things get interesting
Barbara Gordon, the computer wizard also known as Oracle, is by far the worst offender: Even if her servers ran on a combination of clean energy sources – nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind and geothermal – running them would still release more than 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
But Gordon’s DC Comics associates are hardly better. To run at the speed of light, the Flash would need to consume 59,863,610,416 calories per second. That adds up to nearly 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Meanwhile, flying alone would require Batman to burn the fossil fuel equivalent of 344 plane rides from New York to San Francisco.
“Plus Batman drives around a car that literally shoots fire out the back,” Traer says. “That has to be terrible for the environment.”
Sim Jones, a meteorologist for Cherokee Nation Strategic Programs who has wandered over from the atmospheric science section of the poster hall, nods his agreement: “And the Batmobile is definitely not a hybrid.”
That makes Traer chuckle.
This poster presentation session is Traer and Haupt’s brainchild, conceived in response to a call-out for proposals from AGU’s Sharing Science programme. They call it “Science and Sci-Fi: Using Real Science to Explore Fictional Worlds.”
“Ryan had this idea to connect science to things people already care about,” Traer explains. Science fiction and fantasy seemed like the perfect vehicle: the genres are all about world-building, “and so is geology.”
With his presentation, Traer hopes to get people thinking about their own carbon footprints. Each of the nine superheroes he analysed – Oracle, the Flash, Batman, Iron Man, Jessica Jones, Firebird, Superman, and Swamp Thing – reflects some aspect of humans’ fossil fuel consumption. Spider-Man needs to manufacture his carbon nanotube webbing. Firebird depends on combustion to conjure tornadoes of flame.
“If I calculate my own carbon footprint, that’s a bummer,” Traer says. “But if I calculate it for Batman, things get interesting.”
To further make his point, Traer considers how his heroes might lessen their impact on the environment. By going vegetarian, the Flash could reduce his emissions from 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide to just 1,400 tonnes. If Bruce Wayne stopped spending money on Batman gear, he could pay for carbon offsets for the entire population of downtown Chicago.
The implied message: If a masked vigilante with too much money and a shortage of good judgement can redeem himself, you can too.
A few superheroes may even be role models for the rest of us. For example, Superman, who draws his power from the sun, is a poster child for solar energy. The only hitch comes from his day job.
“Clark Kent works in print media – all that wasted paper,” Haupt says.
Meanwhile, Swamp Thing, an anthropomorphic pile of muddy organic matter, is a potential champion of carbon sequestration – the process by which plants suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it as biomass.
