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

[skinnyflyer 0]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece

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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

I dunno, judging by all the obesity everyone seems to be eating the extra food anyways and still using the car.

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."
A. Sachs

[billvon 3,114]

>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 numbers don't work out even for normal people.

Take three sample trips, door to door. I'll use my trip to the store as an example.

Trip #1 involves walking. Guy walks three miles to the store. 350 calories total. In general it takes 10 calories of fuel to make 1 calorie of food, so he's used 3500 calories of fossil fuels to get to that store.

Trip #2 involves biking. This guy bikes 3.5 miles (slightly longer distance since he has more traffic laws to obey) and uses 119 calories (biking is a LOT more efficient than walking.) Total fossil fuels used 1190 calories.

Trip #3 involves driving. Guy drives his 25mpg car to the store; drive takes about 4 miles (since he has to park, can't take the sidewalk, has to obey all traffic laws etc.) Uses 7200 calories to move the car, 44 calories to walk to/from the car (call it 600 feet total) and uses 25 calories to maintain his metabolism while driving. Total fuel calories is 7890.

Now compare that to our family; most of our food comes from a local farm. They use closer to 3 calories fuel per calorie (since they farm organically and they irrigate with a well) and the only shipping fuel used is the gas used to power the guy's minivan when he delivers it. So now the comparison is 357 calories of fuel vs 7407. (or 3807 if we compare it to a hybrid car.)

[SpeedRacer 1]

Also, if you eat at Taco Bell your own personal greenhouse gas emissions will be that much higher.

Speed Racer
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[kelpdiver 2]

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Trip #1 involves walking. Guy walks three miles to the store. 350 calories total. In general it takes 10 calories of fuel to make 1 calorie of food, so he's used 3500 calories of fossil fuels to get to that store.

I was a bit taken by the data posted in the article that 3 miles was only 180 calories. Walking/running energy is nearly entirely a matter of weight x distance. At my weight, it's 140cal/mile. There aren't many 90lb'ers walking about.

The buy locally philosophy is taking off, though I wonder to what extent. It's good that produce tends to be labelled with origin now so you can choose to avoid fruit from halfway around the world. In California you can do pretty well by it, esp if it's only practiced by a minority of people. But in Montana? Or Illinois for that matter? How much corn can one person eat?

[billvon 3,114]

>Or Illinois for that matter? How much corn can one person eat?

Good point. The primary crops in Illinois are corn, soybeans and wheat, but there are also a lot (as in millions of pounds) of apples, peaches, snap peas, potatoes, rye etc. grown there. That could cover a lot of a person's diet, but the large monocrop farms don't adapt well to handling small local demand instead of a large national demand.

Some of this will be 'fixed' by increasing energy costs. When avocados prices triple but snap pea prices don't rise much, people in Illinois will tend to go with the peas over the avocados (or even going with greenhouse avocados from Skokie.) It's probably also worthwhile to consider going back to smaller, more diverse farms, as were more common 50 years ago. That may be driven by a shrinking long-distance market as well.

[diablopilot 2]

It's a much bigger problem than global warming, called "Global Over Population with Emphisis on the Idiots."

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[kallend 2,147]

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It's a much bigger problem than global warming, called "Global Over Population with Emphisis on the Idiots."

I blame the termites.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[diablopilot 2]

But the termites wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for all the f*&%ing trees.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[jumpinfarmer 0]

One also needs to remember that the carbon produced growing food has been captured from the air instead of being reliesed from fossile fuels.

As for buying local food, I'm all for it. However most people don't live neer farms anymore, the mid-west is a great example. In central IL or IA you could grow all the produce you wanted as a farmer but would starve since there isn't anyone around to buy your products.

Myself, I raise a little produce mostly for our oun use. I used to sell produce at a stand in front of my house but not anymore. I wasn't making any money since every neighbor started doing the same thing and it took too much of my time away from the rest of our farm. Much of the grain and hay we raise does stay close to home however for what that may meen.

Also I read that burning wood is more friendly than hauling it away. I have said that for years, take when a house is raised, it needs to be crunched up and loaded in trucks. Then hauled to a landfill where it is dumped and pushed around and packed in, later producing methane as the landfill decomposis. Just setting it on fire in a controled manner is much more eficent in my opinion.

[shropshire 0]

Side bar : What is the effect on ones "Carbon Footprint" [yuk] if you are cremated rather than buried?

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Royd 0]

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Some of this will be 'fixed' by increasing energy costs. When avocados prices triple but snap pea prices don't rise much, people in Illinois will tend to go with the peas over the avocados (or even going with greenhouse avocados from Skokie.) It's probably also worthwhile to consider going back to smaller, more diverse farms, as were more common 50 years ago. That may be driven by a shrinking long-distance market as well.

The downside of small, diverse truck farms is that they are labor intensive. Vegetables have to be picked and moved everyday. Seasonal windows for replanting have to observed closely.
Larger farms that deal in one or two crops, especially grains, can handle the crops with a minimum of manual labor, and bulk, dry storage is considerably cheaper than refrigeration.
I would hate to see the price of a loaf of bread if farmers were only growing enough wheat to supply the local population.

[billvon 3,114]

>The downside of small, diverse truck farms is that they are labor intensive.

Right. And manual labor, especially run by local produce, uses far less energy than the powered equivalent. (Also note that we're not talking about plowing by hand; we're just talking about using more labor intensive equipment.)

> I would hate to see the price of a loaf of bread if farmers were
>only growing enough wheat to supply the local population

You will also hate to see the price of a loaf of bread when gas hits $20 a gallon - and the wheat has to be shipped to you from Iowa.

[jumpinfarmer 0]

Bill I don't want to rain on your parade but wheat doesn't come from Iowa, at least not very much of it.

Also with the imigration situation manual labor is hard to come by for any kind of produce farm, or any one that needs labor. sadly Americans don't want to work anymore.

Back to wheat for an example. About half of the US production is exported, the rest is used here. Most is raised on the plains and Pacific Northwest with the rest spread around the country. The places where wheat is the major crop aren't really suited for producing other crops without significant irigation. It's to hot and dry to grow truck crops and there is no market for them anyway. Neer the population centers wheat is also raised but more for a rotation crop then a major crop. There simply isn't enough land to grow all the wheat we use in areas neer the population centers. Then add in the differant classes of wheat. Humid ares like here in NY are best suited for soft wheats used for pastery flour and cerial, not breads or pasta. We have seveal flour mills within 75 miles of our farm and they use the wheat we grow here and also need some from other places in order to blend and make the type of flour needed for there customers.

There are reasons why agriculture has developed the way it has. It isn't as simple as just having small sustainable comunities. We aren't the most efficiant agricultural producer in the world for no reason.

I'd love to have you come out here for a couple weeks and see how we operate day to day. I think it would be a real eye opener(and not in a bad way) for yourself or anyone who has never been around farming.

[billvon 3,114]

>Also with the imigration situation manual labor is hard to come by for any
>kind of produce farm, or any one that needs labor. sadly Americans don't
>want to work anymore.

I agree. But if it came to "work or starve" I suspect they'd choose to work.

>There simply isn't enough land to grow all the wheat we use in
>areas neer the population centers.

Right. Which would mean people in population centers would move to other food sources - and the population of those centers themselves would dwindle as people realized it was much cheaper to live in small towns nearer their food source.

>There are reasons why agriculture has developed the way it has.

Agreed 100% - and one of the reasons is cheap energy to transport the food. That's changing; agriculture will change as well.

[jumpinfarmer 0]

Your right with the cheap energy/cheap food idea, and how that is starting to change. In the last year almost everything we have to sell off our farm has doubled in price so we are still making the same net income just handeling more dollars.

As for people moving to smaller places to be closer to there food sources that will only cause a more rapid loss of good farmland to spralling development. Most of the large population centers are where they are because they once had plentiful food sources close to them before the land was all developed into city.

[billvon 3,114]

>Most of the large population centers are where they are because they
>once had plentiful food sources close to them before the land was all
>developed into city.

Yeah, although they grew far beyond what the local farming could support once trains (and then highways and trucks) came on the scene. I'd expect there to be another "adjustment" if energy prices go up a lot.

Of course another alternative is to simply do the same amount of shipping with less energy; there are plenty of ways to do that. Trains are one. Inconvenient but much cheaper than trucking when it comes from getting grain from an elevator to a city.

[rehmwa 2]

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Bill I don't want to rain on your parade but wheat doesn't come from Iowa, at least not very much of it.

you have to cut the LA folk's slack on this one - they really don't even know there are more states than: California, Florida, Texas, New York City, and Aspen.

I'm impressed "Iowa" is spelled correctly AND not associated with potatos (potatoes)

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[skinnyflyer 0]

in lester brown's "plan B 2.0" he has several charts that show how a barrel of oil used to equal... i think it was 1 bushel of wheat... in price. and how over several decades the price of oil has risen dramatically while the wheat hasn't. ok i just found it.
it starts in 1950 with the bushel of wheat at 1.89$ and barrel of oil at 1.71$.
it finishes in 2005 with the bushel of wheat at 3.90$ and barrel of oil at 52.00$
(and we know that it is now in the 70-75$ range).

" the u.s., both the largest importer of oil and the largest exporter of grain, is paying dearly for this shift in the wheat-oil exchange rate. the 13 fold shift since 1973 is contributing to the largest u.s. trade deficit in history and a record external debt."

so it appears to me that this is the real motivation behing the ethanol boom. especially considering that it seems to take more fossil fuel energy to produce than the energy that it gives us.

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."
A. Sachs

[jumpinfarmer 0]

Quote

in lester brown's "plan B 2.0" he has several charts that show how a barrel of oil used to equal... i think it was 1 bushel of wheat... in price. and how over several decades the price of oil has risen dramatically while the wheat hasn't. ok i just found it.
it starts in 1950 with the bushel of wheat at 1.89$ and barrel of oil at 1.71$.
it finishes in 2005 with the bushel of wheat at 3.90$ and barrel of oil at 52.00$
(and we know that it is now in the 70-75$ range).
________________________________________________

Now try living off that $3.90 bushel of wheat, actually about $6.50 right now but still not anywhere the same increase as everything else. This is why agriculture has become so specialised and farms so large in the past 20 years.

" the u.s., both the largest importer of oil and the largest exporter of grain, is paying dearly for this shift in the wheat-oil exchange rate. the 13 fold shift since 1973 is contributing to the largest u.s. trade deficit in history and a record external debt."
________________________________________________

Agriculture used to balence out our trade deficite but today only has a small positive ballance.

so it appears to me that this is the real motivation behing the ethanol boom. especially considering that it seems to take more fossil fuel energy to produce than the energy that it gives us.

_________________________________________________

Ethanol does provide about a 60% net gain of energy for what it takes to produce.

• Quote

[billvon 3,114]

>so it appears to me that this is the real motivation behing the ethanol
>boom. especially considering that it seems to take more fossil fuel energy
>to produce than the energy that it gives us.

That doesn't make much sense:

1) Ethanol is a net positive; it generates more energy than is used to produce it (outside of sunlight, which is free)

2) If it didn't, then making ethanol would make the debt problem worse.