Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

[GaryC 7]

Dominic Kennedy

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

Shattering the great green myths

— Traditional nappies are as bad as disposables, a study by the Environment Agency found. While throwaway nappies make up 0.1 per cent of landfill waste, the cloth variety are a waste of energy, clean water and detergent

— Paper bags cause more global warming than plastic. They need much more space to store so require extra energy to transport them from manufacturers to shops

— Diesel trains in rural Britain are more polluting than 4x4 vehicles. Douglas Alexander, when Transport Secretary, said: “If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter [train], it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive”

— Burning wood for fuel is better for the environment than recycling it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs discovered

— Organic dairy cows are worse for the climate. They produce less milk so their methane emissions per litre are higher

— Someone who installs a “green” lightbulb undoes a year’s worth of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain

— Trees, regarded as shields against global warming because they absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas

Sources: Defra; How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, by Chris Goodall; Absorbent Hygiene Products Manufacturers Association; The Times; BBC

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/s...icle2195538.ece

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Lets see:

Chris Goodall is Chair of telecommunications company Dynmark International, a member of the UK Competition Commission and Utilities Appeal Panel, and the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon. He is also a former Director of Which?

In other words - he's not a meterologist or climatologist. IMO doesn't do much to inform the debate on Global Warming.

[GaryC 7]

Lets see:

Chris Goodall is Chair of telecommunications company Dynmark International, a member of the UK Competition Commission and Utilities Appeal Panel, and the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon. He is also a former Director of Which?

In other words - he's not a meterologist or climatologist. IMO doesn't do much to inform the debate on Global Warming.

He isn't speaking of the various theories of GW. Just the amount of CO2 used for various activities. Dispute the claims not bash the speaker.

[Jenn! 918]

I liked this article too, Gary. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=81882

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Not bashing the speaker - just pointing out that an environmentalist is not a scientist.

[Heracles 417]

Lets see:

Chris Goodall is Chair of telecommunications company Dynmark International, a member of the UK Competition Commission and Utilities Appeal Panel, and the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon. He is also a former Director of Which?

In other words - he's not a meterologist or climatologist. IMO doesn't do much to inform the debate on Global Warming.

Must be like Al Gore. Or that Kennedy fool who always carries on like he knows his stuff.

Edited August 8, 2007 by Boo-Yah!

[Heracles 417]

Lets not forget

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=1062801

A KILOGRAM of beef causes more greenhouse gas and other pollution than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home, a Japanese study has found.

New Scientist reports that a team led by Akifumi Ogino, of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, calculated the environmental cost of raising cattle through conventional farming, slaughtering the animal and distributing the meat.

Edited August 8, 2007 by Boo-Yah!

[smoke20 0]

Lets see:

Chris Goodall is Chair of telecommunications company Dynmark International, a member of the UK Competition Commission and Utilities Appeal Panel, and the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon. He is also a former Director of Which?

In other words - he's not a meterologist or climatologist. IMO doesn't do much to inform the debate on Global Warming.

Must be like All Gore.

i was thinking the same thing. BTW: does anybody know how Al Gore gets to the locations of his tv appearances or speaches?....kind of hypocritical, don't you think?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think a distinction can be made between a scientific study, and extracts from a book that relies largely on 3rd party statistics and focuses on a single geographical area.

[GaryC 7]

I think a distinction can be made between a scientific study, and extracts from a book that relies largely on 3rd party statistics and focuses on a single geographical area.

To you maybe.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think a distinction can be made between a scientific study, and extracts from a book that relies largely on 3rd party statistics and focuses on a single geographical area.

To you maybe.

To most people - I would think...

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I'm waiting for Wild Tangent to summarize how it's no wonder so many kids are screwed up.

[GaryC 7]

I think a distinction can be made between a scientific study, and extracts from a book that relies largely on 3rd party statistics and focuses on a single geographical area.

To you maybe.

To most people - I would think...

I think things like this point out the total lack of understanding the GW bunch have. Some scientist observes that the planet is warming and everyone assumes that we are causing it. (Even though the planet has warmed and cooled long before we got here) So they say we must do this and that to "save the planet" and it turns out they make things worse than before. They don't think, they react.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I'm waiting for Wild Tangent to summarize how it's no wonder so many kids are screwed up.

Fancypants - you are on fine form tonight.

Never mind the environment - driving to the shops makes you a fata$$ more than walking

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think a distinction can be made between a scientific study, and extracts from a book that relies largely on 3rd party statistics and focuses on a single geographical area.

To you maybe.

To most people - I would think...

I think things like this point out the total lack of understanding the GW bunch have. Some scientist observes that the planet is warming and everyone assumes that we are causing it. (Even though the planet has warmed and cooled long before we got here) So they say we must do this and that to "save the planet" and it turns out they make things worse than before. They don't think, they react.

I think its quite simple - that this debate is complex enough without confusing scientists with environmentalists. From what I understand Goodall points out - things like the food production industry as putting out a lot of greenhouse gases, rather than the conventional assumption that it's mostly powerstations and mass transit. Which is a fair point.

That said - when you read that walking is worse for the environment than driving, I think a fair few scientists would take issue with that (even I, as a non-scientist, can see the simplistic fallacy in that suggestion). More than CO2 comes out of a car exhaust pipe... and there's more to environmental damage than greenhouse gases.

Edited August 8, 2007 by Number 6