Walking does more than driving to cause global warming

Blitzkrieger

From The TimesAugust 4, 2007

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.

Source

passive

-_-'

Gregor Samsa

The difference is, of course, that the carbon in food (and in the cow's food) came from the atmosphere (and is hence part of the carbon cycle), whereas the carbon in petroleum has been locked away for millions of years. Releasing it adds to the carbon in the atmosphere, rather that it just being part of the cycle.

Which is why bio diesel is more "carbon friendly" than fossil diesel, even though the two might produce the same carbon emissions through combustion.

positron

Or quit eating beef and be a vegetarian, and eat loads of locally produced (less carbon foot print) fruits and vegetables. Also, he didn't mention the health benefits of walking and exercising over a long period of time.

Its a bit like the other argument where someone said Hummer is greener than Prius etc etc.. rubbish!

Anan1

I was surprised to see that the article came from the Times, I was expecting the source to be The Sun. In any case, it was idiotic - an eight-year-old could pick holes in it.

Gregor Samsa

Also, there's no indication that people who habitually drive eat less than people who habitually walk - it's not as if the person who drives to the shop buys less food than the person who walks just because they haven't expended as much bodily energy in the journey.

Blitzkrieger

*sigh

If you were really going to pick holes in it you'd ask who walks 3 miles to the shop and who only expends 180 calories walking that distance.

See that?....Over there!.......nah, you missed it. The point....

antodeco

Im sorry but I walk to my car parked on the road then eat a sandwich when Im stuck in traffic. Im really screwing up the environment

Sarn

positron wrote:

Also, he didn't mention the health benefits of walking and exercising over a long period of time.

The benefit of being a couch potatoe and not exercising is that you have a shorter lifespan reducing the impact you have on the environment.

Pherekydes

Why not just shoot yourself then?

Better still, kill yourself by carbon monoxide poisoning. A greener way to go...