Saving the Earth, My Way!

That's me saving the planet.

The Times [of London] reports:

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, 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. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

And what about those "new urbanists" who want us all to get rid of our cars and ride public transport?

Catching a diesel train is now twice as polluting as travelling by car for an average family, the Rail Safety and Standards Board admitted recently.

And regarding paper or plastic:

Paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic because of the extra energy needed to manufacture and transport them, the Government says.

Read the whole thing here.

So riding is better than walking, and lounging on the couch is better than both, and driving is better than taking a train, and when you are asked "paper or plastic?" you should proudly reply, "plastic, of course, I'm trying to save the environment."

Wow! I gotta sit down and think about this.

Maybe it would be better to lie down..., in the warm sunlight. Perhaps I should nap for a while. Gotta save energy. Gotta save the Earth.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh!