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Upsetting the applecart #2 - driving better than walking

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thermidorthelobster:
This appeared in New Scientist recently and I thought some might find it quite interesting.

"You report that 1 kilogram of beef adds the equivalent of 5 kilograms of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, plus other climate-change pollutants (21 July, p 15).  One implication of this is that driving a car is 'greener' than walking - if you're a beef-eater, that is.

"Chris Goodall writes in How to Live a Low-carbon Life:  'Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles adds about 0.9 kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere.'  Walking the 3 miles instead would use about 180 calories.  You'd need about 100 grams of lean beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6 kilograms of emissions - four times as much as driving."

Terranosaurus:
BTW - you can't count 2 follow 1, not 1.

thermidorthelobster:
Yeah, sorry, I edited it before you posted  :lol:

clbarclay:
Who the heck has a pure meat diet? Haven't they heard of roast potatos :wink:

STOP eating lean meat and have a decent piece with some natural flavour and laden with slow release energy staright from the beast without unnecissery waste. Fat is perfactly acceptible as part of a balanced diet and lifestyle.


Its an interesting point they were making, but how it actually compares to reality is another matter. How much energy would is used by the person driving the car as well?


Finally an apparent problem in the maths. 100g of beef at a 5:1 (5kg CO2 for every 1Kg of beef) ratio would surely be 500g CO2 compared to the cars 900kg? :?  I'm not saying they are wrong, but can they/you provide further information to explain where the 3.6kg of CO2 comes from?


A final point is that there are a number of people were losing a few calories without replacing them would probably be a good thing (my self included :oops: ).

thermidorthelobster:
I mistyped - it should have been 6KG emissions for every 1KG beef - but it looks like this itself was a typo in the magazine.  The original article reckoned 1KG of beef was responsible for 36.4KG CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions.

As regards driving, the energy used by a driver driving 3 miles at 60mph would be about 6 calories, which would need about 3g of beef or another 120g of emissions.  So car:  1KG, walking:  3.6KG.

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