Walking is more harmful to the environment than driving

[GuidoHunter]

SUCK IT, ENVIRONMENTALISTS!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2195538.ece

Originally Posted by The entire article

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

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

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[customstuff]

burned!

[lord_carbo]

Hahahahaha

Carpooling will always win.

[madmatt621]

Originally Posted by lord_carbo

Carpooling will always win.

Who even does that? Really...

[lord_carbo]

Originally Posted by madmatt621

Who even do that? Really...

Yeah, and who use noun-verb agreement?

[Black Yoshi]

3 letters

1 word

WTF

[stretchypanda]

Oh, environmental nutjobs.

[madmatt621]

Originally Posted by lord_carbo

Yeah, and who use noun-verb agreement?

fix'd.

[Doug31]

Ride a bike. That uses a lot less calories than walking the same distance.

[talisman]

uh this whole thing broke on the blogosphere a couple days ago and it's pretty much bunk considering that it's all based on beef, and assumes a constant body weight and caloric intake.

[Relambrien]

Absolutely hilarious.

[stretchypanda]

Originally Posted by talisman

uh this whole thing broke on the blogosphere a couple days ago and it's pretty much bunk considering that it's all based on beef, and assumes a constant body weight and caloric intake.

Even if it's a totally made-up statement from a totally made-up guy, it still points to what can be seen as irrational panic from some environmentalists who make illogical demands on human kind to reduce impact on the environment.

PS: Thanks for letting us know you corrected your typo, madmatt, because none of us can see the timestamp informing us that you edited your post.

[GuidoHunter]

Well, yeah, talisman, which is why this isn't in CT.

The main problem with it is the beef consumption to replace the energy. I doubt the body weight and caloric intake would drastically alter the results, considering how walking put out four times as much gas as did driving.

That's not the point of the article, though.

The main point (kind of along what stretchy mentioned) was in this part:

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.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Black Yoshi

3 letters

1 word

WTF

That's not one word. It's an acronym that substitutes three words for three letters.

[Black Yoshi]

Originally Posted by Squeek

That's not one word. It's an acronym that substitutes three words for three letters.

Oops.

[SaguchiTheCat]

This sounds like complete bullsh*t to me.

[Calcium Deposit]

Originally Posted by GuidoHunter

SUCK IT, ENVIRONMENTALISTS!

You didn't vote for Al Gore.


Dick.

[jewpinthethird]

Originally Posted by GuidoHunter

The main point (kind of along what stretchy mentioned) was in this part:

<part goes here>

Yes. Very yes.

[evilbutterfly]

I was pretty sure it was a complete a joke until the end when it got more serious.

The cooking then freezing then re-cooking thing, I never really thought about that. Hmmmm...well you know what that means.

KILL THE ****ING COWS

[silentwind2]

Guido you're my hero. even though i'll never stop eating cows or exercising

hey who wants to bet $5 that i spelled that wrong?