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."
How's about you people come up with some semi-coherent positions, and then get back to me. I'll still ignore you, but at least I won't get whiplash trying to reconcile your various arguments.
Comments (6)
These so called environmentalists whish to wipe out large portions of humanity. That is their dream.
Posted by Roy Eappen | August 6, 2007 6:29 AM
Posted on August 6, 2007 06:29
My favourite example of green madness was a Greenpeace press release (presumably made completely instinctively) condemning a corporation for planting a forest as part of the clean-up in shutting down a mining operation. The trees, you see, were 'carbon bombs' that would eventually rot or burn and release their deadly CO2 into the atmosphere.
Posted by Bruce Gottfred | August 6, 2007 7:50 AM
Posted on August 6, 2007 07:50
These so called environmentalists whish to wipe out large portions of humanity. That is their dream.
only conservatives....(INSERT EVIL LAUGH)
Posted by jeff davidson | August 6, 2007 12:44 PM
Posted on August 6, 2007 12:44
Roy, it sounds like the best thing would be to cut down those nasty trees before they rot or burn. I guess the best place to store them would be in the walls of a house, maybe in 8 ft lengths and say, two inches by six inches?
Perhaps another good place to store them would be in the ground. If we made them into real thin slices of pulp and printed news on them, it would help pay for the transportation to the landfill/carbon sink.
I've had this debate a few times on Rabble, it's pure entertainment to watch their little minds twist up trying to explain their position.
Do you have a link to their scare story on carbon bombs?
Posted by Stan | August 6, 2007 2:55 PM
Posted on August 6, 2007 14:55
The name's Bruce, buddy...
A couple minutes with Google and... huzzah!
Posted by Bruce Gottfred | August 7, 2007 6:27 AM
Posted on August 7, 2007 06:27
Here's a bit more context.
For me, this story stuck with me because of the thought processes that must have been involved. A corporation is doing something. We hate corporations. We must condemn them. The reason is the least important part of their thinking.
Posted by Bruce Gottfred | August 7, 2007 6:40 AM
Posted on August 7, 2007 06:40