Riding a bike or walking

[Guest guest]

> On 23 Oct 2008, at 14:07, John Davis wrote:

>

>> Viva could say 'a vegan commuting X miles a day in a 4x4 has less of

an environmental impact than a meat-eater on a bicycle'.

 

Keeping the 4x4 in the garage or driving only ten miles a year while the

cyclist does ten thousand would certainly alter the comparison, but it

would be a totally ludicrous argument that one hopes no one would try to

make.

 

>> Perhaps a saner way of putting it, however, as most people do, is

>> that both ditching the 4x4 and going vegan are good for the

environment.

 

Yes, indeed. All these arguments are very complex and " cherry picking "

by trying to be " holier than thou " in one respect is likely to bring

retribution if we're not squeaky clean (and most of aren't) in every

other respect.

 

Meanwhile, for those interested in calculations and references, see

below (from Vegan Society data cruncher Stephen Walsh). The numbers are

based on average distances per year in the UK and US and *per kilometer*

wherever you are. They relate to cycling rather than walking (the food

energy calculations per kilometer are not the same).

 

The formatting has been lost, but hopefully the argument is still clear.

Feel free to quote the whole piece, with acknowledgement of author, but

please don't pick bit out here and there - selective citation is

precisely what leads to unrealistic claims and silly arguments getting

put around.

 

Good wishes to all,

 

Vanessa

 

PS Is anyone coming to the Leicester vegan fair tomorrow

(www.leicesterveganfair.co.uk) or the West Midlands vegan festival in

Wolverhampton on World Vegan Day?

 

----------

 

MEAT-EATERS ON BICYCLES VERSUS VEGANS IN SUVs:

HOW TO BRING A GOOD ARGUMENT INTO DISREPUTE

 

The suggestion that a vegan in a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) or a four

wheel drive car causes less global warming emissions than a meat-eater

on a bicycle has been doing the rounds for a couple of years. Nice

sound-bite, but what about the evidence.

 

My own calculations based on DEFRA figures on the global warming impact

of producing different types of food in the UK (Williams, A.G., Audsley,

E. and Sandars, D.L. (2006) Determining the environmental burdens and

resource use in the production of agricultural and horticultural

commodities.) indicate that producing the ingredients of a typical diet

(to the point of being ready for distribution to a wholesaler) results

in about 1,000 kg CO2 equivalent of emissions a year while for a simple

vegan diet the equivalent figure is about 300 kg, giving an advantage of

about 700 kg from being vegan.

 

The average distance travelled per person in private cars in the UK is

about 6,500km (How to Live a low-carbon life, Chris Goodall, 2007). A

typical SUV emits 0.27 kg per km (http://www.carpages.co.uk/co2/co2-suv-

226-to-999-1.asp) giving emissions per person of 1,750kg, if they travel

the average distance.

 

Overall US emissions per capita are double those for the UK so not

surprisingly, comparable US figures are higher both for food and for

travel. US figures (Diet, Energy and Global Warming, Gidon Eshel and

Pamela Martin in Earth Interactions, Volume 10, pages. 1-17, March 2006)

indicate that producing a typical US diet causes 1,500 kg more emissions

than producing a vegan diet. The average distance travelled per person

by car is also about double the UK value at 13,000 km, so the typical US

SUV emissions also double to 3,500kg. In fact the Eshel paper estimates

4,760 kg per year for its US SUV example (which is even less efficient

than the average UK SUV).

 

Both the UK and the USA comparisons show that the increase in global

warming emissions from using a SUV rather than a bicycle is three times

the reduction in emissions from eating a vegan diet rather than eating a

typical omnivorous diet.

 

If the comparison is made per kilometre travelled then the difference is

even more dramatically in favour of the meat-eating cyclist. Burning

roughly an extra 25 kcal per kilometre, the cyclist on an average UK

diet would generate just a tenth of the emissions of the SUV for each

kilometre travelled. Even if five vegans shared the SUV, they would

still each be responsible for double the emissions per kilometre of the

meat-eating cyclists.

 

Only by taking a hypothetical meat-eater consuming lots of beef and lamb

rather than a typical meat-eater can the comparison be tilted in favour

of the vegan in an SUV. But equally we could tilt it further the other

way by taking a hypothetical vegan consuming lots of British grown

green-house tomatoes which weight for weight cause essentially the same

emissions as beef (Williams et al., 2006).

 

While switching to a vegan diet can have substantial environmental

benefits (provided we don’t consume large amounts of salad vegetables

from heated greenhouses or large amounts of foods transported by air) we

should not overstate the benefit. Worldwide, global warming impacts

from livestock may exceed transport impacts (Livestock’s long shadow,

FAO 2006) but this is not the case when we look just at developed

countries. In the USA, UK and similar countries the typical use of

either transport or home energy has a greater global warming impact than

typical consumption of animal-derived foods.

 

This “vegan in an SUV†sound-bite is best binned before it leads the

people who might be interested in the real and significant environmental

advantages of a vegan diet to view us as fools or hypocrites with little

real concern for, or awareness of, our overall environmental impact.

 

I recommend that any vegan seeking to engage with environmentalists gets

to grip with the overall issue through books such as Chris Goodall’s How

to live a low carbon life or Gabrielle Walker and David King’s The Hot

Topic.

[Guest guest]

, Paul Russell <prussell wrote:

>

> It also depends on what you mean by damage, as there are many

> different negative factors in activities such as meat-eating and car-

> driving, e.g.

>

> - CO2 emissions

> - Other greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. methane, CFCs)

> - Air pollution (particulates etc)

> - Water pollution

> - Resource use

> - Energy use

> - Environmental damage (deforestation, soil erosion, etc)

> - Animal suffering/exploitation

> - Human suffering/exploitation

> - etc

>

> Paul

>

 

I want to thank all who replied especially Vanessa. I need to be

leveled a bit now and then and don't believe things without some

evidence. I myself did make the change because of the environmental

impact my meat eating was having and I can't understand how Meat

Eating " environmentalists " soothe their conscience as they stab a

plate full of animal.

 

I'm newly converted and haven't made the final steps toward being

Vegan but am very close.

 

thanks again for your support and such great answers to my questions.

 

joseph

 

====================

 

Joseph Puentes

http://H2Opodcast.com/vsse.html (Vegan Solutions Environmental Podcast)

http://h2opodcast.com (Environment Podcast)

http://h2opodcast.blogspot.com/ (Blog for above)

http://PleaseListenToYourMom.com (Women's Peace Podcast)

http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com (Latin American History Podcast)

http://NuestrosRanchos.com (Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes

Genealogy)

[Guest guest]

I asked this question of several Vegan groups this was one answer:

 

Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:58 am (PDT)

Joseph Puentes wrote:

 

> If a person is riding a bike or walking but if their energy comes

from eating animal products they can actually be less energy

conservative than a person on a Vegan diet driving a Prius.

 

> Yes I know that might be to vague but if its true does anyone where

I can find source information to be able to put some " bite " into the

point?

 

Here is a link to the actual study.

 

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~gidon/papers/nutri/nutri.html

 

It's not terribly easy to understand (and it's been awhile since I

read the entire paper). Figure 3 appears to be saying that going from

being a typical meat-eater to being vegan (saving 1.49 tons of CO2

equivalents) is better than going from a Camry to a Prius (saving

1.05), but not as good as going from an SUV to a Camry (saving 2.52

tons) or from an SUV to a Prius (saving 3.57 tons).