The actor Ed Begley Jr. has a widely-circulated OpEd piece touting his eco-friendly activities, featuring a proud announcement that his exercise on his stationary bicycle generates the electricity he uses to toast two pieces of bread.
Now those two pieces give him 200 calories, but he burns at least 100 calories on the bike. So half of his eco-friendly exercise is lost because he needs to obtain additional food from elsewhere to maintain his weight — food whose growth and distribution have environmental consequences too, as does the manufacture of his bicycle.
This illustrates the general equilibrium difficulties of so many pro-environmental activities about which the rich and famous boast.
Saving the environment in one market generates consequences in others. Perhaps the best illustration is the misguided effort to generate ethanol from corn by subsidizing farmers to switch to corn production. Fine for gasoline users, and fine in reducing environmental damage from gasoline; but corn uses lots of water (environmental depletion) and, moreover, the subsidies have helped fuel the spurt of inflation in food prices worldwide.
There should be a rule: before helping the environment in one market, we should be required to think through the impacts on other markets.
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I’ve seen a lot of stories recently like this, where every action is weighted against other actions in a butterfly effect method that ends with an ethical/moral paralysis.
Should Ed not exercise then, and just eat? Wouldn’t he then become obese, potentially straining our healthcare system? Yes, somewhere that bike was manufactured, but so were the big cars other people are driving around.
I don’t think a carbon neutral lifestyle is attainable, maybe Mr. Begley does, but my hunch is that he’s just making his best effort where he can.
I agree with your rule on the macro-level when speaking about oil companies, governments, etc. But I think it becomes somewhat less relevant on the micro-level of one person. To use my earlier example, which, in general, is going to be better for the environement:
EBJr. rides his stationary bike (thus getting exercise and decreasing the burden on our healthcare system), has two pieces of toast and maybe needs a little snack in the mid-morning.
Or,
EBJr. sits on the couch watching TV (consuming energy and getting fat) and still needs to eat.
Good point, but I think the example is not pertinent: this actor would exercise anyway, and being eco-friendly does not make him burn more calories.
@ Rick
How is getting exercise ‘decreasing the burden on our health care system’? If someone is paying for their own health care, I fail to see where the ‘burden’ is. Mr. Begley surely pays for his own health care, and thus benefits the health care system with his revenue.
Of course, some people already believe or desire a socialist health care state where getting sick does burden the health care system. It is just sad that people have already accepted this as inevitable.
The consequences of ethanol from Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol might not be the same though – its generated by using waste products from sugar manufacture on site, using waste for heat & isn’t grown on ex-rain forest. So we need to think through all of the detail on green issues – e.g not go for blanket ‘bio-fuels create food shortages and are bad’, which seems to be the current media idea..
The human body is only about 25-30% efficient in doing work. So if Ed’s stationary bike toast took 100 kcal to make, he actually metabolized something like 300-400 kcal of food.
@Rick:
Obesity is not a natural and unavoidable consequence of eating and not exercising… it is a consequence of eating *too much* and not exercising.
So, if Mr. Begley just ate less *instead* of exercising, he would be helping the environment more.
Construction projects require Environmental Imapact Studies. Perhaps Environmental projects should require Economic Impact Studies.
I’d wager that the bigger “green” effect here is due to Mr. Begley consuming 200 calories of bread versus 200 calories of bacon, or sausage, or poptarts. A simple diet that avoids animal products and processed foods can dramatically decrease one’s carbon footprint.