Gliondrach
02-06-2007, 02:30 AM
The following link has interesting information on the amount of fossil fuels needed to produce meat and compares that with how much is needed to grow potatatoes. If the potatoes had been veganically grown they would have used even less fossil fuel. There is also information about how many calories various sports and activities burn.
This thread would be a good place to mention all those other harmful and wasteful effects of meat and dairy production, such as the extra water and land that is required. And how forests are being cut down to grow more food for farm animals. And what effect that is having on the planet.
Bicycling Wastes Gas?
as seen in a New York Times blog | Last updated Feb. 2009
Editor's note: This article is widely misquoted and widely misunderstood. Most of the criticism I see around the Internet shows that the readers missed the point completely. I think people read a faulty blog post somewhere else, then come here, see the headline, get angry, and then decide I must be wrong (and send me woefully misinformed complaints about it) without even having carefully read the article. The point is not that "Taking the car is good for the environment" (which was the title of one blog post). The point is that just like some kinds of transportation use a lot more energy than others, some kinds of food use a lot more energy than others too, and what you eat is as much a part of your energy footprint as how you get around. Please read the article carefully. Thank you.
Most people think that bicycling doesn't use gas, but actually it does. It takes lots of fossil fuel to produce the food for the cyclist's calories -- and cycling requires more food fuel than driving.
Of course, we can't just stop eating, but we can definitely choose what we eat, and here's the kicker: meat requires much more fossil fuel to produce than vegetables and grains. How much more? About 200 times more for beef than for potatoes.1 The reason for this is simple: Cattle consume fourteen times more grain than they produce as meat. They're food factories in reverse. So it takes a lot more water, land, and of course, energy to produce that meat. We use absolutely horrific amounts of energy to grow grain to feed to cattle. In fact, over 80% of the grain grown in this country is eaten by livestock, not people. So in short, the more meat you eat, the more gas you waste.
David Pimentel of Cornell University calculates that it takes nearly twice as much fossil energy to produce a typical American diet than a pure vegetarian diet. This works out to about an extra 200 gallons of fossil fuels per year for a meat-eater. This means that meat-eaters are "driving" an extra fourteen miles every day whether they really drive or not, when we look at how much extra fuel it takes to feed them.2
In fact, meat production is so wasteful that walking actually uses more fossil energy than driving, if you get your calories for walking from red meat.3 (Of course, no one eats nothing but red meat. The point is just to show the massive amounts of energy required to produce red meat.)
The same is not true of bicycling vs. driving, because bicycling is more than twice as efficient as walking (calories consumed per distance traveled) -- bicycling uses less fossil energy than driving even if the cyclist were eating nothing but beef.4 But to focus on this misses the point. It's no bombshell that cycling uses less fossil energy than driving, no matter what you're eating. What's important is that meat-eaters use twice as much fossil energy as pure vegetarians -- whether they're bicycling or not.
What does this mean in practical terms?
It means that the amount of gas you use isn't just related to how you get from place to place, it's also related to what you eat. Meatless diets require half as much fuel to produce than the standard American diet. Pimentel calculated that if the entire world ate the way the U.S. does, the planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 13 years. The typical American could save more gas by going vegan than by giving up driving two days a week.5
Those who think the question is, "Is it better for me to drive, or (eat a wasteful diet and) walk?" are missing the point. That's like asking whether it's better to pour oil or pesticides into the water supply. Ideally you shouldn't do either. To greatly reduce your energy and pollution footprint, you should reduce or eliminate consumption of animal foods -- no matter how you get around.
Food for thought.
-- Michael Bluejay
Update: Want to see how your eating stacks up against your driving? Then check out my new carbon footprint calculator. michaelbluejay.com/electricity/carboncalculator.html
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Postscripts
Buying local vs. ditching meat
Some readers championed the energy savings available by buying local as being important. But the energy savings there pales compared to going veggie. That's because only 4% of food's greenhouse emissions come from transporting it to the store. (New Scientist)
newscientist.com/article/dn13741
As the Organic Consumers put it, "It's how food is produced, not how far it is transported, that matters most for global warming, according to new research published in ES&T." The authors of that study say, "Shifting less than one day per week's worth of calories from red meat and dairy products ... achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food." (Carnegie-Mellon University)
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f
In other words, it's far better to buy a pound of carrots shipped from far away, than to buy a pound of locally-farmed beef.
Bike vs. Walk vs. Drive calculator
This calculator lets you compare the energy used by a walker or cyclist, to the energy used by an auto. SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE. LINK BELOW.
bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/energy.html
This thread would be a good place to mention all those other harmful and wasteful effects of meat and dairy production, such as the extra water and land that is required. And how forests are being cut down to grow more food for farm animals. And what effect that is having on the planet.
Bicycling Wastes Gas?
as seen in a New York Times blog | Last updated Feb. 2009
Editor's note: This article is widely misquoted and widely misunderstood. Most of the criticism I see around the Internet shows that the readers missed the point completely. I think people read a faulty blog post somewhere else, then come here, see the headline, get angry, and then decide I must be wrong (and send me woefully misinformed complaints about it) without even having carefully read the article. The point is not that "Taking the car is good for the environment" (which was the title of one blog post). The point is that just like some kinds of transportation use a lot more energy than others, some kinds of food use a lot more energy than others too, and what you eat is as much a part of your energy footprint as how you get around. Please read the article carefully. Thank you.
Most people think that bicycling doesn't use gas, but actually it does. It takes lots of fossil fuel to produce the food for the cyclist's calories -- and cycling requires more food fuel than driving.
Of course, we can't just stop eating, but we can definitely choose what we eat, and here's the kicker: meat requires much more fossil fuel to produce than vegetables and grains. How much more? About 200 times more for beef than for potatoes.1 The reason for this is simple: Cattle consume fourteen times more grain than they produce as meat. They're food factories in reverse. So it takes a lot more water, land, and of course, energy to produce that meat. We use absolutely horrific amounts of energy to grow grain to feed to cattle. In fact, over 80% of the grain grown in this country is eaten by livestock, not people. So in short, the more meat you eat, the more gas you waste.
David Pimentel of Cornell University calculates that it takes nearly twice as much fossil energy to produce a typical American diet than a pure vegetarian diet. This works out to about an extra 200 gallons of fossil fuels per year for a meat-eater. This means that meat-eaters are "driving" an extra fourteen miles every day whether they really drive or not, when we look at how much extra fuel it takes to feed them.2
In fact, meat production is so wasteful that walking actually uses more fossil energy than driving, if you get your calories for walking from red meat.3 (Of course, no one eats nothing but red meat. The point is just to show the massive amounts of energy required to produce red meat.)
The same is not true of bicycling vs. driving, because bicycling is more than twice as efficient as walking (calories consumed per distance traveled) -- bicycling uses less fossil energy than driving even if the cyclist were eating nothing but beef.4 But to focus on this misses the point. It's no bombshell that cycling uses less fossil energy than driving, no matter what you're eating. What's important is that meat-eaters use twice as much fossil energy as pure vegetarians -- whether they're bicycling or not.
What does this mean in practical terms?
It means that the amount of gas you use isn't just related to how you get from place to place, it's also related to what you eat. Meatless diets require half as much fuel to produce than the standard American diet. Pimentel calculated that if the entire world ate the way the U.S. does, the planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 13 years. The typical American could save more gas by going vegan than by giving up driving two days a week.5
Those who think the question is, "Is it better for me to drive, or (eat a wasteful diet and) walk?" are missing the point. That's like asking whether it's better to pour oil or pesticides into the water supply. Ideally you shouldn't do either. To greatly reduce your energy and pollution footprint, you should reduce or eliminate consumption of animal foods -- no matter how you get around.
Food for thought.
-- Michael Bluejay
Update: Want to see how your eating stacks up against your driving? Then check out my new carbon footprint calculator. michaelbluejay.com/electricity/carboncalculator.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Postscripts
Buying local vs. ditching meat
Some readers championed the energy savings available by buying local as being important. But the energy savings there pales compared to going veggie. That's because only 4% of food's greenhouse emissions come from transporting it to the store. (New Scientist)
newscientist.com/article/dn13741
As the Organic Consumers put it, "It's how food is produced, not how far it is transported, that matters most for global warming, according to new research published in ES&T." The authors of that study say, "Shifting less than one day per week's worth of calories from red meat and dairy products ... achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food." (Carnegie-Mellon University)
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f
In other words, it's far better to buy a pound of carrots shipped from far away, than to buy a pound of locally-farmed beef.
Bike vs. Walk vs. Drive calculator
This calculator lets you compare the energy used by a walker or cyclist, to the energy used by an auto. SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE. LINK BELOW.
bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/energy.html