Flibbertigibbet

Angry Earth Mother Says, "Holy Cow!"

Pharoah sent me this article this morning; I think he's jealous because Earth Mother loves me more than him.

Telegraph UK: Eating beef ' is less green than driving'

Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, it was claimed yesterday.

Japanese scientists used a range of data to calculate the environmental impact of a single purchase of beef.

Taking into account all the processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide.

This also consumed 169 megajoules of energy.

That means that 2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have the same effect as the carbon dioxide released by an ordinary car travelling at 50 miles per hour for 155 miles, a journey lasting three hours. The amount of energy consumed would light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.

[...]

Su Taylor, the press officer for the Vegetarian Society, told New Scientist: "Everybody is trying to come up with different ways to reduce carbon footprints, but one of the easiest things you can do is to stop eating meat."

First of all, that is one of the most poorly written headlines ever.

Second of all, I have just thought of several delicious ways to increase the size of my carbon footprint. Mmmmm... Steaks.

Oh! And Su Taylor? Shut up and buy an E for your first name.

I'm not trying to think of ways to reduce carbon footprints.

Further, this study does not show that not eating meat reduces carbon footprints. It just supports the claim that we might reduce carbon footprints by not eating beef. (I realize that many people call only beef "meat" and other meats are called other things.)