Last month I blogged about Chris Goodall‘s claim that walking could exacerbate global warming more than driving if the person doing the walking gets his or her calories from foods like beef or milk.
A group called the Pacific Institute has done some further analysis of the data. Their analysis suggests that for most reasonable assumptions about the diet of the walker, driving generates a greater carbon footprint.
I like how the Pacific Institute approached this issue. They used data and clearly articulated assumptions to better understand these claims. They put everything out on the internet so that people can check what they have done and challenge it if appropriate.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. might take a lesson from this.
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I like how people buy labor saving devices like fancy lawn mowers and robot vacuum cleaners so they can hurry up and get their lawn mowed in order to have time to drive to the gym and run on a treadmill.
So are they saying we would be less hungry (reducing carbon emissions by not eating beef), if we drove more?
None of this data ever mentions the energy cost associated with building the infrastructure to drive. If the the energy used to build and maintain roads and vehicles was included here, this wouldn’t even be close. Instead, they are looking at a very limited data set. Also misleading (at least in the coverage of these studies), is making the assumption that the people who walk would eat more and the people who drive eat less.
Missing the point. Many people want to lose weight, and walking and NOT eating these extra calories is great for the environment and their waistlines. And then they’ll weigh less and get better mileage in their cars later, too
Coincidentally enough one of the Seinfeld re-runs on TBS yesterday afternoon was the one where Kramer feeds the horse Beef-a-Reeno
#1. speaking of someone who uses a lawnmower and (for a time) a robot vacuum cleaner and also drives to the gym and runs on a treadmill…
a. Pushing a reel mower or even a gas mower does not help me improve my speed in foot races or triathlons.
b. When I run on the treadmill, I can listen to music, I can think about interesting problems, I don’t have to concentrate on where my feet are, or if there are rocks/balls/sticks ahead. I can multitask in ways that I can’t when I’m mowing.
c. Mowing takes between 30 minutes and 1 1/2 hours per week, depending, and I can only do it during the day, almost always in bright sunshine. It’s hot, sweaty, grimy and unpleasant. On the other hand, I can run early in the morning, late at night, in a climate-controlled facility, every night if I were so inclined.
d. To my knowledge, I’ve never gotten into a cardio-strengthening sustained pulse rate while mowing. It’s just not the right exercise for that.
If the price of gas went to $50/gallon, I’d stop going to the gym, and run on the streets at home, or on a home treadmill. I still wouldn’t consider the gas or reel mower to sufficient for the kind of workout I want to do.
Wait a minute… why are we even researching this?
Suppose for a moment that driving in some sort of super-efficient non-human-powered vehicle resulted in a lower carbon footprint than walking/biking/etc. Would anyone seriously consider giving up that exercise? Do people not understand that, as humans, we were built to move under our own power and incur dire health consequences when we don’t?
jb, I think you’re missing the point of the first post. I don’t think he was saying that you’d get your workout from mowing the lawn, just that the footprint you’re leaving is negated by the fact that you drive to the gym to run on a treadmill.
I’m not endorsing his comments, I just think your response was a bit off point.
-dj