Who is more worthy of riding the carbon-footprint high horse?
In one corner... meat-loving walkers. (No car, loves a nice filet mignon.)
In the other corner... veggie-loving drivers? (Car, fruits and nuts only please.)
On the heels of my post yesterday on walkability, I went off to a carbon-offset calculator and decided to see how many tons of CO2 could be reduced by a Leschi resident going from driving downtown each workday to never driving. It's about 6 miles round trip, so 6 x 250 work days = 1,500 miles. Let's plug in my 1998 mid-size car and go to town.... no pun intended.
According to this calculator, if one were to reduce their driving to 1,000-3,000 miles from 3,000-6000 miles, they would reduce their carbon footprint by 0.9 tons.
I was pretty surprised when the same calculator said an individual moving their diet from omnivorous to vegetarian would reduce their carbon footprint by 1.1 tons. (Omnivorous to mostly vegetarian about .8 tons.)
Among many reasons, such as the amount of calories it takes to produce one calorie of meat one of the biggest reasons is simply cow farts.
Nearly full disclosure -- I'm in a car nearly half the time to work (carpool + driving), my car only gets avg. MPG (~25 Hwy) have a pescatarian diet (meat no, gelatin/stock no, fish yes, eggs/dairy yes).
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3 comments:
Love the data dude. But. You presume that the larger the carbon footprint the worse the activity. I would posit that your central assumption is flawed. Like many dogmatic (if well meaning) prosthelitizers, you take an unproven thesis as a given, and build evidence to backup what hasn't been bothered to be proven a tenable position. But no surprise there. Hippie.
to expand - you are not considering the many other variables that come into play when you judge one's "carbon footprint". because admit it, what you are really judging is one's "carelessness/negative impact" on the world. well, if I sacrifice time and opportunity to earn taxable income which makes up the bulk of, say, the funding for the EPA, should not my carbon footprint be reduced by the adjusted percentage contribution I have made to controlling emissions by simply earning money and paying taxes? in other words, is one person's good attitude and dedication to green living with a subpar income better than another person's careless attitude and lack of dedication to greenness with an outsized income? empirically, no. emotionally, according to you, apparently yes. a debater should know better, sir.
My first hater. Welcome to the 98122 blog!
I'm just musing more than anything. The fact that all kinds of human activity has been linked to the greenhouse effect is a scary thing to come to grips with as a society and for me individually since everything can be put in those terms.
Where does the veggie lunch I had from a styrofoam container rank against the turkey sandwich made at home and brought in a tupperware? It's too mind-boggling -- my head hurts from thinking about it -- and I can't link any of it to inherently good/evil actions.
At the very least, this post was thought-provoking for one person besides me.
I think your first comment questions whether global warming in it of itself is actually happening and is being caused by human activity. Don't want to debate that here...
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