[Xing]

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’Dominic Kennedy
Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

Mr Goodall, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, is the latest serious thinker to turn popular myths about the environment on their head.

Catching a diesel train is now twice as polluting as travelling by car for an average family, the Rail Safety and Standards Board admitted recently. Paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic because of the extra energy needed to manufacture and transport them, the Government says.

Fresh research published in New Scientistlast month suggested that 1kg of meat cost the Earth 36kg in global warming gases. The figure was based on Japanese methods of industrial beef production but Mr Goodall says that farming techniques are similar throughout the West.

What if, instead of beef, the walker drank a glass of milk? The average person would need to drink 420ml – three quarters of a pint – to recover the calories used in the walk. Modern dairy farming emits the equivalent of 1.2kg of CO2 to produce the milk, still more pollution than the car journey.

Cattle farming is notorious for its perceived damage to the environment, based on what scientists politely call “methane production” from cows. The gas, released during the digestive process, is 21 times more harmful than CO2 . Organic beef is the most damaging because organic cattle emit more methane.

Michael O’Leary, boss of the budget airline Ryanair, has been widely derided after he was reported to have said that global warming could be solved by massacring the world’s cattle. “The way he is running around telling people they should shoot cows,” Lawrence Hunt, head of Silverjet, another budget airline, told the Commons Environmental Audit Committee. “I do not think you can really have debates with somebody with that mentality.”

But according to Mr Goodall, Mr O’Leary may have a point. “Food is more important [to Britain’s greenhouse emissions] than aircraft but there is no publicity,” he said. “Associated British Foods isn’t being questioned by MPs about energy.

“We need to become accustomed to the idea that our food production systems are equally damaging. As the man from Ryanair says, cows generate more emissions than aircraft. Unfortunately, perhaps, he is right. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should always choose to use air or car travel instead of walking. It means we need urgently to work out how to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our foodstuffs.”

Simply cutting out beef, or even meat, however, would be too modest a change. The food industry is estimated to be responsible for a sixth of an individual’s carbon emissions, and Britain may be the worst culprit.

“This is not just about flying your beans from Kenya in the winter,” Mr Goodall said. “The whole system is stuffed with energy and nitrous oxide emissions. The UK is probably the worst country in the world for this.

“We have industrialised our food production. We use an enormous amount of processed food, like ready meals, compared to most countries. Three quarters of supermarkets’ energy is to refrigerate and freeze food prepared elsewhere.

A chilled ready meal is a perfect example of where the energy is wasted. You make the meal, then use an enormous amount of energy to chill it and keep it chilled through warehousing and storage.”

The ideal diet would consist of cereals and pulses. “This is a route which virtually nobody, apart from a vegan, is going to follow,” Mr Goodall said. But there are other ways to reduce the carbon footprint. “Don’t buy anything from the supermarket,” Mr Goodall said, “or anything that’s travelled too far.” dkennedy@thetimes.co.uk



Shattering the great green myths

— Traditional nappies are as bad as disposables, a study by the Environment Agency found. While throwaway nappies make up 0.1 per cent of landfill waste, the cloth variety are a waste of energy, clean water and detergent

— Paper bags cause more global warming than plastic. They need much more space to store so require extra energy to transport them from manufacturers to shops

— Diesel trains in rural Britain are more polluting than 4x4 vehicles. Douglas Alexander, when Transport Secretary, said: “If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter [train], it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive”

— Burning wood for fuel is better for the environment than recycling it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs discovered

— Organic dairy cows are worse for the climate. They produce less milk so their methane emissions per litre are higher

— Someone who installs a “green” lightbulb undoes a year’s worth of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain

— Trees, regarded as shields against global warming because they absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas

Sources: Defra; How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, by Chris Goodall; Absorbent Hygiene Products Manufacturers Association; The Times; BBC

[the94112]

Damned either way.

[Pandemonious]

Driving a car isn't considered a necessity for life.. eating food is. Obviously food production has a large impact on the environment and our ways of producing it should be made less harmful to the environment, but everyone becoming SUV driving vegans sounds like shit to me. I'll keep eating my steaks and walking, thanks.

[Xing]

Driving a car isn't considered a necessity for life.. eating food is. Obviously food production has a large impact on the environment and our ways of producing it should be made less harmful to the environment, but everyone becoming SUV driving vegans sounds like shit to me. I'll keep eating my steaks and walking, thanks.

You hit on the very first arguement that came to mind for me. There is something wrong with telling people to stop moving their limbs, compared with telling people to stop driving their cars.

[mhays]

Don't eople eat just as much when they're lazy?

I do agree, though, that beef production is extremely inefficient. That's one reason I don't eat a ton of it.

[zaphod]

I have a better idea:

Walk, and then NOT eat the beef

people need to lose weight :P

[jlousa]

Even better if everyone, did not drive anywhere and did not eat anything. That should solve most the the problems.;)

[BTinSF]

Don't eople eat just as much when they're lazy?



If they do, they'll gain weight. Medically speaking, if someone is lying more less inert in bed their body will use about 1000 cal/day to keep the heart beating, to keep breathing and to keep vital organs functioning. That caloric use doubles for moderate activity (I am using rough figures) and may go up many fold in extreme circumstances (heavy physical work in a subzero environment, for example). If you don't eat an appropriate amount you will gain or lose weight. Excess calories will be stored as muscle, fat and glycogen in the liver; a caloric deficit will be made up by consuming those same tissues.

[mhays]

Yes, many lazy people do gain weight.

Also, walking vs. driving goes far beyond global warming. Other factors include better neighborhoods, less sprawl, fewer wars...

In fact, the guy that came up with this probably wasn't factoring much of that in, even for his basic premise on air pollution. A driving-based lifestyle will also eat up a lot of land, etc.

[CEO]

There should be moderation in everything. Eat beef once a week, walk to close places, drive to far places.

These calculations are just balancing two aspects (beef eating and methane from cows vs driving and carbon emissions from cars) without looking at other factors. What about the healthcare costs of treating a lazy person who doesn't eat well?

Trees are now harmful to the environment too? Then global warming would have happened whether we contributed to it or not if everything natural is producing methane.

Walking is still better than using a hybrid vehicle anyway, since the batteries are toxic.

[alex1]

he's also not accounting all the people and products that go into helping those who get sick from the pollution. But the biggest omission is the one that mhays touched upon above; land waste used to store and efficiently move car transit. The pollution associated with the creation and transportation of creating the extra concrete needed for the bigger roads is pretty great. Not to mention the negative effects that the extra concreate helps to induce "heat islands" which play negatively on the comfort of a population and the environment.

[edluva]

granted beef production yields four times as much greenhouse gas, but who in this day and age gets 100 percent of their "walking calories" from pure beef? or half a liter of milk? what about a 20 gram chicken breast sandwich with (locally grown) side salad, something a bit more plausible?

[krudmonk]

I blame carnivores because I'm self-righteous and I can.

[Nouvellecosse]

Don't eople eat just as much when they're lazy?

I do agree, though, that beef production is extremely inefficient. That's one reason I don't eat a ton of it.
Exactly. Environmental concerns are why I'm a vegetarian.

I think one can assume that these stastics r based on the average diet and the average automobile. I'm sure the stats would be very different otherwise.

[CEO]

Vegetarian humans produce more methane than others, don't they?

[the urban politician]

“Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

^ I stopped reading this absurdity after this paragraph. The whole idea of a walkable urban environment is to have things in close proximity. He's comparing the energy usage of driving 3 miles versus walking 3 miles, but that's irrelevant.

In suburbia you drive 5 miles to the grocery store.

In urbia you walk 5 blocks to the grocery store. I think I know which trip ends up consuming more energy

[bobdreamz]

god these arguements are getting ridiculous.

[J. Will]

People who exercise more tend to lead healthier lifestyles in general, and tend to consume fewer calories, and especially less meat. His argument implies that people who exercise more consume more calories; the opposite is true.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I wonder how eating a turkey sandwich compares?

[glowrock]

god these arguements are getting ridiculous.

Yes, yes they are... :rolleyes:

Aaron (Glowrock)

[rsbear]

The researcher didn't factor in the environmental costs of building the car in the first place and the impact to produce the gas for the car.

[KB0679]

How about we all just cease to exist? That should cut our carbon footprints by like 100%.

[Cirrus]

Biggest pile on nonsense I've ever read. Wendell Cox's name must be attached somehow.

[Derek]

Cows should stop pooping, too.

[Urban Zombie®]

Don't eople eat just as much when they're lazy?

I do agree, though, that beef production is extremely inefficient. That's one reason I don't eat a ton of it.

...and let's not forget the tens of millions of piggies that continue to stuff their faces with McDonalds and other junk food while they drive their SUVs to the store 2 blocks from their house.

[Cambridgite]

Since everything we do will contribute to greenhouse gases somehow, the best thing we can do is to stop having babies, and kill ourselves. :haha:

[hauntedheadnc]

Since everything we do will contribute to greenhouse gases somehow, the best thing we can do is to stop having babies, and kill ourselves. :haha:

Nonsense. Decay releases methane, and methane is a greenhouse gas. How dare you even suggest such a thing, you polar bear killer, you.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I believe Goodall - the author of this study - is assuming that whoever takes his advice already lives in a developed nation, and already has a car, a house, etc. Given those existing conditions, I think he is trying to tell us the best way to reduce our personal CO2 emissions. Of course, we could all abandon civilization which would *really* reduce our emissions, but I don't think he considered that realistic.

At least that's what I gather from reading the article through a 2nd time.

[Attrill]

This is just a PR push for a vegetarian way of life. I can appreciate that - but it makes some valids points, and then pushes them beyond reason. The way in which we get ALL food depend on trucks, highways, etc... Has he done an asessment of the carbon impact of getting tofu to London? I doubt it.

We do need to look at where all our food comes from, and the impact it has upon the environment - but this article is BS. From May to October I don't buy any vegetables - I grow them all in my own garden. But the author of this article would probably bust my ass for buying rain barrels and garden hoses that had to driven to Chicago. A classic case of making the good the enemy of the fictional "perfect".

[Mr Roboto]

Wait, this article is really from the Onion, right? At least thats what I thought when I read it.

[Chicago3rd]

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

Correct title. Nit-picky but must be some reason the TIMES ONLINE didn't use the false one on here.

[PhillyRising]

Next thing you know they'll be telling us that farting is causing global warning and to stock up of Gas-X or Bean-o.

[Chicago3rd]

As usual the people who are pro-business like Godall make assumptions that always excludes the point of this issue...the beloved car:

Assumption 1 both walker and driver start from the same place.
Assumption 2 both walker and driver end at the same place and get the same thing.

It is the trip we are talking about.

How much energy was used to produce that gas that went into that car?
How much energy was used to move that gas across the world to the gas station on the corner?
How much oil was used in that car and break fluid, and raditator fluid is used

to keep that car going? How is all that stuff produced and shipped close enough to get it into a car?

How do we eliminate all this used oil, break fluid, power steering fluid and radiator fluid?

How much energy went into the concrete sidewalk I walk on? How much land does it take up compared to the roads the cars drive? How much pollution runs of the asphalt roads into our streams verses the concrete sidewalks?

How much energy goes into up keep of the asphalt? And cleaning all the roads...all those street sweepers?

What about all that energy and pollution going into the environment just so we can have a road and a car?

[hauntedheadnc]

Next thing you know they'll be telling us that farting is causing global warning and to stock up of Gas-X or Bean-o.

Nonsense again! Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to produce all those plastic pill bottles, much less how much it takes to transport them all over? You planet-murdering fiend.

In all seriousness, this article is really more an illustration of how anything can be taken too far than it is anything else. I fully expect it to become cherished reading of conservatives and the Joel Kotkins of the world though, so we'll be seeing it rise to the surface, like a corpse in a septic tank, repeatedly over the next several years.

[totheskies]

Shut This Thread Downnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!

It's bad enough that we have to discriminate against the sunbelt, but now every person in America whose overweight??? Come on people.

[fflint]

The article here is Exhibit A for not believing everything you read.

[kool maudit]

lame polemical exercise.

[bnk]

I want to hear Chicago103 's position on this one before I decide if I should walk to do my chores or fill up my car again.

This new data is so tantalizing. Surely he will see the light now after this latest study.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=135780

[hk_ayu]

Catching a diesel train is now twice as polluting as travelling by car for an average family, the Rail Safety and Standards Board admitted recently.


Sure, if the trains only carry a few people all the time.


If a carriage carries more than 50 all the time, I am sure train is the least polluting transport.

[Chicago103]

WHAT THE LIVING FUCK IS THIS?! I MEAN SERIOUSLY WTF?!!!!!

Chicago3rd and others pretty much summed up the millions of holes in this argument I thought of in my head.

Are the auto-centrics of the world this desperate that they would take the legitimate argument of the ineffecient means of food production (alot of which is due to dependence on trucks instead of freight trainst BTW) and spins it worse than the spin cycle of the world's fastest washing machine into an argument as to why WALKING is causing global warming?

If that was the case then why didnt the thousands of years of human civilizaton where walking was the primary means of transportation cause the polar ice caps to melt? Oh let me guess, the advent of modern day homo sapiens roughly coincides with the last ice age, upright man caused the glaciers to recede! Escalades and Hummers saved us from our destructive path of walking everywhere. Damn Daniel Boone, Louis and Clark, and Marquette and Joliet they are the reason its so hot out today because they traversed the continent with their barbaric means of transportation. The pioneers on the Oregon Trail caused more damage to the environment than all the cars and sprawl in the entire state of modern day Oregon and if it wasnt for the socialists in Portland the damages from the pioneers would be undone thanks to Wal-Mart, parking lots. Parking, its all about the parking, if there was enough parking there would be no global warming.:koko: :koko: :koko: :koko: :koko: :koko: :koko:

[bnk]

Ok I will walk then.

[Reesonov]

As usual the people who are pro-business like Godall make assumptions that always excludes the point of this issue...the beloved car:

Assumption 1 both walker and driver start from the same place.
Assumption 2 both walker and driver end at the same place and get the same thing.

It is the trip we are talking about.

How much energy was used to produce that gas that went into that car?
How much energy was used to move that gas across the world to the gas station on the corner?
How much oil was used in that car and break fluid, and raditator fluid is used

to keep that car going? How is all that stuff produced and shipped close enough to get it into a car?

How do we eliminate all this used oil, break fluid, power steering fluid and radiator fluid?

How much energy went into the concrete sidewalk I walk on? How much land does it take up compared to the roads the cars drive? How much pollution runs of the asphalt roads into our streams verses the concrete sidewalks?

How much energy goes into up keep of the asphalt? And cleaning all the roads...all those street sweepers?

What about all that energy and pollution going into the environment just so we can have a road and a car?

Exactly what I was going to post. Unfortunately, 90% of people are unable to critically evaluate a newspaper article, so the people filling up at the gas station are probably busy patting each other on the back right now.

[SFUVancouver]

I was half-way through reading the article, thinking that it was another well-written satire piece by The Onion when I clued in that it was genuine.

What a crock!

I echo earlier comments about the absurdity of assuming a beef-based diet. Also, the average car in the UK is very different from an average US car.

Plus the article doesn't factor in the GHG emissions associated with manufacturing the vehicle or the exploration, extraction, transportation, refining, and distribution of oil derivatives. Shoes and a salad stack up very well thank you very much.

Here is another shocker in the same vein: Old people are worse for the environment than babies! A new study has found that an average citizen in their golden years spends more of their time consuming and disposing of goods than a newborn, dramatically skewing a family's ecological footprint. Experts recommend painless and carbon-neutral euthanasia to correct this risky imbalance and whatever you do, don't walk to the funeral!

[francely57]

The example used is very bad.
Who would walk all the time for 50 minutes instead of taking the bus? (when there is mass transit available of course)
And assuming people drive for 5 km or less is not realistic, the way our cities/suburbs are sprawled I'm sure most people drive at least 20 km to work and/or to see relatives and/or to go somewhere with friends.


Edit: I see that I agree with the urban politician.

[CEO]

An article from The Guardian that I thought was somewhat related to the topic:


Ethical shopping is just another way of showing how rich you are

The middle classes congratulate themselves on going green, then carry on buying and flying as much as before

George Monbiot
Tuesday July 24, 2007
The Guardian

It wasn't meant to happen like this. The climate scientists told us that our winters would become wetter and our summers drier. So I can't claim that these floods were caused by climate change, or are even consistent with the models. But, like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, they offer us a glimpse of the possible winter world that we will inhabit if we don't sort ourselves out.

With rising sea levels and more winter rain - and remember that when the trees are dormant and the soils saturated, there are fewer places for the rain to go - all it will take is a freshwater flood to coincide with a high spring tide and we have a formula for full-blown disaster. We have now seen how localised floods can wipe out essential services and overwhelm emergency workers. But this month's events don't even register beside some of the predictions circulating in learned journals. Our primary political struggle must be to prevent the breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. The only question now worth asking about climate change is how.

Dozens of new books seem to provide an answer: we can save the world by embracing "better, greener lifestyles". Last week, for instance, the Guardian published an extract from A Slice of Organic Life, the book by Sheherazade Goldsmith - married to the very rich environmentalist Zac - in which she teaches us "to live within nature's limits". It's easy. Just make your own bread, butter, cheese, jam, chutneys and pickles, keep a milking cow, a few pigs, goats, geese, ducks, chickens, beehives, gardens and orchards. Well, what are you waiting for?

Her book contains plenty of useful advice, and she comes across as modest, sincere and well-informed. But of lobbying for political change, there is not a word. You can save the planet from your own kitchen - if you have endless time and plenty of land. When I was reading it on the train, another passenger asked me if he could take a look. He flicked through it for a moment, and then summed up the problem in seven words: "This is for people who don't work."

The media's obsession with beauty, wealth and fame blights every issue it touches, but none more so than green politics. There is an inherent conflict between the aspirational lifestyle journalism that makes readers feel better about themselves and sells country kitchens, and the central demand of environmentalism - that we should consume less. "None of these changes represents a sacrifice," Goldsmith tells us. "Being more conscientious isn't about giving up things." But it is if, like her, you own more than one home when others have none. Uncomfortable as this is for both the media and its advertisers, giving things up is an essential component of going green. A section on ethical shopping in Goldsmith's book advises us to buy organic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sustainable, buy recycled. But it says nothing about buying less.

Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing - one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk. Over the past six months, our coat pegs have become clogged with organic cotton bags, which - filled with packets of ginseng tea and jojoba oil bath salts - are now the obligatory gift at every environmental event. I have several lifetimes' supply of ballpoint pens made with recycled paper and about half a dozen miniature solar chargers for gadgets that I do not possess.

Last week the Telegraph told its readers not to abandon the fight to save the planet. "There is still hope, and the middle classes, with their composters and eco-gadgets, will be leading the way." It made some helpful suggestions, such as a "hydrogen-powered model racing car", which, for £74.99, comes with a solar panel, an electrolyser and a fuel cell. God knows what rare metals and energy-intensive processes were used to manufacture it. In the name of environmental consciousness, we have simply created new opportunities for surplus capital.

Ethical shopping is in danger of becoming another signifier of social status. I have met people who have bought solar panels and wind turbines before they have insulated their lofts, partly because they love gadgets but partly, I suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious and how rich they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is another form of atomisation - a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping.

The middle classes rebrand their lives, congratulate themselves on going green, and carry on buying and flying as much as before. It is easy to picture a situation in which the whole world religiously buys green products and its carbon emissions continue to soar.

As many environmentalists argue, it is true that most people find aspirational green living more attractive than dour puritanism. But it can also be alienating. I have met plenty of farm labourers and tenants who are desperate to start a farm of their own but have been excluded by what they call "horsiculture": small parcels of agricultural land that are being bought up for pony paddocks and hobby farms. In places such as Surrey and the New Forest, farmland is now fetching up to £30,000 an acre as City bonuses are used to buy organic lifestyles. When the new owners dress up as milkmaids and then tell the excluded how to make butter, they run the risk of turning environmentalism into the whim of the elite.

Challenge the new green consumerism and you become a prig and a party pooper, the spectre at the feast. Against the shiny new world of organic aspirations you are forced to raise drab and boringly equitable restraints: carbon rationing, contraction and convergence, tougher building regulations, coach lanes on motorways. No colour supplement will carry an article about that. No rock star could live comfortably within his carbon ration.

But these measures, and the long hard political battle that is needed to bring them about, are unfortunately required to prevent the catastrophe that the recent floods presage - rather than merely playing at being green. Only when these measures have been applied does green consumerism become a substitute for current spending, rather than a supplement to it. They are harder to sell, not least because they cannot be bought from mail order catalogues. Hard political choices will have to be made, and the economic elite and its spending habits must be challenged, rather than groomed and flattered. The multimillionaires who have embraced the green agenda might suddenly discover another urgent cause.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2133120,00.html

[Untitled]

My 12-step plan for fixing the environment:

1. Stop giving a damn about how we're ruining the environment.
2. Fully fund space exploration.
3. Figure out how to terraform Mars.
4. Move everyone to Mars before this planet becomes an uninhabitable sewer.
5. Look for the next planet to terraform, 'cause you just know we're gonna screw up Mars, too.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 as needed.
7. Marvel at how efficient we are, 'cause we didn't even need all 12 steps. My, how thrifty and creative we are. Let's have us a steak, shall we?

[dbennion]

The 3 mile drive takes 5 minutes say, and the car creates X pollutants. The 3 mile walk takes an hour say, and the energy expended creates Y pollutants. He claims Y is greater than X, and I'm not going to argue about his numbers.

However that simple comparison is prime bullshit. The driver has 55 more minutes in his day, that he is going to be doing something with, expending energy hence creating pollutants. Maybe he sits on a park bench feeding the fecking squirrels. The energy he expends tossing those peanuts has to be part of any pollution equation.

A proper comparison would be the difference between (1) 5 minutes of driving and 55 minutes of squirrel feeding and (2) an hour of walking. That in addition to the points raised by others.

[Rico Rommheim]

What a crock of shit. Arguing about it is as stupid as writing the article. Yeah sure buddy, instead of walking to school like I do, I'll get me a Hummer and drive around, why not? Walkin's bad for the environement!

[JMininger]

The article here is Exhibit A for not believing everything you read.

I think that is this guy's point. I don't think he is making a statement other than to poke holes in the assumptions that we make and add to the environmental debate, which obviously there is no lack of interest in. Its like those interesting and controversial radio commercials about giving blood ... you know, "Saving the world isn't easy. Saving a life is" where they want to close the factory down because everybody is getting sick from the pollution, but they close it down and now everybody is unemployed, and now nobody has health care to pay for the doctors to ... etc.

[JMininger]

Drinking milk gives me gas.

[Jon Dalton]

“If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter [train], it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive”

What is this, a train with just a locomotive and half a car?

Where in the world do you see a train with 10 or fewer people?

If you took the average number of passengers in trains, divided it by the average vehicle occupancy (1.1 in Toronto, probably more in the UK), multiply that by the average vehicle emissions, I think that would be lower than the train. If you used 4 people per car, as the article suggested, it should still be lower. Then again I haven't actually seen numbers.

[otto]

Did these Oxford guys calculate the energy spent on wars to protect the fuel for our SUVs? How many pantser is spent, fuel for jet-fighters? 89,000 ton of bombs and 30,000 ton of explosives during Gulf War I only....

As far as I know, we don`t fight wars to protect our T-bone steak.
The don`t-eat- please-drive claim is unrealistic and single-sided.

[MolsonExport]

The researcher didn't factor in the environmental costs of building the car in the first place and the impact to produce the gas for the car.

Indeed. the retardedness of his claim staggers the mind.

[palemonk]

This article isn't worth responding to.

[MolsonExport]

It has been established that defecation (mostly from cattle) is a leading source of greenhouse gasses. This so-called environmentalist is totally full of shit.

[djbowen]

What about all the calories that are converted into fat? People eat enough to walk around, they just waste a lot of it and gain weight. No new greenhouse gases need to be created.

[johnnypd]

the walker and the car driver will eat the same amount, just that the walker will burn off the calories, and the driver will just get fat, or drive further to get to the gym, where they will run on an electric treadmill watching tv in a climate controlled environment and then use a vending machine to buy some gatorade. you get the picture.

though i don't think the report is intending to diss walking as a useless alternative to driving, but rather raise the issue of just how extremely energy-intensive food production and distribution now is.

[Rusty van Reddick]

johnnypd- your blog is completely amazing.

[10023]

This is the most idiotic thing I've ever read.


To start, it's all based on the erroneous assumption that people eat more if they walk than if they drive. People eat the same amount regardless of whether they're burning the calories or not - that's why Americans are so damn fat.


Plus, you know he's added up every once of energy used to make dinner but probably neglecting to include all but the most direct inputs required to power your car (i.e., the gas, rather than the energy needed to drill, process, transport, manufacture, etc).

[Marcu]

People who exercise more tend to lead healthier lifestyles in general, and tend to consume fewer calories, and especially less meat. His argument implies that people who exercise more consume more calories; the opposite is true.

Actually people who exercise regularly have been shown to consume more calories. Ever have a long day at the gym?

Great article by the way. The quick dismissals just provide more evidence that people really need to learn to think outside the box and not be threatened by ideas that may somehow challenge their world view. I respect the people that critiqued the author's methodology a lot more than the people that simply proclaimed that this is ridiculous and refused to respond further.

[newplace]

it sounds like if we all just die then everything will be ok.

[dfane]

I give up on this environmentalist thing.
Now we cant walk lol
I read a study a while back saying there are more carbon emissions from sheep in new zealand then there is in form a big city of traffic.

Just live your life and do everything in moderation (like eating, drinking, excercising, etc)

[10023]

Actually people who exercise regularly have been shown to consume more calories. Ever have a long day at the gym?

Great article by the way. The quick dismissals just provide more evidence that people really need to learn to think outside the box and not be threatened by ideas that may somehow challenge their world view. I respect the people that critiqued the author's methodology a lot more than the people that simply proclaimed that this is ridiculous and refused to respond further.
Well the methodology makes it ridiculous.

Saying that it requires more energy to produce the extra food I need to replace the energy used by walking (which, as I mentioned, is in reality zero - most Americans consume far more calories than they need anyway, hence the obesity epidemic), and comparing this to the gas burned during the 10 minute drive to the store, is apples and oranges.

It would be valid if you compared the fuel burned by the car during the drive to the fuel burned by my propane grill to cook the steak (which would be a lot less than what the car used). But if you're going to include all of the effects of growing the feed, raising the cattle, slaughtering the cattle, transporting and storing the meat, and cooking it, then you need to include all the effects of oil & gas exploration, drilling for oil, transporting it, refining it, etc.

He doesn't. Hence, his assertion is ridiculous and unworthy of response.

[Jared]

On top of everything else mentioned, there's another thing which I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned yet. He deliberately took beef because it is one of the most land intensive foods to grow. Every pound of beef produces requires something like 16 pounds of grain, hence a lot of energy is wasted here. If he assumed people ate the grain instead, you'd be getting a much different picture.

[someone123]

An all-beef diet would be great for reducing emissions since it would kill people off quite quickly, which means no more walking or driving.

[zaphod]

you know more I think about this, well it really is an interesting thing..

Is it possible to change, and if so, how, that the sum of the energy consumed by food production+how much your body uses=<driving a private vehicle to get said food

[Connect]

He analyzes how much energy is used to produce a walk, but not how much energy is used to produce cars (the actual manufacturing of the vehicle). He is comparing apples and oranges.

[Boris2k7]

Just from a quick glance through the thread, I think another important point has been missed.

That being the effect of walking and driving on the urban form. Think of cities that cater to drivers, the amount of roadways that need to built and maintained, the distance travelled by each vehicle over the day, the type of housing that is built, etc. The mistake here is thinking that the urban realm is static, and that our methods of transportation don't affect land use, and vice versa.

[lawsond]

god these arguments are getting ridiculous.

no kidding.
the obvious solution is for everyone on earth to hold hands and leap off a cliff.
no more carbon.
no more messes.
a lovely clean earth for the rest of the fauna to enjoy.