Justin Buist

Read it aloud if you have issues with the post title.

Well, this just takes the cake.:

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

“The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle,” said Liad Ortar, the campaign’s cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site’s environmental forum.

Math time!

Ok, 15 grams multipled by 1 million homes is 15,000,000 grams of CO₂ or 15,000 kilograms.

So, what does it take to make 15,000kg of CO₂ by other means? Let’s look.

According to this reference humans output 0.02 cubic meters per hour of CO₂ while at rest but only 0.013 cubic meters while asleep. Now when we look over here we find that CO₂ has a mass of 1.98kg per cubic meter, so:

Asleep: 0.02574 kg/hour
Awake: 0.0396 kg/hour
Difference: 0.01386 kg/hour

So, the difference, in grams of CO₂ produced by a human while asleep versus being awake and at rest is 13.86.

15 / 13.86 = 1.08 and change.

So, to save the environment from 15,000 kg of CO₂ 1 million Jewish households would do just as much good by sleeping in for an extra 65 minutes over Hanukka. If you figure there are 4 people for every household that brings us to 16 minutes and 15 seconds of extra sleep per person.

So, sleep in a little bit this Hanukka season. It’s for the environment!