Sunday 5 August 2007

Going Shopping? Don't Walk, Take Your Car!

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, British Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, and a leading environmentalist, has calculated.

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. According to Goodall, driving a typical car for 3 miles adds about 0.9 kg of CO2 to the atmosphere. If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories, resulting in 3.6 kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

3 comment(s):

Anonymous said...

This is so bogus...... as if drivers are going to eat less because they haven't expended energy walking!!!
As usual it just focuses attention away from the real, pressing issues of global warming....and yes carbon intensive food production is one of them but driving is obviously NOT the answer.
I wonder if the 'scientist' was paid by the car industry or by the roads lobby....

Miss Cellania said...

There are two much more logical ways to do it.

1. Live within walking distance of where you shop or work. If people could walk to those places without expending ridiculous amounts of energy, they wouldn't be driving now!

2. Use mass transit.

John Salmon said...

Hickslovechild, you really need to chill.

Turn up the CO2 spewing AC and you'll feel just fine.