Monday flamebait: debunking green myths
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.
That's the finding of Chris Goodall, a UK environmentalist and author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, after analyzing the greenhouse gases emitted by beef production. "The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere," says Goodall. "Eating less and driving to save energy would be better." And he's not suggesting that everyone adopt veganism and meditate on a hill all day; buying local meat and produce whenever possible will help cut CO2 emissions. "Don't buy anything from the supermarket," Goodall says, "or anything that's traveled too far."
Goodall isn't some industry-paid crank spreading a little FUD, by the way. He's a Green Party candidate for Parliament and a well-known writer on the environment in the UK. But he's also spent time researching the food production industry in Britain and has found that it may be one of the worst contributors to greenhouse gases in the world. Ironically, the organic beef industry is even worse because organically-raised cattle emit more methane (OK, I find this claim a bit dubious-cows are going to fart mankind into oblivion? apparently there's significant research on this topic, however).
Some other interesting environmental myths debunked by Goodall:
Here is the Web site for Goodall's book. (Tip o' the hat to Dick Clark on the Mises Economics Blog.)
That's the finding of Chris Goodall, a UK environmentalist and author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, after analyzing the greenhouse gases emitted by beef production. "The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere," says Goodall. "Eating less and driving to save energy would be better." And he's not suggesting that everyone adopt veganism and meditate on a hill all day; buying local meat and produce whenever possible will help cut CO2 emissions. "Don't buy anything from the supermarket," Goodall says, "or anything that's traveled too far."
Goodall isn't some industry-paid crank spreading a little FUD, by the way. He's a Green Party candidate for Parliament and a well-known writer on the environment in the UK. But he's also spent time researching the food production industry in Britain and has found that it may be one of the worst contributors to greenhouse gases in the world. Ironically, the organic beef industry is even worse because organically-raised cattle emit more methane (OK, I find this claim a bit dubious-cows are going to fart mankind into oblivion? apparently there's significant research on this topic, however).
Some other interesting environmental myths debunked by Goodall:
- Cloth diapers are more harmful to the environment than the disposable variety. That's because all disposable diapers do is take up some landfill space-about 0.1% according to the Environment Agency of the UK government. Cloth "nappies", on the other hand, require frequent washing, which wastes energy and water. (However, he should mention that disposable diapers also require energy to transport them to the landfill.)
- Paper bags cause more greenhouse gas emissions than plastic, because they take up more space and thus require more energy to be shipped from suppliers to shops and so on.
- Organic dairy cows emit more methane and produce less milk than non-organic cows, so their pollution footprint is larger.
- Importing produce can undo a year's worth of the energy saved by installing "green" light bulbs.
Here is the Web site for Goodall's book. (Tip o' the hat to Dick Clark on the Mises Economics Blog.)