It’s gone World Cup crazy in the UK (well, in England – the Scots and the Welsh are all supporting Portugal for the next match). Here in the delightful land that is Essex (I jest, it really does contain some of the scariest people in the world!) supporting England is mandatory, even if you’re not English.

There is this strange habit amongst people in Essex to cram as many England (or “Eng-er-land!!!”, as it is said) flags into one car as possible. The Guardian ran a piece on this recently and it’s so true. I have warned our two children to be extra careful around any vehicle with more than one England flag.

Now, what on Earth has that got to do with saving the planet. Well, it’s like this : According to Dr Antonio Filippone of Manchester University, a car with 2 flags burns an extra litre of fuel an hour at an average of 70MPH (that’s the normal speed for highways here). He has calculated that 500,000 similar cars would therefore create 2,800 tonnes of CO² every hour.

I have seen cars, well SUVs, with 6 flags; so one of those glorious symbols of national pride is generating about 15kg CO² every hour.

And when England are knocked out of the cup, they will all go into landfill to sit there for 1000 years.