half the points, no wait most of the points are written in such a way hat they can be misunderstood by people and so will think that their bit for the environment is useless. also surely food that is already at the supermaket can be used as its too late to take back all those carbon emmissions?

bob, london,

Just a few inconvenient points - Many people on the planet are vegetarian or eat relatively little meat and don't waste so much of the animal as we seem to do in the 'West'. I bet the energy consumption figures don't include that embodied in the roads, buildings and other infrastructure.

Andy Beeton, la Chapelle Agnon, France

What if you were to walk or cycle to the field and carry the food home from there, rather than from a supermarket that had intensively produced, shipped and chilled the tasteless products it sells?

What about the energy required for treatments of illnesses caused by inactivity?

Ian, Freiburg,

My thoughts are: 'What is The Times' agenda in publishing this article?'
It appears designed to provoke reaction against the environmental arguments; & unsurprising there's lots of comments which outline the huge flaws in this article/argument.

S. Hill, York, UK

"Dont worry about carbon emissions!! In pre history, the Earth was all carbon dioxide and no life at all. "
andrew, London, UK

Well said, it's about time we concentrated on whats important like the whole sale felling of the rain forrest.

Kev, Poole, UK

Interesting to read that Mr Hunt would not care to have a debate with Mr O'leary. It would seem that he should swallow his pride and talk to Mr O'Leary about how to run a successful airline!!
PS There are seagulls round the lighthouse in Mobile!

Dick Grieve, Norwich, UK

I have to wonder why this information only covers one issue at a time. For instance, in the matter of walking over driving, we are asked to look only at one aspect of it. What about the pollution that is emmitted by the car, the work that goes into building it, use of the gas, non-renewable?

Jessica Siegfried, New Tripoli, United States

Dont worry about carbon emissions!! In pre history, the Earth was all carbon dioxide and no life at all. Then life began and gradually oxygen was added to the atmosphere- oxygen being a waste produce. If we revert it become extinct the cycle will begin anew. It's all a natural cycle forget about it

andrew, London, UK

I would just like to say how interesting this has been to read. Im currently reading around climate change literature for an exam and its refreshing to see some new theories on the matter, whether they be scientifically proven or, some would say, biased opinion. I must admit I do find it hard to

Jemma, Leeds,

i am not stupid enough to fall for something like this!!What kind of car did you use to obtaine the data...was the person overweight."people in the govt. say" Who in the govt???Anybody w/ money could have payed a scientist fo find data that look tha way, to make some ting look bad and others good.

Luis Flores, San Jose, California

I agree with Katie Olivier, they totally ignored the fact that there are vegetarians/vegans who aren't involved in the fact that there is a lot of cattle farming. I can say that I'm a vegan and it is not possible for the people who conducted the survey to know how many people are meat eaters and how many are not. They probably assumed a certain amount to be meat eaters which is inaccurate and therefore incorrect.

Immz, Carshalton, England

The debate on co2 emitted by cars is concerned only with what comes out of the exhaust pipe. Convenient because it allows Governments a simple means of taxing most cars more. Of more concern is the total carbon load imposed by a vehicle over say a 100,000 ten year life cycle. As far as I can see the only serious work on this aspect of the carbon footprint has been done in the USA. Intrestingly the Greens darling Toyota Prius Hybrid car comes out as many times more poluting than the mighty Hummer.

tony allen, mere, england

All these 'Myths' are designed to confuse people and encourge them to hide from making changes. The real facts are generally much more straightforward and easy to understand
-the EA nappy survey assumed anyone using terry nappies was ironing them (and tumble drying them too I think). The best advice is to use terries and wash them senisbly
- the dishwashers are best story apparently assumes that everyone washes up under a running tap, as it assume 15 l to wash in the machine and 150 l to wash up by hand!
- with the story above.. what about people who are simply vegetarian.. where does the balance lie then?

Katie Olivier, Croydon, UK

When talking about pollution from cars and trains one needs to look at the embodied energy used in the manufacture and disposal of both types of transport. Also in the energy used in the making and maintaining of roads and rail. When these are taken into account the train would usually win.
On another matter - food is generally imported by ship not plane. A boat gives far more mpg than a lorry, plane or train.
The EA nappy 'facts' used a model of the nappies not being cleaned in the home but rather being collected by a laundry service. If washed at home using 'green' cleaning products and dried in the sun it would creat less polllution.
Eating local sheep, rabbit and chicken does far less harm to the environment than beef or soya. This is because those foodstuffs travel a small way and have low imputs. Sheep and rabbits graze on grass and scrub and chickens have a good conversion rate from plants to meat. Soya is often grown on former tropical forest sites.

Ray Harrington-Vail, Newport, Isle of Wight

build stores in area that we could use for farming and bulilding it for no reason

kimmy, chester, u.s.a

Our poles are melting, temperature and weather patterns are changing. Those are facts. Whose fault it is, man made or natural is almost irrelevant. The important thing is that we take action to prepare for the unavoidable consequences of climate change NOW.

Past climate changes have happened quick, the most recent having taken only about a decade. We have seen weather patterns change over the last few years, lost a bunch of ice, witnessed massive amounts of species going extinct and see a slow-down of the ocean’s conveyor which regulates temperature patterns around the globe. My gut feeling is to say that we are in the midst of climate change. Whether it’s caused by CO2, an active sun or any other cause is not the issue. The issue is… we can’t change, avert or avoid it so we have to figure out how to deal with it and survive it’s effects.

Ron
http://moreron.wordpress.com

Ron Campbell, Larkspur, CO

Its a completely flawed arguement.
The author of this piece has decided to completely omit any details on exactly how much Co2 is created in the production of fuel for the 3 mile journey, never mind the actual harm that is being done to the environment by the mass production of Vehicle's in the first place - This , for me, once again highlights the facade of "Global warming" which is being rammed down our throats through poorly delivered statistic.
Its a nice piece in theory, but as has been stated before, communism works... in theory !

R.Delaney, London,

So the car driver is not driving to the shop to buy beef? If the car owner drives to the shop and then buys beef, the car CO2 and the beef CO2 have to be added together, so the walker wins. A large proportion of beef is protein, which is not "burnt" by the body as fuel. If the walker were to fuel him/herself up with a baked potato (high carbohydrate), the comparison would be different.
This kind of simplistic "scientific" comparison is utterly wrong and very misleading.
The real issue is about methods of intensive food production and distribution, and very high "food mileage" e.g. why are there imported apples from China in British shops (transported 15000 miles!) in December just after the height of the British apple harvest?

G J, Nantwich, England

Let’s get real for a minute. The Earth’s climate changes, ok?
Seas become deserts, mountains have sea shells, and places that were once warm tropical swamps become frozen tundra and lands that where frozen become warmer.
Always has, always will!
To think that we can change that or cause it is the same as saying the world is flat. Hey I am a big believer in think and believe in whatever you want but if you are going to say it do it.
So far all I have seen is all of the people that are saying we have to reduce our carbon footprint doing nothing to reduce their own. If you are going to believe that we can effect climate change by driving smaller cars or traveling less, having smaller homes, buying carbon credits http://www.liveneutral.org/
(Ok now that is funny…. I should have thought of that.), Buying local foods, and using less toilet paper.
THEN DO IT!
Look if we all turned off all our power, never started a car ever again, stayed right where we are this very minute sat on the ground and ate worms in the dark, while using leaves instead of toilet paper.
Global Climate Change would still happen!
Always has, always will!
ADAPT or DIE
We don’t need to be looking for ways to stop climate change (WE CAN’T STOP IT) so get over it.
Look instead for ways to ADAPT to this ever changing world that we live on.
That’s my opinion what’s yours???
MHunter@aninconvenientguilttrip.com

Michael Hunter, tampa, USA/FL

being a zombie may not be the solution either... a rotting corpse releases methane, one of the worst greenhouse gasses!

bio boy, Bergen, Norway

Walk more an eat less, we're all too fat anyway.

Vanessa, San Diego, CA

Very interesting and lively stuff about our energy intensive food economy, but it's a bit silly to turn it into an equation about walking to the shops. The reason the supermarkets have massive car parks is because if you bring your car you are likely to go home with loads of stuff you don't need and didn't come shopping for. If you walk you can only buy what you can carry. The extra that you can't carry represents a huge carbon saving.

BurbleBore, Leeds,

Obviously becoming a zombie is the way to go. Instantly reduces all food intake to one source, which is local and abundant. Zero carbon emissions in production as the food is pre made, and the food source consumed actually reduces the pesky emissions population. What are we waiting for.

And yes lets burn all the trees and use the remaining leafs for money.

Mr.Ironic, London,

Your arguments about food production and wasted energy and chemical emissions are good but are incomplete. Buying from local producers vs imported fruits and veggies is a great way to support your own economy and to cut down on costs. Though the problem isn't just that alone. If cutting back on chemical and energy emissions is going to be possible than we have to work on both the recycling and energy wastes realm. You have to look at how much energy is "wasted" on recycling paper bags vs the impact the non-recyclable plastic bags will have. It is true you may waste more energy on re-using the paper bag but you have kept a super slow to decompose plastic bag from being tossed away and potentially killing some hungry animal. But that also doesn't mean the high energy waste of re-using a paper bag is good too. For this method to be truly affective we need to find a way to recycle the bag at a low energy and transportation cost. There is always another way. There is always hope.

Simon, Brampton, Ontario

A reduced human population will always be the best way to save the environment.
It doesn't really matter if you drive, eat meat, or just eat altogether since it all has a source to trail back to its going to expand with a growing population.

drone87, Burns Lake, Canada / British Columbia

"Going vegetarian is still the most effective way to help the environment.

Mark, Washington, USA"

No! Surely going Vegan is more effective? Milk consumption is dependent on beef production which is energy intensive.

Robin Turner, Derby, England, UK

The walking vs driving argument is clearly flawed because it poses that people would eat more to replace the energy used when walking. There would be no mass increase in food consumption if people got off their duffs and walked more...we're already eating too much as it is.

James, New York, USA

No mention of how much energy is used to produce a bicycle and how long they last before being replaced.

Truth is it's an inexact science and therefore is used in equal measure to 'prove' the green lobby and to raise taxes without any apparent effect upon the production of CO2 i.e. we're taxing you more but doing nothing about reducing emissions. Unbelieveably the masses are falling for it.

Spence, Birmingham, England

Greywash!
The paper bag example is pathetic and unsupportable, paper bags take up more space! Obviously a huge emmition of Co2 compared to the non biodegradable and toxically produced plastic bag!

Trees and all plants absorb co2 and emit o2. The co2 imprint of veg and cereal is zero apart from inorganic fertilizers and transportation.
Obviously a local organic vegetarian diet is virtually zero carbon despite what the "industries" tell us.
Trees and plants store co2 in their structure.
All fossil fuels add co2 to the atmosphere by their combustion. Electric cars (Not hybrid) emit both the coal co2 in producing the electricity, and the lost electricity due to high innefficiencies bnetween coal burner and plug socket.
The latent co2 consumed in producing a new car of any type is 10-20,000 lb which should be considered in buying an eco vehicle or other goods.
The repair and maintenance of existing equipment comes top in the hierarchy of co2 reduction.
Wise up not dumb down

vic doyle, Ferndale, wales

This is such a blatent ATTEMPT to make us hippies & anyone with any SENSE appear to be stupid, when we increasingly scream at you from our bicycles just because you havnt bought a new worldview yet, you bought a new car... First of all ; seaspower.com - WE DONT NEED TO POLLUTE TO TRAVEL IN A VEICLE.... This is indirectly man-made global warming; but its the fault of the secret societies controlling our every move that keep propor technology & information from us... There is no appocalypse, if we just open our eyes, & realize that we must solve all these problems by finding the source of all the manipulation; - the reptilians that are here.... Go ahead, dont believe it before looking at the evidence yourself... - Thats just what we need! For them to win... I give up... its up to you.

WARRIOR, ML, CAN

No mention as to how much energy was used to produce the auto being driven to the store, including the tires.

skip smyth, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

High consumption of meat and its industrial production is environmentally damaging - nothing new here. So sad that it only makes the news when someone produces what appears to be a simplistic back-of-the-fag-packet type calculation that at face value suggests walking is some how worse than driving. If Mr Goodall's point was to highlight the greenhouse impact of industrial meat production and its excess consumption, I fear his message may be lost in the hype. Perhaps he could have made clearer that most people driving to the shops are eating excessive amounts of meat as well, that people walking may actually get their calories by other means and perhaps factor in the green house cost of extracting, processing and delivering the fuel prior to it being burned in their vehicles. Maybe the energy expended by the ill-health industry trying to keep sedentary and overweight people alive? Still, I am sure it sell a few extra books!

Bryan, Chester, UK

Perhaps scientist’s concerned with climate change should put their mind together and attempt to produced a solution, rather than wasting their time and producing extra CO2 on pointless calculations!

ben, Manchester,

The article is bogus because the author considers only the environmental cost of producing beef & ignores the environment cost of producing fuel.

Max, Portland, OR

Dominic Kennedy -

Please read the entire book before taking information out of context. I realize that this was an assignment for 'on-line' but really - you should at least go for a C effort. Even Bush can muster this apparently. Your facts are mis-quoted, and incorrect. Do not twist words to try and create a story where there is not one.

Eric, Cincinnati, Ohio

Not to mention that the calculation is based on the energy you'd need to walk that distance coming entirely from intense beef production - ridiculous. These 'myths busted' are based on incredibly superficial calculations. Could anyone really be stupid enough to think that it's better for the planet to drive your car than to walk? How about long-term health costs to society by having more inactive people? Stupid.

Jen, Seattle, WA, USA

We need to have these kind of conversations, and stop judging people for what kind of car they drive. Your car does'nt always reflect your entire lifestyle and how much energy you consume on a whole. We should be questioning big corporations and government before we lay guilt on the people!

An American, Salem, Oregon U.S.A.

How about I just sit in a corner and pick my nose? And what's all this about calories I have to regain after I go walking? That's the last thing I want to do after exercise.

Me, Des Moines, WA,

He takes into consideration the greenhouse gases emitted while driving the car, but what about those emitted during the PRODUCTION of the car? That should be factored in.

Also, why is he assuming that car drivers eat less? Maybe they don't need to eat as many calories because they're doing less activity, but the car drivers I know are overweight and consistently overeat more than the more active bicycling and walking folks I know.

jessica, elgin, USA

What this article points out is the need for every part of human activity, throughout the life cycle, to be analysed for its true energy content and environmental implications. In order to compare not-like with not-like (car with train or foot, for instance, or a dozen different production methods for solar panels) there would also have to be a set of global and independent standards for carrying these measurements out Only when this is carried out for all eventualities can a fair and truthful assessment of the least damaging alternatives be reached.

Hamish Cormack, Bristol, Avon

Please - Most people could stand to expend 180 calories and much more not have them replaced at all! Where did you get all this nonsense? And who says we would replace the calories with beef or milk? Your figures are off too.
What a joke this "story" is.

shirley, san francisco, ca. usa

The logic is flawed for the walking v. driving thing, because the assumption is that the calories are needed ONLY by those who walk to the store. If a social science survey showed that people who drove ate much less than people who walked to the store, with both their food weighted for the amount of emmissions used to produce and transport it, I would be less sceptical. I highly doubt it though.

Caro, Leiden,

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt"> Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt</a>

Roman Ženka, Rochester, MN

If you would have stopped at "we just need to take better care of our environment" I would have been with you. But now you enviromental type have become literally laughable as you follow like lemmings the leadership of a former vice president and a guy who got beat by George Bush! You have got to pick better people to get behind.

Toby, Minneapolis, USA, the most hated country..and I love it

The health benefits of people walking more must be a consideration. the less fit people are, the more likely it is that they will require medical intervention - perhaps even hospital stays. If the carbon emissions to produce their medication, operate hospital machinery and even transport visitors to their bedside is calculated, I am sure that the argument for taking the car in comparison with walking would pale into insignificance. Also, how many people are likely to eat less if they are taking the car - few I reckon.

Alison, Glasgow, UK

The whole premise of this article is absurd. Green house gas emissions with regard to walk is considered as an entire system starting from the production of the food used to power the walk, but when it comes to vehicle emissions only the emissions from the gasoline burning are considered. What about these equally significant uses of energy/causes of pollution related to that drive:

* Energy cost of drilling the oil and transporting it from the Middle East
* Energy required to refine it and transport it to the gas station
* Percentage of the car's useful life used in that trip as a percentage of all the emissions created in the act of building the car (I'm betting this is a big number considering all the metal refining, plastic production, rubber, glass, oil changes, etc)

There is no way driving the car is more efficient, and this isn't even considering the ridiculousness of an all meat diet. Try reporting on real science instead of articles with an obvious spin.

Lee Johnson, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

I'm sorry, but I am astonished that this article was ever written. What a ridiculous premise...whether we walk to the stores or drive, we are going to eat. All forms of life need to eat to live. If you want to criticize the methods by which our food is produced, do it in an intelligent and educated way. Don't make yourself look idiotic by making a statement that is patently ludicrous.

Neifer, Lake Ronkonkoma,

The #1 source of methane in the world comes from the digestion of wood by termites, not cattle production.

gary , smithville, tn usa

I dispute the *fact* that trees produce more mehane blah blah blah.
Also, yes it may well be more efficient to drive a car to the blah blah than walk... IF you decide to eat carrion.
If you get your protein from vegetable-sources, the results would be markedly different; also, mamy millions more people would be able to be fed using land that grows vegetable protein as opposed to animal protein.
We do not need animal proteins in our diet - however... i don't care what you choose to eat (-_o)

Martin, Gloucester, UK

First of all the calculations are wrong: a 4oz hamburger carries about 240 calories, which means 3oz will fuel the 180 calorie requirement. 1oz ~= 28g, so it only takes 84g of beef to replace them. That's not compelling though, so here's a better argument:

MY DIET CONSISTS OF THINGS OTHER THAN BEEF. Realistically, I get less than 10% of my weekly calories from cow. Beef isn't even the best source of calories out there: I'd say fish is. A 30g tin of tuna contains 30g of pure protein, which means 120 calories. 1.5 tins of tuna will replace the lost calories. Half a large chicken breast will do the same, or a thigh and drumstick.

The point is there are other places to get calories than beef! If we were only capable of consuming cow, then this article would hold water. However, assuming most people are like me and get 25% or less of their calories from beef, that means 21g of beef to replace the beef portion of calories, which ends up being 0.756kg of emissions - 16% LESS than driving.

Chris, Richmond Hill, Canada

It's simple. We all become Ewoks and learn to live a less complicated rural lifestyle.

gary , smithville, tn usa

“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."

As an important health aside:
100-g of beef or any protein is around 400 calories. There are 4 calories in 1-g of protein. There are 9 calories in 1-g of a carbohydrate. Therefore, if you would like to replace calories lost by physical activity you should intake carbohydrates in conjunction with a small amount of protein. For instance, there are 100 calories in a common cup of yogurt (which contains naturally occuring protein). Add two raw apples at 35 to 40 calories a piece and you've not only replaced those calories, but replenished good bacteria and vitamins as well. No one should be eating 100-g of protein (especially animal derived) at a time. Also, diminishing animal derived protein cuts back 'carbon' use, but more importantly bad cholesterol.

Raime, Houston, Texas

Some of us have not eaten beef or ANY wastefull government pay ola "ranch" animals for decades.
Why in the world would you advise a nation of obese people to put it all back on and keep it on instead of trimming downand keeping fit by walking to the shops?! You must be mentilly ill.

Jason, Redwood Valley, fat U.S.A.

Typical asinine environmentalist. Any action you take leaves a carbon footprint. The solution? Cut back consumerism and materialism.

radtop, Portland, USA/Oregon

Surely intensively raised beef is bad for the environment, but I don't know anyone who eats only intensively raised beef. Rather unbalanced and misleading.

Gavin Hudson, Seattle, USA/WA

you say: “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."

How about being a vegan instead of eating beef? A vegan diet uses 1/16th the resources of a typical meat based diet.

Dave, Portland, Maine

I keep thinking this Global Warming scam can't get any more ridiculous and I am always proven wrong.

RJ, Harrisburg, PA USA

Are the environmentalists willing to give the use of computers and printers and paper? How about their wireless phones, their MP3s and iPods?

Bob, Lincoln, USA/Nebraska

This info just shows how absurd the whole "global warming" hysteria has become. It is the height of arrogance for mankind to think we can control the massively complex and unpredictable warming and cooling of our planet. As more and more scientists jump off the global warming crazy train, it becomes more absurd to see these examples of people wasting time trying to figure out some kind of mythical carbon footprint. You have no idea what your carbon footprint is, and you have no idea what effect YOU have on the wrming...or cooling of the planet. It would all be funny except that populist politicians create new restrictive laws to ensure their re-elections. To implement any kind of policy based upon such faulty cause & effect reasoning is ultimately immoral and just plain stupid. If the Greens cant even agree on whether SUVs or jogging damages the planet more, it is time to stop allowing them to make our laws and restrict our freedoms.

JW, Langley upon Eggham, UK

Maybe everyone should try reading the Bible, and you would see that the earth is God's to destroy in His own time. People did not create this planet, and we can not destroy it. We are giving ourselves far too much credit if we believe that we can. God will destroy it, and we don't know when that will be. Good thing for us the Bible also tells us how we can prepare for it! The answers have been there for thousands of years. People today are just too impatient to look for them.

Steve, Peru, Indiana, USA

There are many attacks, but the simplest one is to attack the carbon footprint of the driver's societal *health-care* costs. Just how much carbon does the driver use up in the surgery room getting a bypass surgery or having insulin delivered regularly? Care to estimate this?

Phillip Huggan, Wpg, Canada

Aberations by a british "leading environmentalist".
Questions:
1.If you're driving a car, you mustn't eat?
2.By making a car (how many people are involved in producing it), doesn't it result more CO2?
3. How much CO2 results from producing the petrol for running that car?

Liviu, Craiova, Romania

The logic is flawed. The author does not include how much energy it takes to produce the oil and transport it half way around the world. There is no mention of oil spills.

The German so called scientist has been completely discredited about his statement that trees give off methane.

Trains are far more fuel efficient than Land Rovers. While the author compares old trains engines with new SUVs, the old train engines can be upgraded to new technology. Plus, much energy is not wasted tearing up the countryside for new and large roads.

World oil production is going to peak in 2010. We need to get on with changing energy usage patterns and stop listening to right wing nuts.

Dan, Arnold, USA

Errr where do we begin.

If everyone walking drove then congestion would rocket as would demand for petrol. More cars, more congestion, longer journey times. Longer routes, parking more congested. More milage per year, more turnover of cars more demand... Did he factor in making the cars?

Then we have the health impact, more pollution, decreased excercise, more health problems, bigger hospitals, more ambulances...

The man would appear to not have engaged his brain, perhaps his car came up with the conclusion... Or he just wanted to sound a bit rad.

Tok, Boulder, Co

Blame the sun its getting brighter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/358953.stm

Charlotte Emma, London,

Because so few "environmentalists" have learned to think for themselves, they tend to believe anything they read, unless it disagrees with what their leaders like Al Gore say. In the case of anyone who disagrees with conventional environmental wisdom, all points raised by these heretics must be disregarded, because they obviously have been released by tools of the oil companies or some other disinformation boogieman.

Face the facts: the world is changing, and change is the only constant in the world. No matter how much we want to freeze time and stop further entropy and development, life continues to evolve. The law of unintended consequences will result in no good deed going entirely unpunished and people pursuing their own selfish desires doing good for others.

We live today in the best of all possible worlds, at least relative to all past possible worlds, but we will continue to move boldly into the future to our new best of all possible worlds.

Get a sense of humor.

Wes Schellenbaum, Manhattan Beach, California

In California, the wineries have already been attacked for the amount of "greenhouse gases" they produce. No call to shut them down yet, but how far off can that be. Nothing in our lives is safe anymore.

Cindy Youngblood, Palm Bay, Florida

Somebody mentioned population reduction. If we look at nature and the aminal kingdom, we'll see that there two method os population control.

Nature's method of keeping the population at sustainable levels. It's called disease. I wonder what the population of the world would be today had the black plauge not wiped out half (estimates very between a third to 2 thirds) Europe & Aisia's (west of China) population.

Of course the other form of population control is war.

Adam, New York (Leeds),

This shows how stupid the whole debate can become. Obviously we "create" issues for the planet when we do anything. So taking things to their logical conclusion we should all just top ourselves right now to "save the planet". Silly stuff like this just undermines the moderate solutions that governments are trying to put in place.

Andy, London,

Last night was pretty chilly for August, I had to close a window or two. I think all these people driving their cars around must be having the desired effect on combating global warming !!!

rikrok, London, UK

Well, off you go then Superfiend. Mind you, don't forget to choose a low carbon method of topping yourself.

Ed, Sydney, Australia

What about riding a bike rather than taking the car or walking?

Tim, Toronto,

I do not believe all the lies about global warming. It is provable that the earth goes through cycles. It is far more plausible that changes in the sun's characteristics are responsible for changes in the earth's climate. Besides, I know what I have experienced in during my lifetime and it isn't that the climate is getting hotter. If anything, it is getting cooler.

What this all boils down to is that there are deceitful, power hungry people who cannot leave others alone. They are control freaks who will use any excuse to lord themselves over others.

If they are so intent on the issue of global warming due to mankind's activities, then a simple solution is to reduce the population (another 'brilliant' idea of theirs) I suggest they commit suicide.

What -- no takers among the idiot global warming crowd? Of course not. As with the warmongers, it is always someone else who should suffer the penalty for their swollen heads and stupidity.

James Radcliffe, Phoenix, AZ USA

We should listen to this man...
If the world decided to take Goodall's system of logic seriously and apply it to our lives, the world would be better off. Of course, such steps would have to be implemented gradually; perhaps we should use cows to pull wagons (instead of buses) and see how that works. If the cow-buses work, we can eventually make rotes for them, and the inevitable arrive of modernized donkey carts (turn-signals, lights etc.)
Eventually, lawnmowers could be easily replaces with goats, or the donkeys (from the carts). Each neighborhood could have a lawn maintenance animal - or two that could be killed before winter, eaten and replaced with fresher stock in the spring.
Think of the jobs that would be created to care for these animals, not to mention the environmental saving and increase in meat exports, all pluses for the economy.
Any economy.

Ryan McAuliffe, London, Canada

He also assumes that people who exercise more eat more. I don't know if you've looked around, but most people take in way more calories than they need period. I ride my bike everywhere, I burn a lot of calories, I don't eat an equal amount of calories to those I burn on the bike more than your average lazy person. Exercise can actually result in eating less; I've found that the more I work out, the more what I eat corresponds to the energy I actually need. As for claiming that trains are more efficient than SUV's... sure, if you put 10 people on the whole train... how often does that happen? Ridiculous. This kind of fluff makes it clear that the paper either doesn't care about accuracy or has no interest in hiring writers who have a grasp of the topic they're writing about.

Jim, berkeley, California, USA

This is scientific nonsense. Nobody's diet is 100% beef and nobody does zero exercise. Walking 3 miles instead of driving to the gym would be a good example of how to reduce your carbon footprint.

The idea that it's more environmentally frienldy for a family of four to drive than go by train is also wrong. If you choose to take the train then the incremental increase in carbon emissions is zero, since the train runs anyway. These calculations are flawed because they assume a low level of train occupancy. If everyone took the train instead of driving, carbon emissions would fall because the train occupancy would have to increase to over 100% before more trains were needed. If no trains ran at all then everyone would be forced to drive, whether sharing lifts or not, and carbon emissions would increase.

Catharine Gregory, Bristol,

This article seems to be a pit of a panicked reaction to our problem. We've established as incontrovertible the fact that the greenhouse effect is out of control, and we know we have to do something about it. But now that we have this enormous, daunting problem to solve, we're looking at every aspect of our lives and how we consumer energy. It's therefore natural, with the sheer scale of this issue, that we're finding culprits everywhere. Not that these aren't claims with logical backing, but it may also have a touch too much sensationalism.

Shane, Point Edward,

Am I the only one who thinks that this is all getting a bit ridiculous?

John, Banard Castle, UK

The airlines,transport companies,food producers etc have all come under the hammer of the Green Fools.The essential step in the production of wine and beer is the conversion of sugars into alcohol annnnnd the dreaded CO2.How long before these Green Fools turn to the wineries and brewerys and start to advocate the elimination of wine and beer production as an essential step in saving the planet?

michael condron, Montreal, Canada

I guess driving my Dodge Ram 1500 HEMI with a dual exhuast isn't so bad anymore!

Rick, Loxahatchee, Florida, USA

I think the term "good for the environment" is pretty myopic. Take the paper v. plastic bag example. Maybe paper takes more "energy" to produce, but it is a natural product...not a synthetic petro-chemical derivative that won't bio-degrade. Wood is a natural renewable resource that we should be happy to put energy towards sustainably utilizing. Add in the political factor of instability of / excessive reliance on oil producing regions and I think the plastic fare far worse.

Plastic bags end up circling the in the Pacific ocean choking large birds. Paper bags do not. I would gladly spend the energy for this and the above mentioned reasons.

This article is really missing the boat if you ask me and using very narrow definitions of "good" and "bad." Maybe good for shock value; bad for substantive policy debate.

Proventlogger, Washington DC, USA

May be a shorter lifetime will save some calories because we are unfit but has any of these trivia seekers worked out the cost of a population of ill people vs a population of healthy people who regularly exercise.
If we went back to the caves, our early relatives were actually fond of meat.
Lots of people, including me are actually allergic to many of the cereals.

Jean Cannon, Adelaide, Australia

when you do the calculation it's actually about 22 lbs

CO2 is mostly oxygen by weight so 12 lbs of carbon gives you 44 lbs of CO2

Robert Cartwright, Wallington, NJ

Why did this story's author think Chris Goodall deserves the moniker "leading environmentalist?" You would think that a "leading environmentalist" would have a Wikipedia page, would have published more than one book, or would have some high-ranking Google hits that have nothing to do with the book. Calling Goodall a leading environmentalist is like calling me a leading blogger. But I suppose calling him a "leading environmentalist" makes this story more seem more notable than if you'd said "random guy says something inflammatory to sell books". Several places in your article, you cite the dangers of methane. While methane does trap much more heat than the equivalent amount of CO2, it is eventually broken down. Despite the eight billion cows belching methane into the atmosphere, methane concentrations have flatlined. http://www.epa.gov/methane/scientific.html So maybe trees and organic dairy cows don't deserve such a quick dismissal.

Bryce Anderson, SLC, UT, USA

The problem with Mr. Goodall's analysis is that he omits the amount of carbon required to build the car.

Don Stoneberger, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Faulty Logic.

He's assuming that people who drive everywhere eat less food. T\ake it from an ex coach potato, people who drive everywhere and sit around all day will eat more than anyone else because they're greedy and bored!

Zan, Numpty,

QUOTE: "If there's one thing an article on climate change is good for it's identifying all the cranks who write off global warming theories as arrogant or welcome the arrival of climate change because plants thrive on CO2 and we can all enjoy sunnier weather." - Andy, Liverpool.

Andy, as I said earlier. Human produced CO2 is so too minute to affect global warming. This is not to say that humans are not part or all of the problem that is global warming. Bu not via CO2. (research the issue yourself) Human produced CO2 isn't the cause of global warming.

Adam, New York (Leeds), US/UK

So are any of these eco-nuts going to give up eating to save the planet?
Bottom line - everything has a trade off.

Artie Curtis, Fredericksburg, US/Virginia

I Love this guy.... Hey buddy? What if i DONT eat beef today. Or drink milk. Alex From Glasgow is right. These ppl are simply the lucky crazies in your local cardboard box that got media attention. The world is not going to end. And while yes, we DO do bad things to the Earth, just because i ate some beef does not make a whit off difference. Life still goes on. We still Pollute. And guess what. In another 10 years noone is going to remeber Mr. Goodall. Why? Becuase the global warming fad will have dissapeared, and the media will pay attention to something else. I tip my hat to you Mr.Goodall, and hope you dont give up the day Job >.<

Mike , Amherst, Ohio

As Mr. Goodall himself suggests the answer is not to drive the car to the shops but to develop less energy intensive forms of food production. A good starting point is to move to organic production systems. They are at least a third more energy efficient than conventional production because they do not use synthetically manufactured fertilisers. They sequester carbon in the form of humus in the soil and in the case of livestock, methane emissions are lower because of greater pasture diversity. As a bonus organically produced food is more nutritious and healthy.

Derek Broadmore, Wellington, New Zealand

Why does anyone listen to what these hate filled psycopaths have to say? All of these global warming arguments are incoherent and one contradicts. All these so called theroies have in common is the desire to prevent the developing people of the world or the poor people of the world the chance to live in a modren society. Its also set out to devprive people of a decent living, because you need to punish people by limiting so called green house gas. Science is a joke these days because no one pratices the principles of science any more. These science is nothing but twisting your data to support your hypothesis. Just do a google search on the 'Hockey Stick' climate map hoax as an example of a researcher fudging the data to support his hypothisis. God has utlimate domionion over the tempature of the Earth, so you little burps and farts mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Adam, Baltimore, Maryland

I know the article is trying to make a point that our food production is energy intensive and something we should think about. But to say that it's more damaging for the planet to drive as to walk is a bit extreme. You have to account for all the air pollutants emitted as well and not just in terms of the CO2.

The meat industry is one of the most un-environmental. Not only is it a polluter of green house gases, it also discharges lots of polluted water and requires vast farm lands to grow food just to feed the animals. I think one of the best ways to tackle this problem is moderation. If we can all reduce the amount of meat that we consume, we'll be helping the environment and ourselves a big favor. Somewhere down the road in these past 30 years meat just became so cheap and so abundant and eating less, which was the norm in the past, would been seen as a crime.

Wilson, Hong Kong,

This article fails to note the contribution to global warming is only one factor to consider when making an environmental decision. For example, in the case of plastic vs. paper bags, one should also consider the fact that plastic will not readily degrade.

David, Washington, USA

I’m sorry, I don’t agree with this at all. The article talks about “turning environmental ideas on their heads” - but I think it's really just a case of poor understanding or poor journalism.

It says that diesel trains can be more polluting than driving. However if you look at the facts stated in the article itself, that that is only the case if ten or fewer people travel on a train - then you can see tthat it's a very poor argument. It's rare that so few people travel on a diesel train.

The same with the argument about walking vs. driving. People don't just eat meat and dairy - which are the most environmentally damaging of all food stuffs. They get a lot of energy from rice, bread, pasta, and vegetables, which produce far less carbon for the energy they give you, and would make walking much less carbon intensive than driving.

Peter Robinson, London,

What about the energy that is needed to produce the car in the first place? To transport them from the factory to the shop? To build and maintain the roads? Are these activities carbon-neutral? And if not, if you factor in all that CO2, is driving still better than walking? Especially if you get your calories mostly from fruits and veggies as you should and not from beef or milk?

Probably not.

The author is right that modern food production uses way to much energy. About the rest... not so much.

Viktor, Berlin, Germany

It's like Rush Limbaugh said recently "why don't we just ban ourselves?"

Greg, Lancashire, England

We need to stop listening to these nutcases. The global warming fanatics have gone over the edge. Live your life, exercise moderately, eat a well-balanced diet and don't worry about what global warming fanatics say.
DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!
Next year they will be on to something else for us to worry about.

R. Turner, Hayward, USA/CA

Very astute observations, and largely correct even if somewhat incomplete (viz some of the analysis of fossil fuels, which of course would not apply when we switch to biofuels).

This raises the thorny issue of the Olympics. If so much damage to the earth is caused by the simple act of shopping, should we really be promoting such a venture with its potential damage to the planet?

Mark Williams, Hurstbourne Priors, Hampshire

i quite think this is rubbish. and anyways, there is no better way to help the environment than by going vegan. cut out the meat and dairy from your diet, and you've reduced the demand for such products, thereby reducing the amount of pollution caused by the production of them.

christopher bird, Norfolk, Virginia

Where Political and Religious ideologies of the past have mainly failed in their attempts to control the masses, Global Warming, if we let it, will triumph.

It is the ultimate 'catch all' Dooms day scenerio, to put our planet in peril. People should read a good encyclopedia, learn about the Carbon cycle and how the atmosphere is made up, before entering into this hysterical 'the sky is falling' Global Warming debate. It is not just cars and chimneys that exhale CO2, all life on Earth does too.

Andy Fleming, Liverpool, UK

Duma Duke, opinionated 'Chaircat" has this to add:
All this talk about the effects of global warming clearly demonstrates that there are too many of you. Yes you humans, (and the cows that feed you according to Goodall).
For those that want to turn us all green I say: the fault is certainly not ours...Cheetahs and the few Gazelles we are lucky enough to catch.
Now, if there were more Cheetahs, say hundreds of millions of us, there would not be so many of you right?
But I'm only a Cheetah, what do I know...
www.animalorphanagekenya.org/blog

Duma Duke, Nanyuki 10400, Kenya

I think the article hightlights the absurdity of the current environmental obsession that we have. Society has evolved to its current form because it is broadly effective and efficient.

The price of goods and services (including adjustments by the authorities, acting as Company Directors of UK plc) is a good indicator of the cost to humans and the planet. Only prices will significantly affect our behavour.

So stop worrying and don't allow yourself to be manipulated by people with their own agendas and live your life following the well hackneyed phase of 'everything in moderation'.

Paul, London,

I've got it. We've to stop eating meat, growing food, driving cars, flying planes, using electricity, wearing clothes or washing them, making paper, using trains, using water and pretty much just live in a cave doing nothing except pay more taxes. Didn't we do that about 40,000 years ago? The truth is every living thing pollutes, some of them even kill each other, it how the elements and energy flow, it's what living things are supposed to do. One ecosytems pollutant is anothers essential requirement. The only tuly "globally cool" "carbon neutral" human is a dead one.

One thing we should do is forget about all the panic merchants and professional campaigners, Trying to make us feel guilty for just existing, and stop paying their wages or agreeing to pay their new tax or voting for them. We should just be sensible.

alex, Glasgow, UK

But anyone who read the Environment Agency's nappy report could tell it was full of holes and their research was seriously flawed. Are all these other "scientific findings" based on spurious research too?

Jude, Perthshire,

I have an idea - why don't we just all kill ourselves and save the planet? Ecomentalists should lead the way.

LS, Toronto, Canada

I feel that I have more science than most of the science of climate change. Once they started blaming the farts of animals, rotting vegetation in hydro lakes and now waking you KNOW the science has hit a new low. There is more skill in playing chess than in being a climate, save the plant, we are all going to die science that we are being spoon fed everyday. And what’s the outcome MORE TAXES.

Tim, Liverpool,

Kinda funny considering the researcher ASSUMES that just by walking that people will eat more. More likely people will eat the same amount if they are walking or driving, so technically NOT driving helps the environment more than driving. His point is well taken on the beef production however, it is just delivered poorly.

J Elie, Michigan, USA

I think this research represents a real breakthrough in understanding the causes of global warming. The real global warming culprit is the growth of professional sports and the accompanying exercise industry. Just think about it. Two hundred years ago there were no professional sports and gratuitous exercise was unheard of. So was global warming. Now professional sports are a major industry and sportsmen grow ever larger, faster and more powerful on the back of demanding exercise regimes and greater food consumption. Worldwide sporting competitions grow ever more frequent and bigger in scale. Clearly if we plot the growth in the exercise industry and professional sports over the last one hundred years we will see a close correlation with the changes in global CO2 levels. The solution is clear - we must ban all professional sports and competitions and all forms of exercise as they lead to widespread over consumption of food. The link is inescapable.

Kevin, Kent, Tonbridge,

This is absurd. Helping our fellow creatures is a noble thing. We should cultivate gardens, treat animals humanely, and be kind to one another. But obsessing over how much carbon dioxide and methane we expel into the atmosphere is neurotic and counterproductive.

Gaddy Bergmann, Denver, Colorado, USA

The mass media has stopped talking about global "warming" because of the ubusually cool weather experienced by many this summer across Britain and Canada and elsewhere, instead they talk about climate "change". So which is it? The science is so shaky and no legs to stand on, it is well known that for years governments have conducted research on the weather including normal flow of moisture, cloud seeding and rain making, creations of droughts and floods, fog and hurricane steering, and affecting air pressure -- this is all well patented research if anyone cares to look. But the aim of Defra is what exactly? Who do they serve? The IPCC fails to point out that before the mini ice age (1500-1800AD) the earth experienced 150 years (1000-1150AD) of very warm weather much warmer than it is now -- that was not caused by cars or walking to the shops or leaving the TV on standby. We are in fact still coming out of the mini ice age. Is CO2 (read: life itself) to blame for climate change?

sal, london, uk

I came across this article when deciding whether to buy Goodall's book, "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life". If you look at Goodall's website www.lowcarbonlife.net/default.asp?page=93 you'll see he adds the qualifier, "if walking means you need to eat more to replace the energy lost." This qualifier does not appear in the article above.
This is a piece of lazy journalism, a copy-and-paste from a Goodall press release designed to punt more copies of his book. Assuming the deeply flawed methodology exhibited above is typical of that which appears in the book, I will now be avoiding it.
There is NO debate in academic circles nor has there been for quite some time; man-made climate change IS happening and we must mitigate its effects - www.ipcc.ch/
It is imperative that everyone gets a grasp of the facts and takes personal responsibility and ACTION; I recommend George Monbiot's website www.turnuptheheat.org/ and his excellent book full of solutions, "Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning".

J W Leitch, Falkirk, Scotland

Why use meat as the main calculation factor? We all know the global meat industry has major problems with waste and emission. Walking to the store may "burn" more calories, but food is a renewable resource, petroleum is not. Local growing supports healthy, renewable farming and cuts down on transportation costs.

Matthew Pelham, Boston, USA / Massachusetts

Im going to print this out and pin it to every noticeboard I can find!

This is too entertaining to let go!

Zak Larue-Buckley, Leicester, Leicestershire

Well, if you don't beleive in the whole Global Warming bunk like myself and millions of others, none of this matters. In the 70's there were scares of a global cooling coming on (Newsweek April 25, 1975 -The cooling world). In fact, the earth has gone through 75 Major temperature swings in the last 4,500 years. Wise up people. Ignorance is not bliss.

Samuel Walters, San Luis Obispo, CA

Anyone want to install pipes in the rear end of cows to catch the methane?

Will, Huntingdon, Cambs

If we had less people in the world, there woudl be less of a need to transport so much of our modern day luxuries, inlcuding food from other countries.
Transport systems would carry more people per unit as there woudl be less units to support 'predicted' levels of use.
Everything we take for granted in todays society woudl be reduced and a lot more products would become "home grown" again. Not just food stuffs but raw materials that we now import. Steel is a great example.
Luckily with less people globaly, these factors would effect all countries and eventually reduce all these nasty gases per person.
Jock has a very valid point, however we haven't helped add to a natural process. In fact our position in the natural eb and flow of the planet has increased. Every little helps Jock, so in fact we have done damage.
Surely you know that 1 degree change in your own body temperature can determine if you have a fever or not. With an eco system as big as earths, it's the same.

Jason, Godalming,

Ban jogging and save the planet!

Jock, Edinburgh,

It's an interesting perspective, for climate campaigners at least, but this is where the general public get disillusioned in trying to make a difference. I believe our focus has to be on carbon neutrality, through innovative energy production, linked to a bit of self-restraint. Oh, and nuclear.

But to call it a lie, is to defie the evidence for the sake of convenience. There are billions of us burning fossil fuels now, and in 40 years we have released carbon accumulated in deposits over 2000 million. The fact is that we have fundamentally changed the balance of atmospheric gases and there is a long term correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.

I too was once on the sceptical side, mainly because its easiest to do nothing and be self-righteous. But if you look at the science as objectively as possible, the balance of evidence comes down on the side of climate change being a reality.

Gus Swan, London, UK,

Does Mr Goodall really think that not exercising leads to people eating less? Has he looked around himself lately?

VT Thinblot, London,

Once again proving that "the truth" that keeps getting all of the media attention is not as accurate a predictor of reality as they would have us believe. Any time you analyze anything, the assumptions made and scope of the analysis will obviously affect the results.

Remember, science once "knew" the earth was the center of the solar system, & the earth was flat. Now we get weekly contradictions about previous studies that show "conclusively" that this or that is good/bad for your health, or does / does not contribute to global warming, etc. Think of all the harmful things there are now laws or regulations concerning that were not in effect when you & I were growing up - yet here we are!

Sadly, I suspect "let common sense prevail" is asking too much...

John, Virginia Beach, USA

Our very existence endangers our fragile and innocent planet, depending on whom you ask. So heat up a Hot Pocket and go for a drive, if we're all doomed anyway, and tell these idiots with nothing but greenspace between their ears to bugger off.

Joe Day, Portland, OR USA

If we had less people in the world, there woudl be less of a need to transport so much of our modern day luxuries, inlcuding food from other countries.

Transport systems would carry more people per unit as there woudl be less units to support 'predicted' levels of use.

Everything we take for granted in todays society woudl be reduced and a lot more products would become "home grown" again. Not just food stuffs but raw materials that we now import. Steel is a great example.

Luckily with less people globaly, these factors would effect all countries and eventually reduce all these nasty gases per person.

Jason, Godalming,

I agree, We all get too caught up in 'marketing' claims about how green a company's products are (Toyota Prius, anyone? you planet damaging hooligans!!). This report highlights the amazingly bold claims made against our sacred road network are untrue and frankly, a bit OTT. Yes, cars, and drivers attitudes need to change, but more importantly, our food and power sources need to be kicked into touch!!!!

Tim Necklen, Leicester, England

To Ken Ferguson, Knoxville, Tennessee/USA UNQUOTE

fink of de children Ken fink of de children

I am afraid your comment is far too sage for this audience. Are you related to the trees in Lord of the Rings? The odd meteor or two will undoubtedly agree with you not to mention solar flares. 42 - thats the answer.

I cannot help but think what mischief this article was aimed to incite.

Doubters doubters everywhere but not a drop to think

Arthur, Morristown, galaxy

What about the energy used to make a bike or the tuck to transport the meat? Richard you’re not making sense

But is global warming making sense? I hope all of you on mars and other planets are cutting back on the meat and veg and air travel as it seems that your planets are warming around the same as ours.

Can no one see this is a way not just for more taxes but to keep the class of the poor where they are with out the poor who could be considered as rich? AL gore has a company you can buy green credits from so who can afford them credits? not me but sure as hell the rich can buy the credits then go to work in there 911 or 360 and carry on there life style in Spain usa where ever they want really to fly without needing to cut back on there eco crimes

So to sum it up global warming is about class not about CO2. CO2 is the building blocks of life not the cause of death.

To build a hydro dam costs more in energy than you would get back from it in 100 years .

, Manchester, UK

Yet again, people are on the wrong track in saying that the "problem" facing humanity is an excess of it. This just isn't true, an excess of humanity living in poverty maybe, but a high population per-se, isn't a problem.

Rich, industrialised Countries have proven this to be the case. The UK, indeed, is one of the most heavily populated Countries in the World and we manage just fine. Japan is intensely populated and is also fine.

People seem to want to find this ticking, self inflicted time-bomb that will some day wipe us all out but it really dosen't exist. Sure, there are some problems in the World - usually to do with poverty, but they aren't anything we can't deal with.

Global warming due to human produced C02 is a lie. The Earth was a lot hotter only 2,000 years ago. The Romans grew grape vines as far north as York - no one is seriously arguing that that was due to all the cars they drove! The sun is undergoing a period of greater activity - live with it!

JonathanL, Newcastle, UK

This article shows just what a farce the whole AGW scam really is. Many pro-AGW believers condemn this article as unscientific (which it appears to be even to this sceptic), yet quite happily accept the IPCC's unscientific contribution to the GW debate where facts and figures have been manipulated and selectively used to make their 'political' point.

I read an article recently that listed the great climate debate since 1895 and it goes like this:

1895 - 1924 : Global cooling predicted
1925 - 1969: Global warming predicted.
1970 - 1976: Global cooling predicted.
1981 - Today: Global warming predicted.

As scientists are now starting to predict an on coming cooling period it looks like the cycle is about to begin again.

CO2 is not the major cause of GW the real cause is still unknown. The only real human contribution to GW is virtual, done by the IPCC and computer models that sex up the facts and do not reflect reality.

Andy, Leeds, UK

Hang on, in the glorious old days before nasty man invented burning things like wood and coal, weren't there LOADS more cows and stuff? How much methane did a Tyrannosaurus Rex produce? Loads, I reckon.

And if trees produce methane as well, at 21 times the effect of CO2 that means there must have been far more of a threat prehistorically than now, as the earth would have been covered with huge methane producing dinosaurs and vast, continent-sized, methane-producing forests. God, it must have smelled like Northampton.

chris, , england

The science is flawed alright. Unless you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, there is no way you can carry as much shopping in one trip as your car can. The correct comparison is between one car journey and ten or twelve journeys on foot, not one for one. This would put the car even further ahead.

The emissions given off in building the car are irrelevant because the car already exists (to recruit Robert Thoburn's argument).

@ David Bond in NZ: "...efficient, well-filled trains emptied out, making them less efficient to run." LOL you kill me man. Please post more often. Have you ever seen a European commuter train? "Emptied out"??



There must be a way to generate electricity from liberal hand-wringing.

John R, finchley,

The article is full of miscalculations and dubious assumptions:
First : Why should a grown up person cover her extra energy required for walking to the shop with meat?!! Nutritional advice tells us to cover our energy needs by eating vegetables and rice or bread. These food items cause only a fraction of the CO2 burden compared with meat. When as person gets the extra energy for walking from such food –or from lemonade – then using the car would be much more environmentally costly!
Second: There are other environmental impacts than greenhouse gases which are important: Driving a car emits smog and unhealthy particles and other pollutants.
Third: Meat creates high environmental costs producing it. However, seldom as high as stated in the article. Several European studies estimate the CO2 emissions from meat production to be 3-4 kg CO2 units per kg meat.
So even when using meat for human "petrol" it is still better for the environment to walk than to drive a car.

Niels Halberg, Viborg, Denmark

There are too many humans on Earth... quite simply that is the problem. On one side of the equation you have human rights and on the other side you have the needs of the environment.
Suggest ways of controlling the human population and you'd be arrested or branded a lunatic ... tough call :)

DF, Hong Kong, China

"— Someone who installs a “green” lightbulb undoes a year’s worth of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain" I'm not so sure about that. Here's a rebuttal. http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/5111.html "If the shipment goes by rail, the TPG number will be much higher. The rail haul will consume only 2 gallons of fuel per ton, but I’ll assume 100 miles of truck shipment to get the fruit to and from the railheads, adding 1 more gallon. We’re now up to more than 2600 tangerines per gallon. For West Coast tangerines, I calculate 266 TPG by truck and 941 TPG by rail (to the east coast)... If the tangerines are raised by a farmer 60 miles away, and he brings 500 lb of them to market in a pickup truck getting 20 mpg, then he is using 3 gallons of fuel each way–6 for the round trip–which equates to 333 tangerines per gallon. ... worse than truck from Florida, worse than rail from California, and worse than ship from Spain. "

mishu, Grayslake,

To Anthony Box: 32/44 of the weight of CO2 emissions comes from the air burned, not the petrol.

BrionCherock, Liverpool, US

We should always consider what assumptions have been used in creating these reports! Take the 1st of 'shattering of great green myths'... traditional nappies are as bad as disposables. It was based on a report by the large disposable nappy makes (some bias I think) and is based on traditional nappies being washed at high temps (not neccessary), tumble dried (not neccessary) and only being used for 1 child (also not necessary). Never believe anything you read in the press without research.

Richard , Bracknell, UK

So when should we expect a pedestrian tax? That's how we fight global warming isn't it?

Paul Mahalo, Hull,

An enjoyable debate. But the genesis of measures to be taken to control unwanted gases or expenditure of natural resources will be economics-based long term profit focused and initiated by corporations. Meanwhile we can debate ad absurdum.

Sir Chiffley Lockhart, Auckland, New Zealand

This article made me laugh as its simply measuring apples with pears and playing with numbers and statistics.

People in general are only out for themselves and businesses only out for profit so the only solutions are let nature take its course or start culling people - nothing else will have a lasting effect.

Enjoy life while you can.

Charlotte Emma, London,

Walking burns 130 calories per hour. Sleeping burns 60. The difference is 70 calories per hour. Therefore, if you got out of your bed to walk 3K to the store and used up 180 calories it took 2 hours and 35 minutes to walk 3K? Bad math I think. If you went from dead to walking to the store and used 180 calories (at 130 calories per hour) it took you an hour and 20 minutes. Still bad math, plus bad logic. Someone may want to rethink this.

KLC, Toronto, Canada

Has Mr. Goodall calculated amount of calories spent by a person while driving 3 miles? In general, majority of food is used by body for living itself - hearth beats, breathing, growing nails, hairs, producing blood cells, ...
I would be interested how much calories you need to drive 1 mile and how much calories you need to walk 1 mile. I write 1 mile because nobody would walk 3 miles to a shop nowadays.

The truth of Mr. Goodall is fact that food supply chain needs to much energy. If you eat locally produced food your carbon-dioxide footprint wouldn't be so big. But can you do it in the time of Wallmart, Tesco and urbanized world?

Petr, Prague, Czech republic

Has the the "Carbon Cycle" that I was taught for "O" level been discredited as some new world Gaia mumbo jumbo? Is it me?

Earnest Wellbeloved, Suburbiton, Middle England

Faulty Logic.

He's assuming that people who drive everywhere eat less food. Take it from an ex coach potato, people who drive everywhere and sit around all day will eat more than anyone else because they're greedy and bored!

Zan, Numpty,

If driving 3 miles produces 2lb of CO2 a thirsty car burning fuel at a rate of 30 miles per gallon would give 20lbs of CO2. Petrol being lighter than water and water weighing 10lb per gallon. Where is the CO2 coming from?

Anthony Box, Wretton, Norfolk GB

Foot & Mouth is a blessing in disguise then? Solve that beef problem!

James, Norwich,

You forgot to include the M-6 expansion at 1000 gbp per inch of roadway!

Greg Miller, Chico, California / USA

THe safest route is to, broadly speaking, carry on what you are doing - driving, flying and the like but do it less and try to do it more responsibly. Fit an ethical filter! One thing is for certain we have to stop throwing so much away - for example about a thrid of all produce purchased from supermarkets is tipped unopened

jeremy, caversham ,

This article and the book that data come from are no more than lies and twisted facts as other people making comments suggest. Take for example the very simplistic view that walking uses up more calories than does driving a car. Driving a car down the street takes a lot more energy than just the fuel required to get you there; what about the energy required to build the car, to maintain it, etc.; what about the energy required to build the gas station to house the gas; etc. etc. And for the other side, is the caloric energy cost associated with walking to the supermarket counter-balanced by the energy saved by healthier people (i.e. less medications, doctor visits, etc). Life is much more complex than simple calculations try to describe them by and this is one example of that.

Brock Adam McCarty, Boulder, CO, USA

Graham and Ken are right with this:

the only viable way to sustain our way of living is to reduce the population. There is no free or inconsequential means of creating the energy we need to keep up the way we go about our lives. No natural gas, hydroelectric, solar powered or wind generated solutions can change this.

The solution is that there is no solution. This is how far we've progressed, and things are going to keep evolving. The Earth is not going to blow up or get Orwellian on us anytime soon, it'll just be different. We are all a product of the Earth, and therefore all we do is also a product of the Earth itself.

I think most of us are afraid that our grandkids won't be able to enjoy the same fossil-fuelled conveniences that created this massive population boom. You know what? They won't know any better.

Alex, Montreal, Canada

Why does nobody ever get down to the real reason for the problems we have - too many people on the planet? If we didn't have to deal with the population growing from 6 to 10 billion in the next 50 years then none of this would be an issue - you don't need the intensive farming, extra mass transport, etc., etc. Of couse, reduce the population and the planet is even better off - but nobody is prepared to accept population reduction as an alternative. Even if it would solve every resource and pollution problem we have.

John Thorpe, Gloucestershire, UK

What nonsense. This person drving the car also has to eat food so they would be producing greenhouse gasses from the fuel and from food (+ all the other by products of vehicle use-production of tyres, spare parts, road infrastructure etc). Car drivers are also more likely to travel much longer distances to get to the shops (the average supermarket generates 1,000,000 miles of car traffic per week) + no-one gets 100% of their calories from beef.

Judging by the realtive proportion of fat drivers compared to pedestrains I would suspect that many of them eat more calories and more intensviely produced food than their healthier self-propelled counterparts.

Matt Barrett, Bristol, England

Mr. Goodall's calculation only works if one assumes that people consume only the minimum number of calories they require for their daily lives and that they must consume additional calories to compensate for extra work. In fact, most people - witness the obesity epidemic in the West - over-consume food. Therefore, they require no additional calories - and no additional food consumption - in order to walk to the shops.

Ron, Toronto, Canada

well said N. Waters, Mississauga, Canada. the only logical solution to the global warming problem is to eliminate the ever growing cause - man!

Superfiend, Fiendoland,

Re Django's comment.
You say this is a lousy debate and then claim importing food from Africa is the best thing you can do?!! If the trade was fair and the local people actually got the benefit of exporting their food then maybe you have a point. I'm still trying to get my head round the comment Millions are going to get poorer if we don't take their food?! Yes poverty leads to environmental pressures, but are you seriously saying that mass agriculture is the answer? Agriculture is just as much an environmental pressure. How much rainforest has this planet lost to agriculture, because the palm oil industry has never cut any down has it?! We need responsible agriculture. Does responsible tourism have a part to play? Using your own reasoning of poverty being the problem, then yes, as responsible tourism puts the money into the pockets of the locals.
One last comment ... there are only a finite set of resources, the planet cannot sustain everyone living at 1st world level

Graham Racher, London, UK

The calculations here seem to be faulty on two fronts, the first being that the estimate for the cars is based only on the carbon emissions created by the burning of the fuel, and does not include the emissions created by extracting the crude, refining the crude, and transporting both the crude and the refined gas. The second argument implies that the amount of beef consumed is a variable, whereas if calories are needed, a simple starch, such as potatoes or apples, would replace the same calorie loss as beef, and do so without adding as much in carbon emissions.

Chris, rochester,

And what about carbon emissions during fuel production, transportation and so on?

Javi, Barcelona, Spain

There are major flaws in the suggestion that driving to the shops produces less carbon than walking.

Driving to the shops does not genrerate carbon solely from burning fuel in your tank. What about the emissions generated in producign and transporting the fuel? If you are driving you are still metabolising food. So the carbon produced by your body when sitting in your car needs to be factored in too. Your metabolic rate may well be much higher when getting red faced sat in a traffic jam rather than it would be when walking. Reducing use of motorised transport whilst also selecting locally produced food is the way to go.

Karl Evans, Sheffield,

It's interesting to see how different the reality of what's more environmentally damaging is sometimes at odds with common perceptions, or what intuitively sounds like it would be worse.

But the premise of this article, that it's important to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, is faulty. That's because CO2 has not been shown to be the cause of warming, which is increasingly believed to be primarily driven by solar activity.

The documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is very informative in this regard, and I highly recommend checking it out if you get a chance.

Starchild, San Francisco, USA / California

What a load of nonsense. There are a few things this article seems to be implying:

People subsist entirely off of beef and milk. Taking the most polluting animals second to human seems more than a little deliberate.

Apparantly people who don't drive don't eat... yeah, I didn't get that either.

Elizabeth, Redruth, UK

I do think we should all be really concerned about emissions - the truly corrosive ones that rain down upon us daily from assorted "experts", lobbyists, single-issue groups, eco warriors, opportunist politicians and so on. There is rather too much "information" and not enough real knowledge being applied to this debate. The only observable and uncontestable fact is that the climate changes. Always has and always will. We adapt or die - its what animals do. What's so hard to understand about this.

Tom, Kinsgton,

Fine, so the vegetarian can get out and walk and the meat eater can stay home. Its just a food choice, why do you have to make it seem so difficult to change. Vegetarianism is the most profound impact you can have on the health of the planet but everyone dances around talking about its potential because they know they can't live up to the challenge. Look at even worthless Al Gore. PETA has been hounding him for months over this and he refuses to even comment - all while flying all over the world wasting fuel, promoting curly lightbulbs that pollute the planet with mercury.

David Sarosi, Tucker, Georgia, USA

Responding to articles such as this are contributing to global warming.

Oh well, there goes another 5 ounces of CO2.

Richard , Jersey,

This article clearly demonstrates the danger of a little learning. A bit more thinking would conclude:

- that there is no significant correlation between driving and eating less
- there is no significant relationship between the choice to drive/walk and the choice between eating meat/being a vegetarian.

Clearly it would be better if we drove less and consumed less. Or would we conclude that the world would be better off if aboriginal people all started driving to save energy....?

Paul, London, UK

All very selective and not very convincing.
It is NOT true that "farming techniques are similar throughout the West". The research quoted by New Scientist applies only the very most intensive cattle production, feeding cattle on grain instead of their natural food, grass. What it really shows is that intensive agriculture is very costly to the environment, not meat production itself.
Most cattle production in the UK is grass-based, and much (including my own) uses almost no grain-based feed or other inputs and so cannot be blamed for CO2 emissions. Meat production should be done on land which cannot be used for other food: rough pasture, flood-meadow, heathland and moorland. Then it is low-input and of minimal cost to the environment -- in fact it often also maintains natural habitats.
All the other examples given fall in much the same way. Full trains are of course far cheaper in energy than cars, and just don't boil-wash those terry nappies every time!

Richard Collingridge, Ringwood, Hampshire

I have it ! How to become eco friendly!
Stop eating, stop walking, dont use mechanized transport of any type, dont drink or use water, be naked and just sit down, breath less and wait to die. All living things cause something that could be called pollution when they live, it's what they are meant to do, cycle elements and energy. There are just too many of us.
We should ignore these idiots, be sensible and dont waste resources needlessly. They don't know what they are talking about and thank god people are starting to realise. If we listened to them, millions will die and in a couple of thousand years an archaeologist will be digging up our bones and call us the civilisation that starved itself to death because of guilt.
As a final note CO2 may warm the planet but it also helps us grow more food, NO2 causes acid rain but without it plants would not grow, SO2 - acid rain but it cools the planet, clouds cause 90% of warming CO2 far less than 10% -etc etc - got the point yet?

alex, Glasgow, UK

What is wrong with carbon?

Our bodies are made of carbon. The whole basis of life on earth is carbon. "Organic chemistry" is the study of carbon compounds, and is the basis of life itself.

Why is everyone suddenly talking as if life itself is in some way evil? Without carbon we would be dead.

Steve Hayes, Tshwane, South Africa

If the environmental cultists really believe the science (fiction?) of global warming, why don't they campaign for day light saving hours - we could then close at least one power station.

Paul, Eastleigh, UK

And to think that i thought people were chumps for driving to recycling points. (Okay, sometimes there really is no choice.) Now it would seem they're doing the planet a bigger favour than me, and i should take the couch-potato route. Crazy.

Peter Koeb, Geneva, Switzerland

This is a very interesting article and really shows up the way arguments can be made to sound convincing by ignoring most of the relevant facts.
For me, I bike everywhere I can and the car, a hybrid, stays in the garage as much as possible. My wife & I have for years biked to work almost every day. And we walk plenty for exercise and companionship. We recycle and compost, live in a super insulated house that's double glazed and heated with heat pumps.
This is doing what we can for the environment & our health.

Ross Becker, Wellington, New Zealand

This article is nothing but trying to divert the main reason of climate change.......

Khan, Sydney, Australia

Heck, most of us eat more calories than we need so are unlikely to actually start eating more meat if we walked a bit more. Of course, it might cut down on the obesity problem which would mean we'd live longer and so create more emissions over a longer life time....
Hang about, what are the emissions considerations of cremation versus burial? Maybe like burning wood for energy being better than recycling we should insist crematoriums are plugged into the national grid?

Rich, Surrey, UK

Presumably Mr Goodall's calculations have been made just for the wind-up value rather than fair comparison. If he's including the emmisions required to produce the food we burn, then why has he not included a proportion of those required to produce the car we'd drive to the shops? Start with mining the iron ore for the steel and work from there Mr G. See if you can come to the obvious conclusion that walking is very efficient, especially if walking to your own allotment to pick your veggies.

Allan Qurashi, Holmer Green, Buckinghamshire UK

Mr. Goodall sounds so clever. Of course, those who drive still eat. In fact, I expect they eat more than walkers. So, they still have a bigger carbon footprint, no?

David, Brookline, U.S.A./Massachusetts

Culling politicians and civil servants at 60 to save on their pension costs would, I am sure, end all concern over global warming.

More tax anyone?

Benjamin , Gloucester,

I wonder what this means to opponent of European Union farming subsidies? The logic follows that the subsidies are in fact a good thing in that they reduce carbon emissions by making produce that is grown closer to home more affordable to consumers, rather than relying on imports from further afield.

A bit of a dilemma with regards to developing nations' comparative advantage in producing certain agricultural products.

Andrew, Cape Town,

Just check out the sources, at least one of them is a lobbying group.

Ian, Halifax, Canada

Well, the methane can be cought and used, converting it to less horrible CO2. Beef eat grass. That grass just changed CO2 to O2 and other stuff. This process is CO2 neutral. Burning fossil fuels is much worse than eating processed grass.

Also to the one issue people. One issue, however helpful, is never the answer. There are myriads of things each individual can do, some better than others but none of which are a "silver Bullet" cure-all.

Ed Anthony, Spartanburg, USA/South Carolina

All this Global Warming stuff is a joke...who even cares anymore...Global Warming is just a excuse to tax the people more, and inconvenience people.

Nate Merrill, St Louis Park, USA, Minnesota

Pretty myopic article if you ask me. Limiting the argument to specifically cattle doesn't mean much. How many people refuel with a big slab of beef anyway?

Justin Davey, Winnipeg, Canada

We've seen a surge in farmers markets in Minnesota.People want to buy locally grown food if it's available.

Pat Neuman, Chanhassen, MN

I think this is one of the more stupids things that ive read so far... blame the beef and drive happy

Pedros, Barcelonation,

I recently moved nearer to my workplace in the city centre. One of the main benefits was to be that I could now walk to work, saving those grams of carbon. Sadly, I discovered almost immediately several obvious disadvantages – duh! Firstly I traded a comfortable 10 minute drive for a 30 minute hack through all weathers. Secondly my walk is plagued by incessant traffic noise and choking exhaust fumes that I never noticed from inside the car. Thirdly and more dispiritingly I find that other motorists pass by my new home once every ten seconds on average compared to almost never in our old suburban cul-de-sac. And now to cap it off I discover from your article that this demonstrable fall in my quality of life is doing more harm than good to the environment. Joking apart, there seem to be few incentives to abandon the motor and move into town while others continue to commute in past your front door.

Andrew Newby, Bristol, UK

Call me radical, but how about we all walk to the shops and actually eat a little less? Then the UK might not head down the road of obesity, like the car-dependent USA...

Cath Grice, London, UK

What if you use a pogo stick to go to the shops? How much damage does that do to the environment? What if you cartwheel there instead? Enough already! Eco-mentalism is becoming Eco-obsession!

Scott Millson, Toronto, Canada

One thing that sticks in my head from my High School environmental science class is what our teacher told us "There's no such thing as a free lunch" in essence that we need to remember EVERYTHING costs us something in consumption of energy and resources. You may reuse a ceramic coffee cup thousands of times, but the energy used to produce it is a worse trade-off than the trees lost to paper ones; especially if it breaks prematurely. There isn't going to be an easy answer and I'm glad that people are looking at the alternatives that we're turning to with a critical eye.

Josh, Champaign, USA/IL

Although initially antagonistic (just read all the irrate comments above!), this set of words has value. The somewhat hidden main point is that Beef is environmentally disastrous. So bad it is worse than not only flying, but driving too. If you want to take some nice photos of cattle in a field better get them soon.

Douglas, Addlestone, UK

That's assuming that he eats less because he's not going to be walking. I bet people would eat the same amount either way....

jason, brooklyn, new york

It's outrageous that anyone is still eating meat with these statistics. It's a bit warped to suggest driving instead of walking, rather change your diet.

Tracy Stokes, Woking, UK

What a load of ptooey. It talks about what it takes to fuel the human body. Yet it compares that to the emissions of driving a car without mention of the emissions produced procuring, processing and transporting the petrol for the car.

And the cloth nappie thing is warped, too. What about the process involved in gathering and manufacturing components, bleaching paper, making plastic, and making the disposables? The pulping process alone is very water intensive. Let's look at the complete life cycle here, not just the limited use cycle.

Articles like this just make people feel good about being lazy irresponsible consumers. Enough!

S.S. Coward, San Luis Obispo, US / California

Mr. Goodall's figures are not taking CO2 and limited resources into account equally on both side of his equations.

For instance, he's accounting for all that goes into serving a piece of beef, but not all that goes into drilling for, processing, and transporting the gas that goes into the vehicle. He's also chosen one of the most expensive-to-produce foods on the market, rather seeking to work with any sort of average diet. Who eats only beef?

The other so-called facts on diapers, shopping bags, dairy cows, etc. are equally flawed, and what is more, anyone with half a brain can prove it.

Heather Gray, Holyoke, MA,

It makes me laugh that out of all the volumes of verbosity that we are all hearing about the effects of global warming only a miniscule amount of it refers to the one single problem. Over population. Democracies are run by big business that thrive on booming economic growth. This requires an ever growing consumer population. Many find the idea of population reducing measures abhorrant. Should we adopt a one child policy worldwide? Should gay marriage be compulsary? Perhaps then we could still continue our wasteful greedy lives without the burden of this damned warming!!

Jay White, Gold Coast, Australia

It's an interesting perspective, for climate campaigners at least, but this is where the general public get disillusioned in trying to make a difference. I believe our focus has to be on carbon neutrality, through innovative energy production, linked to a bit of self-restraint. Oh, and nuclear.

But to call it a lie, is to defie the evidence for the sake of convenience. There are billions of us burning fossil fuels now, and in 40 years we have released carbon accumulated in deposits over 2000 million. The fact is that we have fundamentally changed the balance of atmospheric gases and there is a long term correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.

I too was once on the sceptical side, mainly because its easiest to do nothing and be self-righteous. But if you look at the science as objectively as possible, the balance of evidence comes down on the side of climate change being a reality.

Gus Swan, London, UK,

Why does the Times insist on recycling the cliche of flying in beans from Kenya. To shatter the myth, producing the same beans in a greenhouse in the UK and shipping it around the country would on average produce just as much if not more carbon then airfreighting it from Kenya. And one more thing: the carbon footprint of the average farmer in Britain is 10 times that of an average farmer in Kenya.

KBradley, Leicester, England

Hilarious article, funny findings and also great to read the outrage from all the concerned eco-warriors - but seriously now, who cares?

Doug Bates, St. Albans,

Thank you Edmund Burke for that timely comment, "global warming and global cooling have been going on, as a natural process, for millions of years before humans set foot on the planet."

People who are trying to play god in arrogantly 'saving' the planet forget that Nature is more awesome than we could ever be and will always remedy itself in its time, with or without our help. The problem with the hypochrisy around global warming is that those advocating changes in lifestyle are not prepared to change their lifestyle to match, just to police the lives of others to feel smug.

Elaine Sihera, Maidenhead, United Kingdom

To say again; the notion than human produced Co2 is affecting global climate is a lie. Humans produce a tiny, tiny proportion of annual C02 emmisions - in the order of a few percent, if that. No one is going to convince me that that level of emissions is going to influence anything at all.

Less than 30 years ago were were being told that by the present day we would be under miles of ice. Unfortunately, that little scare story didn't bring home the bacon in the way that the current global warming scare seems to have done rather successfully. Less than 20 years ago we we faced with the horrific prospect of being fried alive by the effects of the Ozone hole if we didn't curtain CFC usuage. Today we are assured that we have "cured" the probelem through said curtailment. That's a lie too because, globally, we've not reduced CFC emissions at all. Yes, western Europe has but China is today emitting more CFC's than we ever did. How is it that hole has closed in the face of higher emissions?

JonathanL, Newcastle, UK

If we collected all the hot air generated by these spurious reports everyone could travel by baloon.What is needed is some common sense.Live a reasonable life-style, don't over consume,don't create more waste than is absolutely neccessary.

Bill Tyler, Norwich, UK

This is useful information within our currently restrictive cultural norms. If we could simply throw off the shackles of our primitive moral systems the best environmental solution to feeding people would be feeding people.

Greatest advantges would be gained by eating the wealthiest first.

John Wilson, Dayton, Ohio

The most energy-hungry part of the human body is the brain. Perhaps if more people wasted less time pushing their own personal agendas (eg vegetarianism) as somehow being green, and indulging in some considerable mental gymnastics and doublethink (which probably uses twice the energy!) in order to do so, they might be able to eat less, and lower their carbon foot (err, jackboot) print.

Just my two sense (sic).

Richard Faith, Bath, England,

Shh! Clarkson will hear!

Bill, Belfast, N.I.

Lousy debate. Importing food from Africa is the best thing you can do. The "food miles" myth is dangerous, scientists have warned.

If you don't import food from Africa, millions there are going to get even poorer. Poverty leads to environmental pressures (low yield agriculture, slash and burn), and to high fertility rates and to a reliance on primitive biomass (chopping down rainforests). This fuels a cycle of poverty.

In short, the best thing for the planet is to make poor people in the South rich, so they ruin the environment less.

Django, Brussels, Belgium

I am very reassured that driving to the shops should be so beneficial for our environment. It confirms my view that if the Lord had meant us to continue to walk, He would not have let us invent the wheel.

grindles, London, england

Global warming has nothing whatever to do with overpopulation. As the ice-cap recedes at the South Pole, dead leaves have been found underneath it. Conversely, the fjords of Norway were sculpted out by glaciers. What these facts add up to is that global warming and global cooling have been going on, as a natural process, for millions of years before humans set foot on the planet.

Edmund Burke, Kingston upon Thames, England

The calculation of .9kg of carbon for the car trip does not take into account the energy used to manufacture the car in the first place, transport it to where ever it was sold and then for the transportation cost of the petrol to the point of sale. Still, it’s a good point you highlight in the article and it should keep people talking about this issue.

Richard, Adelaide, Australia

I think that all of YOU who believe in global warming should stop driving cars, planes, trains, helicopters, motorcycles, scooters, tractors, lawnmowers, and any other vehicle. In fact, you should even stop using electricity, fireplaces, grills, ovens, stoves, and any other thing in existence that uses any kind of energy. As a matter of fact, I think the answer to this whole global warming fiasco would be resolved if you would all just stop exhaling.........then there would be plenty of environment for ME to enjoy! HA!

sutsme2at, Cincinnati, OH

Using a bicycle uses 1/7 of the energy used in walking

Hayden, Bodmin, UK

This supposed 'story' is based on a fundamental assumption that everyone eats meat. Farming animals to feed people is an extremely inefficient way to convert crops (animal feeds) into stuff that we can eat...

Perhaps the author should recommend that more people should eat less meat AND walk more, perhaps that is too simple a suggestion?

Jason Scrutton, London,

There is a key factor missing from from this article:
What about the amount of pollution the planet gets to produce 1 car? A vehicle does not pop out of nowhere, we need to pollute the environment in order to get it in the first place. So thats pollution before we even decide to drive downtown, and that is not taken into account. The only pollution mentioned in the article from the part of the vehicle was when we drive it, which is wrong and misleading. And even a cow pollutes the environment from its fecal matter. It also pollutes in order to grow it until its meat reaches our table. So the data posted are very inaccurate to say the least. Its virtually impossible to say that the car manufacturing process is 100% environmentally safe. It is not. At least no more than growing plants or catching fish.

john, -,

Superb article, had me in stitches.

The enviromental cultists will be disappearing up their own backsides in no time flat...if they're not there already!

Cliff, Marseille,

180 calories to walk to the store.
150 calories to remain alive while sitting on the couch for the same time period.
maybe we should all just die instead.

tc, bogota, colombia

Didn't realise it was April 1 already !

Stan(expat), USA,

Maybe we should all go back to our caves, go hunting, wear the skins on our backs and wait for the next ice age.

Les, MIDDLESBROUGH, Cleveland

The article completely misses the point. The global warming debate is about releasing locked up carbon into the atmosphere, not recycling what is already in the atmosphere. Thus petrol burnt to get to the shops is bad, walking... so what?

Mark, St Albans,

I believe the point of the article was to get us to realize the horrendous amount of energy used in producing our food. Yes, the article was absurd, but absurdity is required in extraneous circumstances (like a court jester). We should be thinking of how to reform our food industry, and not bickering over environmental quandaries.

You need to realize that oil is a stored state (compressed form) of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. They can never in our lifetime be easily compressed into form like oil.

look at the energy you burn and systems found in nature as sustainable and reusable. They do not have a carbon footprint. I believe a carbon footprint should only be used one if it is actually increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The carbon used in regular systems will be recycled in time, but IN USING OIL. WE ADD CARBON.

Geoffrey marsh, St. Paul, Minnesota

This study is stupid, this is a perfect example that if you begin playing with numbers you can make anything look or show what you want it to show.

The solution to all this is to exercise and become vegetarians, just think of the cost of health care if we didn't exercise!

carlos, sudbury, canada

I would guess that the most environmentally-friendly thing would be to have locally-grown cereals and pulses delivered to your door by Tesco or Asda on the same visit that all your neighbours get their supplies?

Robert, Manchester, UK

Not many people walk 3 miles to the market. And if they do, they don't likely fuel themselves solely on beef. This article's computations take the worst case numbers for walking and use that to support its argument.

The people I know walk one mile or less to the market and eat lots of vegetables. That correction for walking works out to less than half the CO2 using the writer's formula.

Also, the car drivers I see have SUVs and old out-of-tune cars, surely polluting much more. And, don't forget to add in the process and ingredients for roads and parking lots. That correction for driving works out to double the CO2 using the writer's formula.

When you see an article with this kind of counter-intuitive claim, step back, take a look, and find the flaw.

Dave, Ohio, Ohio

Interesting. I don't know of any couch potatoes that eat less than I do. Numerous studies indicate that people who exercise more tend to eat less due to increased insulin sensitivity.

Dave, Austin, TX

So a vegitarian can't walk to the store ?
Give me a break, the energy used walking comes from carbohydrates - not beef protein.
BTW, your body burns egergy driving. Was that calculated in ?

Gary, Las Cruces, NM

If there's one thing an article on climate change is good for it's identifying all the cranks who write off global warming theories as arrogant or welcome the arrival of climate change because plants thrive on CO2 and we can all enjoy sunnier weather.

Andy M, liverpool,

This is typical "seeing the tree but not the forest". It's no surprise such stupidity coming out of western thinking. If you look at environment holistically, you'll never even come close to dream a topic such as this. How twisted your mind has to be to come up with something as ridiculous as this.

Takeru, Chiba, Japan

Wonderful, it's nice to know that almost everything I do in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint .. recycling, buying food within the country I live, hardly ever eating meat, beef once a year, planting more trees .. is a waste of time. So let me get this straight .. all we have to do is sit home and wtach the telly, shoot the cows, chop down the trees .. but wait, that means I'll have to go buy a TV, how much carbon will that cost?

Seriously, if we don't limit our numbers we are heading for a real catastrophe; the last world war will be nothing on what our children have to look forward to.

alice, Quimper, france

Does this mean I'll have to give up baked beans?

Neal, Wokingham, England

Great, wish I'd known all this thirty-five years ago when I started recycling and all I do is for nought .. eating very little meat and dairy, buying food from the country I live in, planting trees for shade in the garden. So if we shoot all the cows and chop down all the trees and stay home and watch telly, we'll be just fine. Glad to have a solution. My problem is I'll have to buy a TV and that'll certainly put my carbon footprint up!!

alice, quimper, france

Besides choosing beef as the food to replenish calories used, as commented above, the numbers used for the car journey are also misleading. On a short journey in a urban environment, the fuel consumption is much higher than the average numbers but, worse, is the fact that the catalytic converters have low efficiency when the car starts up from cold leading to other damaging emissions like Nitrogen Oxides that are much higher for these short trips to the shops.

armando ferreira, London, UK

What? 6 medium potatoes are about 180 calories and they take CO2 from the atmosphere when they grow.

But the debate is academic isn't it? Who is going to walk 3 miles to do their shopping and then another 3 miles home carrying it ?

The only incidental point in this article which I might agree with is that it would be better if we grew more of our own food rather than importing it, and encouraged and nurtured our arable land rather than covering it in concrete and building houses.

John, London, UK

Reductio ad absurdum. Sustainable economic growth in the modern sense requires increased consumers...which is not sustainable in the longterm. As a non-symbiotic parasite, we are slowly strangling our host which will eventually either result in a correction of the former or the termination of the latter. In the final analysis, there are too many of us.....

N. Waters, Mississauga, Canada

This reminds me of all the panic articles re: certain foods causing cancer and other diseases, and others that promote health, which are just as easily reversed.
I have just read a very interesting and informative book by an a acclaimed scientist,explorer and conservationist here, namely Tim Flannery - The Weather Makers -The History & Future Impact of Climate Change. He goes into great detail as to how CO2 emissions are "generated by human activity", and how these levels are in the developed world roughly 1/3rd derived from domestic power, and 1/3rd of the domestic power bill here in Australia is spent on heating our water . Not to mention fossil fuels which are slowly but surely contributing to these greenhouse emissions.
This is not something that can be solved overnight. I wish that was so, but unfortunately is not the case. But he suggests buying green power, installing solar panels, solar hot waster systerms, and manufacturing and driving hybrid vehicles etc. would help.

Barbara McCarthy, Victoria, Australia

Seems like our only "green" alternative is to die.

Ford, Tulsa, US

This is a classic example of the old adage "lies, damned lies then statistics"!

It is always possible to manipulate figures to produce the end result you are trying to achieve. How many of these statisticians are 'sponsored' by airlines or other major industrialised concerns? On this basis we have to burn down all the trees, kill all livestock and not travel anywhere. this sounds like death anyway so why bother at all?!

Nix, Tunbridge Wells, UK

Thanks to environmentalism, the physical sciences are being reduced to the same level as Tarot reading and having pebbles arranged along your spine to improve your health. The solutions to climate change and depletion of resources will be found (if they are found at all) in proper science, not in superstitions or politics.

"As the man from Ryanair says, cows generate more emissions than aircraft. Unfortunately, perhaps, he is right." That 'unfortunately' is a bit of a giveaway. We have our nice story about climate change, with the Goodies and Baddies in their appropriate white and black hats.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Complete nonsense - If I walk to the shops I pull on a pair of shoes, approximately 500 grams in weight. If I drive to the shops I step into 1800 kgs of steel, rubber and plastic. I drive through a whole infrastructure of roads built for cars. I don't know about Mr. Goodall but if I am feeling peckish after a small bit if exercise, I don't reach into the fridge and pull out a little filet mignon.

This is the type of spurious information that deflects people from serious debate on lifestyle and climate change.

Mark, Dublin, Ireland

But what about the energy used to make the car in the first place? And the energy used to dispose of it at the end of its life?

Stephen Phillips, Didcot, Oxfordshire

Perhaps paper bags are worse than plastic, but why does one have to make this choice? Nowhere in the article does it simply say bring your own cloth/string/mesh bag and make the whole point moot!

Michal, Albuquerque, NM USA

I think the logic behind this idea is flawed. It's true that a person walking down the street burns a surprisingly large number of calories doing so, but in fact that same person sitting and relaxing at home doesn't use that much less. The energy expended in order to perform the walk is actually pretty small.

John, El Paso, TX

What this article doesnt not say is that most people who go by car to the supermarket, also eat as much or more beef as the ones who walk, but burn their excess of fat in a gym which they reach by car...

So the suggestion is that we should lead a healthier life, for ourselves and for the environment, for our present and the future, by way of moderate consumption and a little bit of exercise... Any excess can only lead to surfeit boredom and melancholy...

Ramon, Madrid, Spain

The article works from Japanese farming practices to assume that all meat and other food production in turn creates high carbon emissions. This is simply not correct for true farm production such as that emanating from New Zealand that can produce and ship its produce to Europe with only between 30% and 50% of the carbon footprint of European producers.

Ian Millard, Wellington , New Zealand

Perhaps those walking should tow motor cars behind them, with cows tied to their bumpers?

Norman Strauss, Twickenham, UK

Right, i'm not walking anywhere today, and i'm not going to eat anything either, except my lightbulbs. I'll just sit in the garden and burn all the trees and then maybe later take a drive to the woods and burn it. If i see any cows on the way i'll try to run them over.

C Goodfernuthin, Oxford, UK

It takes a lot of energy to manufacture a car and to extract the fossil fuels it runs on from the ground. The math doesn't work out an articles like this only help to muddy the waters.

C. Darcy, Garmisch, Germany

I see overpopulation is mentioned as a problem.
Well, here in the US we have brought down the population by something like 40 million in the last 35 years due to abortion.
So what's the problem? We're not moving fast enough for you?

Artie Curtis, Fredericksburg, US/Virginia

I'm not sure about the point that organic milk is worse for the environment is actually a valid point. Most of the energy use for beef/milk production comes from the production and transport of grain feed for the cattle, requiring lots of water and fertiliser (fertiliser and agro-chemical production are huge carbon emitters). Also Feeding cows grain (instead of grass), is what makes them produce so much methane, grass fed cows, produce a lot less. So simply saying that organic cows produce less milk, while assuming the carbon cost of an organic cow is the same as an factory farned cow is unrealistic as the organic cow would have to eat organic food (no fertilisers, pesticides etc). Also a grass fed cow produces only a fraction of the methane and costs only a fraction of the energy to maintain (but obviously requires more space).

Richard, London,

What utter madness. The arguments mentioned are so one sided and could be used to make everything on the planet a killer. Brainwashing!!!!

Jon Eden, Barcelona, Spain

This is getting silly!

T. Bishop, London, UK

Global warming due to Human produced Co2 is a lie. The amount of Co2 produced by humans is minute and is far too insignificant to influence global temperature.

It's only 30 years ago that we were being told that by now we would be under miles of ice. All this rubbish is nothign more than a money making sham.

JonathanL, Newcastle, UK

All this global warming stuff scares me.

Life was so much better when the earth's climate was entirely static, sea-levels always stayed in one place, and all life-forms lived in perfect harmony without impacting on each other at all in any way, shape or form.

When was that, exactly?

Jo, Cambridgeshire, uk

Apart from all the already noted shortfalls in the calculation, I'm wondering if beef is a fair fuel to use for comparison. As a diabetic, my 'fuel' is carbohydrate. A mere 20grams of glucose will easily get me 3 miles on foot, and judging by the price must take negligible energy to produce. Mr G you need a re-think unless this is purely a publicity stunt designed to attract attention by acting like Mr Bean!

Allan Qurashi, Holmer Green, Buckinghamshire UK

re: disposable nappies
We have one small shelf of press-stud nappies and wraps that have done our 2 year old from birth. They were all purchased second hand. The nappies are still suitable for reuse. Those that aren't used as nappies will be used as general cloths. Now if we use windfarm generated electric for the wash ....

In any case the issue with disposables is there slow degradation in landfill. Moltex produce a compostable nappy - that decomposes in weeks rather than decades. Why isn't everyone using that?

pbhj, Newport,

"Great Fun!

Reminds me of the '70's whem 'Scientists' were predicting global cooling and a new ice age!"

Could you please show us where you found published articles where scientists write about global cooling because of CO2 emissions? I did not find them yet.

thanks!

ralph, Amsterdam , Netherlands

Does this mean that the 2.5 hour bike ride I did yesterday was worse for the environment than if I'd driven round the same roads?

Palpably absurd reasoning is the basis for the conclusion outlined above. 180 calories sounds high for a 3 mile walk, and anyway you'd only need to eat a Mars bar to more than replace that many calories.

Ian Blanchard, St Albans, UK

About the link between trees and methane, as far as I understand it this hasn't yet been independently verified, and not for want of trying. In fact, the conclusions that other researchers have drawn is that methane emissions are negligible:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2007/2007042724846.html

This has been known for quite some time now - so what other aspects of the author's research should be questioned?

Philip Brydon, Stuttgart, Germany

As long as we are attempting to put a little sticky plaster on a gaping wound and try to get away with it we will continue to shoot ourselves into our carbon printing feet.

Overpopulation and greedy overexpectation were the two main factors that got us all into this fine mess, and I'm talking globally here of course - address those and we're almost home and dry.

Shouldn't we learn to think in terms of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years and more to come closer to understanding what's really happening climate wise? And whatever it is , it's happening anyway - and even if we have been aiding and abetting it - we cannot stop it.

Question is, do we go out in a blaze of fireworks? Or do we bend and shape things less to accomodate our perceived needs, really wants in many cases, to meanwhile alleviate some of the pains and problems that face us on our path through the next few thousand years, and more?

Unless some little meteorite gets us first, but that's another story ....

Cornelia Hanning, Edinburgh, Scotland

There are some very obvious flaws in these arguments. Do people who drive eat less than people who walk? No. Why are diesel trains only carrying 10 passengers? Because more people are driving cars. This is a way of bending statistics and it isn't very helpful.

ben, london, UK

I have a great idea... why not ride a cow to the shops?

The cow (always normally fat) is going to get some needed exercise and on the way to the shops she can eat the grass off a neighbours lawn, thus further saving energy as the neighbour won't have to get the lawnmower out.

The cow farts anyway whether in a field or walking up the road so that doesn't matter, the human will be resting and you could add further energy savings/reduction in carbon emissions by the human killing the cow for food as there would then be no need for an abbatoir or transport of carcass/meat (of course only after the cow had successfully transported the human back home).

Blimey i think I've just saved the world.... can I have me a Nobel peace award?

Daisy, MosCow,

Unfortunately, this only holds up if all of your body's energy comes from beef. If we assume an average UK diet (2000 calories per day) and use the Carbon Trust's figures of 1.39 tonnes of CO2 per person per year for food, the 180 calories burnt walking to the shops only consumes 342g CO2 (about a third of the marginal carbon cost of driving the car to the shops).

Don't forget that this is based on the average UK diet which includes a mix of meats, fruits, grains etc as well as liberal doses of ready meals, takeaways, frozen and canned goods. Lots of opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint there without becoming a vegan who lives in the dark.

Andrew Parker, Dubai, UAE

Should drive our cars into the stores, rather than walk in?

MartinGugino, LAKEWOOD, California

Great Fun!

Reminds me of the '70's whem 'Scientists' were predicting global cooling and a new ice age!.

The way I see it is:
The world has never supported so many people living in so much luxury with such good health and longivity.
I put it down to Global Warming, just check the graphs of global wealth over time and carbon emissions over the same time.
Thanks for the tip, I'll walk to the shops to increase CO2 output and improve the Planets wealth.

D.Wilkins, Nassau,

Nature has been changing for millions of years. To suggest humans can alter nature is extreme arrogance!

Jock, Edinburgh,

I was initially a little baffled as to how installing a low energy lightbulb is as bad for the environment as importing two bags of imported vegetables.
What this article does is put together unrelated energy saving or consuming actions only in terms of their contribution to energy consumption or CO2 emmissions. For example, comparing the energy consumption done by walking to CO2 emissions caused by eating 100 gms beef is clearly inane if we then factor in the health benefits accrued, lack of congestion, and reduction of body fat over time which then reduces total energy consumption. We could then include other factors and further chase our tail on what is the total energy balance.
The end result of this article is to suggest that simple actions to reduce either energy consumption or CO2 emissions is pointless. It reminds me of the classic tome "How to Lie with Statistics", by Huff, in which this type of bogus pseudoscience was humorously and effectively skewered

Peter Jardine, Thousand Oaks, CA

Do people really consume calories in direct proportion to the exercise they do in a day? Doesn't the metabolism adjust to both exercise and food intake?

I understand that this may not have been the direct thrust of the article but if anyone is taking away this message from the article they will have been misinformed.

Kev, Wirral,

The point isn't how much carbon, it's where it comes from.

Carbon from fossil fuels has been buried underground for millions of years - so it hasn't been in the atmosphere since then. It's a net increase in the amount in the atmosphere over our lifetimes.

Carbon from burning wood, from people breathing and digesting, and indeed from the famous bovine flatulence methane problem, is carbon that has been in the atmosphere in the last hundred years. That's no net increase in the overall carbon around above ground, since it's the same carbon that cycles around (in equilibrium) as everyone is taught at GCSE biology.

On this note, if you care about carbon emissions alone (which it currently seems fashionable to do) it makes most sense to build up a large library and buy wooden furniture (from sustainable forests obviously) to keep recently-fixed atmospheric carbon locked up in solid form, where it can't contribute to global warming.

Eleanor, Oxford,

Obviously far too simplistic and the overriding difficulty in this area is that a complex set of variables needs to be taken into account .

At best, some of these conclusions are faulty logic. Take the example that by driving a fully loaded family car instead of scheduled public transport, you will save CO2. Wrong. You would be adding additional CO2, the train or bus will run anyway.

The car calculation doesn’t take into account: The building and maintenance of the road, the building and servicing of the car, plus supply of parts etc So clearly, the conclusion stacks against a meat loving walker.

Finally, we have exported a lot of pollution with food and consumer goods being produced abroad. Take airline flights - only 50% are added to UK carbon calculations. The figure is really 11.5% of UK emissions. Adding the multiply effect for high altitude pollution, the figure is nearer 20% - which exceeds emissions from private cars and public transport put together.

Robert Thoburn, Swanage , Dorset

Scott from Idaho and James from Lancaster seem to have the most sensible approach, however contradictory.
The recycling of wood for fuel is not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense. Woodsmoke, according to the World Health Organization is one of the top ten "global health concerns. Deal with that first, and then zero in on the organic cows.

M. Power Giacoletti, San Simeon, California

Mr. Goodall as assumed that I will make up my 180 calories by eating 3 ounces of beef, but this is not the case. My extra food intake will be mainly grain based foods. There is little increase in meat consumption when one exercises. I think the carbon consumption is much less in real life than Mr. Goodall's has calculated.

Doug, Bettendorf, Iowa

Yes, the authors are correct in their study's math. They have not, however, considered the fact that many modern livestock operations have biogas recovery systems which significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions through methane destruction.

I think they also failed to mention that walking reduces harmful vehicular emissions such as particulate matter, VOC's, CO, etc... which can lead to poor regional air quality. I think we would all be better served by allowing a little global warming in the name of improved air quality....

Brian Zapata, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

just a minute, isn't the point that the co2 emmitted by the car is adding more co2 to the atmosphere where as the co2 (or at least a good chunk of it) emmitted in beef production is re-absorbed in the grass cows eat?

mark mcdonald, bridlington, UK,

Of course; all the global warming drive is an attempt to separate lawabiding people from their money and to prevent them from enjoying the fruits of their labours. Like, in my case, driving an ancient landrover to the coast for my holiday on my yacht. I think my LR has lasted longer than these battery powered cars we are all supposed to buy. I thought all the lead was needed was needed for the paint sent to chinese toy factories.

My childhood was spent in fifties Stoke on Trent where it was very cold most of the year, and when the sun did shine it wasn't possible to see it because of polution. I am begining to like it warm, I don't have to heat the house and my LR's exhaust is clear, the carbon dioxide helps the garden grow. Plants always do better in high carbon dioxide urban areas.

Antony Rigby, Farnham,

Um, a few points:

1. What about the carbon costs associated with manufacturing the car, maintaining the car, transporting and refining the oil/gasoline, constructing roads other infrastructure, etc. Are these factored into the costs associated with driving to the store? It seems not.

2. The statements also assume that people eat only enough to keep them going. Which, obviously is almost never the case, expect maybe in impoverished regions.

3. It also assumes you would be eating only beef? WTF?

Nice work. Bravo!!!

Neal, Los Angeles, CA

Without denying the existence of global warming, I'm certinly not persuaded that the cause of it is CO2. There's no conclusive evidence to suggest this is the cause. As CO2 is a naturally occuring gas. Human existance accounts for a minute amount of the CO2 in the atmosphere (1 volcano eruption produces more CO2 than mankind produces in a whole year). In addition, CO2 - in comparison to water vapour - constitutes just a fraction of the so called 'greenhouse gses'. Yes, water vapour is the major culprit as far as 'greenhouse gases' are concerned.

This is not to say that human pollution has had no affect. I just think it's time for this CO2 obsession to end. And it's time for the average person to do their own research before accepting these so caled facts on face value.

Adam, New York (Leeds), US/UK

It's not easy, but we have to do something! Just because there are a lot of set backs does not mean trying isn't worth something. I truly believe that it is our huge population that causes most problems. We need to educate people on why it is important to have only one to two children per family and how that is made possible by cheap and available birth control.

Michelle Lamb, Boonton, United States/ New Jersey

Either the writer is being disingenuous or Mr. Cambell is some kind of fraud. The cost of walking that 3 miles, about an hour, comes to about an additional 25 or 30 calories over baseline metabolism(figure based on difference between sedentary and active life style calories from About.com calories per day calculator for average male) not 180. Furthermore, 100 grams of meat isn't much less than the total recommended by WHO's food pyramid.

Robert T. Weston, san francisco, usa

We should enjoy life to the maximum today. Who knows what will happen in the futur? The Earth may be hit by an asteroid or be plunged into nuclear war - energy daving lightbulbs won't help us then.

Today's "eco" cyclist may be run over by a lorry tomorrow, and all that self-righteous puritannical carbon-scrimping will have ben for nought. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die...

David Rochester, Liverpool, UK

This calculation has been publicised to bring the issue of food production and transportation under the global warming microscope. Why just concentrate on cars and flights when there is a larger cause of emissions trying to dodge the spotlight?

Ailsa Craig, Firth of Clyde,

EARTH FIRST!!
We'll strip mine the other planets later.

Edward, New Orleans, LA, USA

I believe the point of the article was to get us to realize the horrendous amount of energy used in producing our food. Yes, the article was absurd, but absurdity is required in extraneous circumstances (like a court jester). We should be thinking of how to reform our food industry, and not bickering over environmental quandaries.

You need to realize that oil is a stored state (compressed form) of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. They can never in our lifetime be easily compressed into form like oil.

look at the energy you burn and systems found in nature as sustainable and reusable. They do not have a carbon footprint. I believe a carbon footprint should only be used one if it is actually increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The carbon used in regular systems will be recycled in time, but IN USING OIL. WE ADD CARBON.

Geoffrey, St. Paul, Minnesota/USA

@ James,
Your story short:
Lets have a wild party and set the roof on fire.
Next morning:
Kids sorry about the fact we are now homeless but what a party.

Jeroen, Amsterdam, NL

A bicycle is the most efficent vehicle on the planet. There is no way to move your body with less energy than that. I realize that this article might be fun and may (or may not) be true but if you are going use walking as a mode of transport why not compare it to a typical walking distance of say 1/2 km. I know a few people who will walk 3 miles but that is very few. I know a number of people who will ride a bike that distance.

Happens thousands of times a day in many places (especially a place like Holland & Denmark).

P. Guin

Allison D., Lake Tomahawk,

There is a problem with the comparisons put forth in this article. They are comparing the pollution output from a car with the pollution output from the creation of the food. But what about the additional pollution from the creation/transportation of the fuel in the car? That is totally ignored. It is a bad comparison, not apples to apples.

You'd have to include the pollution from transporting/creating/maintaining the gasoline in order for this to be a valid comparison.

Jeremy, Cleveland, Ohio

You forgot to mention the environmetal impact of producing the car in the first place. You forgot to mention the environmental impact of producing the machines to produce the car. You forgot to mention the environmental impact of producing the machines to produce the machines for producting the car. You forgot .....

You forgot to mention the environmental impact of producing the food for the workkers in the car factory.

Alan Clifford, Guildford, Surrey

Like others have said we have too many people on the planet . Nature will sort out the problem by reducing the human population if we fail to do anything ourselves .

Mark, Yorkshire,

To say that minimizing population growth is the only real way to mitigate global climate change is foolhearty. Refusing to recognize that we can modify our lifestyles a bit to help generates more hot air than anything. -Let's take the naysayers at their word, let's drill Alaska dry, remove the catalytic converters from our cars, leave all of your lights on, leave all motors idling, pave over the River Thames, and delve ourselves in more world conflicts over oil. Let's set up shop at the polar ice caps manufacturing hair dryers and eat king crab every meal, all of us. The sole planet in the solar system that can sustain us will balance out. It's bee here for billions of years and I'm sure it'll balance out when we all die for the next generation. Quit being a bunch of blow hards... I'm off to finish my Big Mac on my styrofoam plate.

Vera, Brighton, England

Car-based planning is at the root of the transport-emissions problem. Not walking. Not meat-eating. Not diesel trains.

Car-based planning has resulted in vastly more travel than would otherwise be necessary. To start with this travel was discretionary. But as society moulded itself around the car’s convenience, discretional gave way to dependency. The corner-shop disappeared the workplace moved to a business park, the new suburb was made car-accessible only. And efficient, well-filled trains emptied out, making them less efficient to run.

Car-based planning has also spawned lorry-based planning. This has resulted in vastly more freight movement than would otherwise be necessary. And society has also moulded itself around this, and become dependent on it. Meanwhile freight by more-efficient rail has dwindled.

Decades of car-based planning have locked us into a vicious spiral of road-transport over-dependence, and thus into an unnecessarily high-carbon lifestyle.

David Bond, Wellington, New Zealand

Environmentalism has the potential to be an even greater catastrophe—a far greater catastrophe than Nazism: one that will result in the deaths of billions rather than millions. This is because it is the diametric opposite of economic liberalism on a global scale. In contrast to liberalism and its doctrine of the harmony of the rightly understood self-interests of all men, environmentalism alleges the most profound conflict of interests among people. It implies that there is a major economic benefit to be obtained through the death of billions of fellow human beings, that, indeed, the well-being and prosperity of the survivors depends on the extermination of those billions.

Thus, for example, from the depraved perspective of environmentalism, if global carbon dioxide emissions equal to 25 percent of present emissions were to disappear, because those responsible for them ceased to exist, there would be no need for the global cutback in emissions.

james, san francisco,

These guys are complete idiots! What a waste of time to do study like this.
Fact one: we live to enjoy ourselves
Fact two: we exercise to look good, feel good and just for fun
Fact three: if if every idiot who thinks that walking is worse for the environment than driving killed themselves right on some dump site - the planet would be a much better place (cleaner too).

A bunch of morons, evolution didn't kill them and now they do research. Just great!

Mike, Vancouver, Canada, BC

Dominic Kennedy fails to note that the majority of the UK population are over-weight and therefore consume extra calories and drive to the shops. And, does the population eat nothing but beef? How about other foods? How about the cost to the environment in making the car? Or the cost to the NHS in treating obesity related illnesses?

This reminds me of an article I read in an Easyjet inflight magazine arguing that air travel is more environmentally friendly than driving. It compared a packed EJ flight with a single occupant vehicle making the same journey. How many single people do you know that drive from London to Alicante?

Simon Bond, Bristol, UK

This article fails to take into account a lot of different variables, especially when it comes to food production. Organic cows are not worse for the environment because while their methane per liter of milk ratio may be higher, they are not stuffed with hormones processed from fossil fuels, nor raised on corn/grain harvested with fertilizers for fossil fuels.

Raising cattle on grass alone saves energy by cutting the link between the need for fossil fuel based chemicals and feeds that are regularly part of the better producing industrial cattle chains.

In addition the article assumes that you gain your energy from beef for walking. Well try eating beans, and rice instead - it'll but back the energy needed to produce the food by more than a factor of 10.

And then even more annoying is a quick quote with no further analysis at the end regarding trees producing methane. What about their use as a carbon sink? Not just a shield you know.

Good job really analyzing a situation...

Adam, Los Angeles,

It is good to do a more rigorous check as some of the current fashionable energy saving ideas have dubious advantage. The idea of a tax on plastic bags, making electronic goods without a standby mode, and banning traditional incandescent light bulbs are other examples that could have little benefit.

However some of the conclusions are reached using over simplistic assumptions. The notion that walking to the station requires us to consume more food is based on the assumption we only eat what we need. In practice we eat vastly more food than our energy requirements justify, so additional exercise does not require additional food. In fact my experience is that I eat significantly less on an active day out that I would by staying at home and snacking. The upside of driving everywhere is of course that overweight couch potatoes die younger, thus avoiding years of carbon producing consumerism and personal methane emissions!

Rob Basto, Reigate,

This article is spurious and deliberately inflammatory. The supposed calculation only looks at the carbon cost and green house gas emissions of driving a car versus walking. The actual carbon cost - production of the car and the production of the oil have not been accounted for. Since the cost of the fuel is the issue, costs of food production versus oil production should also be addressed. To be fully honest, cost of production should also include full environmental impact -- environmental degradation and cost for clean up of spills/leakages (of oil or pesticides) Not to mention infrastructure cost for maintaining cars - roads, insurance (insurance companies), garages etc..

As for eating beef- Why was this food chosen ? Does the walker have to eat beef, why not pork, chicken or plants (foods that have less energy and water input) ?

As for people feeling overwhelming guilt and anger about the news that their actions actually have an impact on the environment. Get over the anger/guilt and do something about it. The first step is to stop living in fairy tale land.

Niran, Beaumont, Canada/Alberta

Firstly, he has researched food from cattle, which is much less efficient to farm than crops, as they produce methane, eat food etc, where as more food is grown per square meter with crops, and they remove CO2 from the atmosphere with photosynthesis.
Secondly, if Japanese farming methods are similar to western methods why didnt Goodall investigate UK methods, as if one drove in a UK car, one would more than likely be purchasing UK beef.
It simply appears to me that Goodall has reserched and calculated teh areas taht would most suit his hypothesis, and a different scientist could do the exact opposite

Dan, Notts,

"Traditional nappies are as bad as disposables, a study by the Environment Agency found."
I can't believe they are still flogging that dead horse. The study by the EA was found to be flawed and I believe the Environment Agency is updating its controversial nappy report. See http://www.wen.org.uk/general_pages/Newsitems/ms_LCA19.5.05.htm for the Women's Environmental Network's view.

J.Kelly, Manchester, U.K.

So it's the retired old gits who play golf every day who are responsible for a certain amount of global warming.
Don't tell Livingstone or Brown this as they'll either impose a "golf tax" to pay for the damage,or probably ban golf and build reception centres for immigrants on Wentworth and Sunningdale.

Mike, Dunstable, England

Has anyone calculated how much carbon is emitted by we humans just by being alive and breathing? We emit both C02 and (smaller amounts of ) methane to th eatmosphere.

michael, London,

In my expert opinion, I believe that all available scientific evidence points to the existence and activity of humans as the main cause of green house gas generation.

I therefore propose that we should all kill ourselves immediately to avoid causing further damage to the planet. Just everyone remember to put all the TV's off stand by before you kill yourselves.

But hang on, what about the green house gasses produced by our rotting carcasses?

Arrgh! Can't even win in death can we?

Asim Salahuddin, London,

If all you use to replenish used calories is beef, then of course its going to look less efficient, on the other hand, global warming is likely to be the least of your worries.

Nicola, Leeds,

This is a scam. Notice, how they only use milk and beef in the example. Calorie intake is mainly from grains which have much better efficiency.
The calculation should also take into account the CO2 emissions of producing the car, building and maintaining the road, the CO2 cost of extracting and refining the oil.

THIS is totally wrong! In one process they calculate all the emission and in the other they only calculate emission at the last step of the process.

TOTAL RUBBISH

BlackVoid, Valahol, Hungary

Incomprehensibly ridiculous media seeking nonsense.

Who gets 100% of their daily calories from beef? Not to mention the countless other flaws in the calculations.

Who'd want somebody this gullible representing their town?

Rich D, Oxford, UK

How many vegans can dance on a pyramid of tofu? If the dubious assertion that anthropogenic climate change is indeed correct, trivial calculations such as those above will not provide an escape route. Our rapidly expanding population is the most important factor in every calculation of environmental degradation. There are just too many of us to fit in this finite world. We need to find ways to reduce our numbers over the next 2 or 3 generations without either draconian eugenics laws or relying on epidemics and starvation to do what we seem to lack the wit and will to do for ourselves. And yet, every government in the world still measures progress in terms of growing population and consumption.

ScottQ, Boise, USA / Idaho

People should stop wallowing in angst over the physical health of the world and instead make the most of what it has to offer. Live fast, sleep around and die young.

The problem we have is there are too many miserable middle and old aged people who aren't dead!

If more of the energy saving light bulb, vegan, knitted swimming trunks types spent their lives enjoying themselves rather than bitching, whining and trying to juggle facts and figures to solve unsolvable riddles; we'd probably find ourselves in a better place.

Racing motorcycles, BASE jumping and hot-footing it from one brothel to another whilst high on a cocktail of drugs, drink and junk food until one or more of the aforementioned results in a youthful but exhilirating death is the way forward.

Wasting your one life totting up 'carbon-footprint' stats whilst sucking on a lettuce leaf and shouting "DON'T LEAVE THE TV ON STAND-BY" to bemused passers by is rather dull and ultimately pointless.

Please get a grip.

James, Lancaster,

"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."
Wonderful argument. Big Green is finally coming down from its theological ivory tower to realise that planetography is much more complex than their CO2 obsession.

But they still haven't grasped the little detail that human beings have a nasty habit of breathing and expelling CO2 (and methane at the other end). A cyclist puts out a similar amount of CO2 per km as a small car with driver. A runner puts out far more.

Brian Vallance, LEFKIMMI, Greece

Wouldn't it make more sense just to live closer to the shops? If our living/working/shopping places weren't so spread apart, we could walk without expending huge amounts of energy.

Miss Cellania, Frankfort, USA/Kentucky

Be aware: if a bandwagon comes along people will queue up to jump on it.

Dr. Zuiderwijk, of Cambridge, is right: the maths and science in this report have not been done properly. Meat is a very inefficient source of energy. Starchy foods - potatoes, cereals, pulses etc. are much better and many of them provide adequate protein for an adult. Grow your own to save money, trips to the supermarket and transportation.

It has been shown in the US that more CO2 is emitted in the agricultural processes of growing the crops for bio-fuel than is saved in using such fuel.

Some people are making a huge profit out of the inability of the general public, in its desire to be environmentally aware, to understand when it is being deceived.

Anthony Fox, Woolhope, Herefordshire

So does this mean that humans are not the main cause of global warming? So what are all these green taxes about then?

Ian Hardie, Darlington, UK

I intend to genetically engineer a flying cow powered by its own methane, by combining two sources of pollution we can eliminate airplanes and I can continue to eat delicious beef.

As others have pointed out, the science in this article is not very good, but provided it is viewed as 'a bit of fun' then there is no real harm.

Robert McGuiness, London, England

Of course this all overlooks the fact that people (and the entire infrastructure that supports them) produce a tiny tiny amount of the CO2 in the atmosphere.

The planet is changing, and many learned people are now privately beginning to agree that the planet looks after itself, good or bad. Mars is also suffering from global warming, and I don' t think that's because of martian 4x4s!

There is a bigger cause, and to identify it you don't need microscopes or special technology: just look up in the daytime: it's called the Sun.

We're not big enough or powerful enough to challenge that, so get on with your lives and think about moving off the earth if you are worried so much.

paul, Milton Keynes,

Environmentalists make Puritans look like optimistic party animals. Preach as much as you want, because I plan to live my life the way I choose you nosy busybodies.

Greg Maxwell, Adrian, Mich. USA

how about we just walk whenever we want, and all you global warming fanatics just stfu about the carbon dioxide. there are plenty of worse pollutants to worry about than co2.

qbit, ann arbor, MI, USA

The world's population has increased by about 350% in the last 100 years. It is currently increasing by about 210,000 per day, the population of Southampton. Without addressing that problem, reducing an individuals carbon footprint is pointless. Not having children is the only enviromentally sound thing we can do until the population reduces by at least 70% to what it was 100 years ago.

Frank, Winchester,

There is an immediate disconnect here. How much EXTRA energy does it cost to walk to the shops. While we can choose not to use the car, we can't choose not to eat. This should be compared to the energy used by a car. We should also take into account the energy used to refine and transport the petrol. You might take it a stage further in terms of how much energy is used to create the infrastructure to drive. Walking needs minimal infrastructure. This should also be included in the costs of flying. In the end, driving and flying less does make a positive contribution to enegy saving whatever nice Mr O'Leary says ;0)

R Evans, Loughton,

funniest article ever.

Brian, London, UK

thank you times for this article - it's so important for all of us to participate in the Struggle against Climate Change. If that means making it illegal to walk, then, so be it - nothing is as important as the Fight Against Climate Change.
Please can we have more articles about this - the BBC for example has multiple articles about the Fight Against Climate Change every day (except when there is a flood or similar going on).
There are still outposts of people resistent to Struggling against Climate Change - now is the time to re-educate these recalcitrant antisocial hate criminals.

Candice Larue, Bristol,

I'd agree with the poster above who attributes the larger problem not to eating or driving, but to overpopulation. There's the real issue. It's not about the pollutive aspects of that chunk of beef or the plume of car exhaust, but the fact that we've got far more people on the planet than the world will soon be able to support (and growing), all of whom are contributing in their own ways (whether by eating or driving) to the problem.

In the meantime, I'll do what I can. Using smarter energy - better light bulbs. Not taking long, hot showers. Looking into alternative fuel sources. Also; riding a bike. There's a emissions-free mode of transportation that's far more efficient than walking.

Will, Seattle, USA

So regardless of how you live you create Carbon , so the more humans the more Carbon, so why is population control not top of the list for reducing carbon emissions.

Smoke & Mirrors

John, Glasgow, Scotland

So try walking or cycling to the shops and NOT replacing the energy used with 100grms of beef. The meat centred diet certainly is the most "inconvenient truth" that so many don't want to face up to. A vegan diet consists of more than just cereals and pulses - where are all the nuts, fruits and green veg, Mr Goodall? Grow as much as you can and/or buy food that's in season here. And learn to make meals again - why are we the sluggards of the world? Is that really so difficult? If we can't all make the effort to do this, as some of us already do, then our planet is doomed through laziness, greed and selfishness.

Sue Baumgardt, Hove, UK

Have they taken into account the carbon cost of a tripple heart bypass for all the people who take no excersise? Those'll have a huge CO2 footprint.

The point is that thing which are expensive generally cost a lot in energy, and energy usually means CO2 emissions. Organic is worse than ordinary food, out of season tomatoes are worse than in season, trains are worse than cars, paper bags worse than plastic, food (energy) is worse than petrol (energy) etc.

These things shouldn't surprise anyone. Generally speaking buying the cheapest option probably uses the least human effort and human effort correlates pretty well with energy consumption.

Will, Cambridge, UK

I beg to differ. I'm a vegetarian. Isn't it amazing that I don't need any beef whatsoever to walk to the store! The whole thing is that just eating beef causes millions of tonnes of greenhouse gasses that aren't necessary and keeps millions of tons of grain from the mouths of hungry people who don't even have stores to walk to. Maybe you need to rethink this whole thing.

Bonnie Parker, Magnolia, Arkansas

Now the greenies want us to stop eating to save the planet!

The points made by Chris Goodall should be a wake up call to everyone. The latest environmentalist vogues are full of hypocracies. I am fed up with constantly being told that I am guilty of several cataclysmic crimes by the time I have had a warm shower and a cup of tea in the morning. Now you are telling me I should repent for the bacon sandwich I've just had.

Demanding that every person on the planet fundamentally change their lives comes with an equally tremendous responsibility to demonstrate both why and how. Too much of the so-called science purporting to 'prove' man's negative influence on the environment is questionable; furthermore, as your article suggests too many of the proposed remedies are hastily concocted, ineffective, counter-productive or ultimately facile.

Properly prove your case and develop clear-thinking remedies that have longevity and substance before telling everyone what we should do.

Nick, London,

We're coming inexorably to the elephant in the room.

Global warming - if it exists outside the imagination of its proponents - ultimately owes its very existence to overpopulation.

Twiddling with hair-brained schemes which change from day to day will do nothing to change that basic fact.

Terry Dell, Weybridge, UK

Ha-ha-ha! Just pulled myself up from under the table. When I started to study physics many years ago, one of the first things I was thought went somewhat like this: If you do an experiment which produces a completely unexpected result your first reaction is that you have made a remarkable discovery. Your second reaction should be that you have made a mistake somewhere which should force you to think very carefully. And if you cannot find where you made that mistake, you still don't trumpet your discovery from the rooftops, because it is more likely that you cannot find your mistake because you don't really understand your subject very well, than that there indeed is no mistake. It thought us to be very careful with unexpected results. Mr Goodall's result is obviously silly. He has made a mistake somewhere, either conceptually or with the numbers. Yet he clearly does not have the capacity of self-criticism so vital for doing good science. We should ignore him.

Dr E J Zuiderwijk PhD, Cambridge, UK

The current environmental movement is designed to be a new secular religion. You are expected to believe, on faith, that the consequences of living a life other than the one prescribed by greenies will lead to spending the rest of eternity in an over-heated location. If you disagree with the greenies you are ostracized and shunned as a heathen. They have elevated to the stature of Pope, or evangelist, or Saint their principal protheletizer Al Gore. And, they ask you as an article of faith to change your lifestyle to conform with their world view and unsubstantiated opinions.

There are many unintended consequences in this world. One, that you might not be aware of is that at any moment the sun will expand by less than 1% and completely oxidize the atmosphere of the planet earth. There is little you can do about this form of global warming. My advice: check the batteries in your smoke detector and for the love of God use sun block.

Bjorn Rus, fair oaks, CA USA

He talks about food production being more damaging than cars, but how much co2 is generated making the car?
Our very existence on this planet gives rise to a co2 footprint no mater what we do, so we may as well accept that the climate is going to change as our civilasation advances and prepare for it rather than make a fuss trying to reverse matters.

ben, wilmslow, cheshire

If humans were eliminated from the face of the earth, would enviornuts be happy? Here is a news flash: The earth doesn't care! It has been here for 4.5 billion years. It has endured much worse than we pesky humans. Long after we are gone the earth will do its thing.

Ken Ferguson, Knoxville, Tennessee/USA

Seriously - why would the BBC help print such a book? If one takes into consideration the total cost in all of these ''roundabout" truths they makes no sense whatsoever. Driving a car takes up less energy than walking.. so does that include the production of the car in Japan and its long haul transportation to UK and the incessant pollution and CO2 production committed by the oil industry?

"Trees, regarded as shields against global warming because they absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas" is so random - there have been ONE study showing this phenomena in a particular forest in Germany where acid rain from heavy industry has already completely altered the environment.. so now cutting down our only reliable source of oxygen (apart from algae) production is suddenly a good idea. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Only sensible point made here is that going veggie is a good idea from a environmental standpoint.

Joe Hanson, Stockholm, Sweden

Oh, I almost forgot... His basic premise for the article ignore the fact that producing Gasoline requires energy as well. So the energy used to drive to the store isn't just the amount of gasoline burned, it's also your share ofall the energy used to explore, drill, ship the crude, refine it and distribute that gasoline to the gas station where you bought it. Again, he ignores those costs when convenient, while making them the backbone of his counterarguments the rest of the time.

Mike P., Seattle, WA

It is easy to forget, particularly for those elites at the 'cutting' edge of research, that whatever the current measure of our human understanding is, it remains only a part of a greater and unkown whole. and for that reason there is always a downstream downside to all human activity. The enviromental crisis demonstrates this particualry well.

R.A. Landbeck, London, England

This article assumes that everyone only eats the number of calories which they need to balance out the work they have done. In reality people are likely to be eating more caloires than they need, and eat pretty much the same amount either way, hence the obesity problems we have in the west.

Also, as with all such studies the difficulty is how far you take it - by not walking and putting on weight, will the increased energy used later in life due to obesity related medical disorders be greater than the energy supposedly saved by using your car?

Henry, London, UK

When reading these reports it seems like the only solution is that the Earth needs to be a human free zone. That's why I personally don't believe any this global warming clap trap. It's all politically motivated.

Kevin, San Diego, USA/ California

Why are we not considering any other type of environmental harm than energy expenditure? Just because an organic dairy cow produces more methane per litre of milk doesn't mean that the effects of organic farming don't have a more positive impact on the land than non-organic farming. And what about landfills? Is it not important that disposable nappies produce much more waste than re-usable ones? And what if, after walking to the grocery store, we replace the used calories with local produce, based on a vegetarian diet?

The claims made by this article rely upon an excess of assumptions about the average consumer with irrational conclusions as to reducing energy consumption. There are ways that we can change our energy expenditure and our negative impact on the environment, not walking and either becoming couch potatoes or annorexics are not among these.

kiera, cambridge,

Where's he getting the 100 calories = 100g ? A simple net search shows 114 g = 762 calories. If he's off by that much in his easily verified figures, how much is he off on the others?

Rob, Austin, TX

He failed, somehow, to realize the obvious option of walking and NOT eating more... given how overweight so many people are (I'm from the USA... so it's a LOT), the planet could benefit from them losing weight by getting exercise and eating the same amount. After losing weight, they may actually even remain active and eat LESS. Wow... if only simplicity were prized as much as personal public recognition.

Brian, Ellicott City, MD, USA

Lateral thinking at its best.

Al4ex, Brideshead,

Going vegetarian is still the most effective way to help the environment.

Mark, Washington, USA

People in developed countries are overweight. Who's to say that increasing moderate exercise such as walking will make people eat more? They may just get thinner. Also, who walks three miles to the shops? A better comparison would be walking a quarter mile--and don't cars require proportionately more energy to start up?

How many train rides in the UK are on trains with less than 10 people? Every train I ride on in the US is packed. Developed world food imports help the economy of poor countries--at least some do. Increasing poverty in those countries will accelerate environmental degradation. I'm suspicious of the Reaganesqe claim that trees contribute more to global warming than they help alleviate it. Who's the source? How accepted are these conclusions by the scientific community?

Andrew, South Orange, New Jersey, U.S.

am i not right in thinking that yes we do produce said Co2 when walking and yes a cow produces a certain amount when grazing (but methane aside) does this Co2 not come from plants etc which grow via taking co2 and expelling co2 etc etc (in a simplified view) and thus thats simply part of the cycle.

moses, sheffield, uk

Global warming certainly exists (unless you think news about floods, melting glaciers in Peru, etc are all filmed in the same studios as the Apollo fake moon landings). People are the problem. But in the mean time, the UK produces 2% of global greenhouse emissions with only 1% of the global population. We need to do what can be done - and energy saving lightbulbs have cut my electricity unit use by 10%; space blanket loft insulation has cut my gas use by 25%. It takes a little effort to do quite a bit, so please do it.

P.Whitehead, Willenhall, UK

I seriously doubt that walking to work or anywhere else is worse for the environment than driving a motor vehicle even a petite one!
Consider firstly the huge investment of purchasing a car then tack on the direct emissions of exhaust plus the pollution generated by the manufacture of every single component of the vehicle then add the wear and tear factor into the equation, with the inevitable replacement of parts and vehicle fluids not to mention the cost of insuring and fueling the vehicle in the first place, which will require you to work more hours to pay for all of these compounded additional costs, then there is more out of pocket for parking fees too.
Consider the joy of riding a bicycle in lieu of walking. Good exercise, efficient travel and so very much less production cost and minor upkeep!

David L. Nelson, Chicago, IL

Well said Graham of Hemel Hempstead, Herts -- totally agree

Population reduction is the only real answer. I'd vote for any politician who seriously addressed this issue. Stop paying child benefit for a start.

Phil, Preston,

I'm sorry, this claim is a bit of a distortion. One need not be a vegan to get most of one's calories from cereals and starches (ie, pasta, potatoes, etc.). In fact, a diet in which you get most your calories from beef or milk would be extremely unhealthy for the consumer, as well as for the planet. A realistic calculation would look at replacing most of those 180 calories with pasta, rice, or potatoes, and just a few with beef or dairy.

And besides, the typical westerner eats far more calories than they need anyway, so walking to the shop is a net benefit for the climate. Face it, they are going to eat just as much beef anyway.

Karl Coplan, New York, USA

Moderation. AS with almost anything, this argues for moderation. If beans are not in season, don't buy them. Eat meat in moderation - it saves on your heart, the NHS and greenhouse gases. Re-use your shopping bags -- that's not too difficult? Ride a bicycle!

It is not that the "Greens" are daft, it is because we are all daft: we lose sight of scientific reality through the lure of emotional mumbo-jumbo and yet others forget that we are humans with souls. Moderation. It's not to hard.

Though living in the United States, it may be harder than you think.

Brett Little, Boston, MA, USA

What about the carbon footprint of car production, shipping metals and plastics from around the world, I don't believe they calculated that in for the title of this article "Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car", otherwise yes buying locally makes sense.

Ethan, Brooklyn, NY

Then don't Run to the store! You produce 8 - 10 times more Co2 running than walking. In fact shouldn't we ban all marathons and all the Great North runs? Image 64,000 people running 13 miles all producing 10 times more CO2 than if they just sat and watched it on tele!!

Peter, Montreal, Canada

The really important missed by this article is that the car uses fossil fuel that cannot be replaced, while the animals eat what is produced by photosynthesis from the current flow of solar energy. Then most people remain alive while not walking to the shop so the extra for the walk is more like 100 cals.
Industrialised processes have developed from the use of carbon fuel and that is what we have to change. It will not be easy.
I am not convinced by the arguments which cast methane as such a serious warming gas. It has a short life in the atmosphere.

Max Fordham, London, UK

At some point in the future the population will reach a tipping point and mass starvation and scarcity of potable water will suddenly arise to cull the population. Then rampant disease will arise among the remaining who are starving and prone to illness. This rapid reduction in population and commensurate decrease in demand for products of modern life will reduce the carbon load for a millenia or two. Natural feedback mechanisms alway arise to balance out wide swings in whatever cycle is taking place.

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy my 4x4 SUVs, eat all the beef and imported vegetables that I can, and burn as much petrol and natural gas as I can afford.

Scott, Durham, NC, USA

This is quite false, you do not need 100 grams of beef to replace 180 calories, since every gram of food has a minimum of 4 calories per gram 100g of beef would give you at the very least 400 calories.

Sean Howard, Washington Grove ,

1. For all human action, a machine can do the same thing more efficiently, and thus at less cost to the environment.
2. If our goal is to reduce human environmental impact, it has to come from technological developments, since the human 'machine' can not be made to operate more efficiently.
3. Research, therefore, should focus on creating machines that can continue to widen this gap.
4. Humans, meanwhile, should focus on minimizing caloric expenditure, and by extension, food intake.
5. To accomplish this, all unnecessary human motion is to be spurned. Food should instead be brought to the consumer.
6. Further reductions in energy expenditure must come from the food industry, specifically during the production and transportation stages.

Of course, this is the conclusion only if your model allows for continued human existence. Outside of this, the most environmentally friendly course of action is to simply replace humanity with more efficient machines.

Steve, New York, NY

This is also assuming that the only way people replace their calories is by eating ONLY beef, which is obviously not the case

Brad, Lake Orion, Michigan

Population reduction is the only real answer but no leading politician dare bring this subject up.
If we dont start to address this problem then I am afraid nature will do the job for us and it will not be a pleasant experience.
Graham, Hemel Hempstead, Herts

Graham Cox, Hemel Hempstead, Herts

Is it me or they only count the carbon emitted by the fuel consumed, and nothing about extraction of the said fuel ? They count the energy for producing the beef, not just the energy taken by eating it. Comparing to walking you may also want to take into account, how much energy spend by not going to the mall, and count the energy cost related to building the car, repairing, building the roads, cleaning them, repairing them. They carefully have chosen what they count on each side to derive absurd conclusion, and did not at all suggest cleaner alternative beside the business as usual. Comparing to take public transport to the mall ? Clearly looks like desinformation to me.

David Germain, Montreal, Canada

Surely having Children is the cause of Global warming and therefore either not having Children, or all the very most, only having one is the global solution?

Adrian Guy, Devon, England

Of course it's possible to reduce any argument to absurdity if you try hard enough. Supposing we all gave up walking - what about the effect on our health and the cost to the NHS of treating the extra obesity and heart disease? Likewise the extra traffic congestion and fumes from the extra car trips. Diesel trains? Mostly they operate on the less busy lines, in any case it turned out the figures were based on a low load factor when in fact most complaints are of overcrowding. In short, this is a load of nonsense.

Barry, Wallington, UK

I'd suggest that there is not the slightest chance that a person who drives to the shops would eat less - that's why so many people are overweight. I'd also suggest that whilst the energy used in food production has been taken into account, the energy involved in manufacturing a car and shipping it half way around the world hasn't.

derek power, Uxbridge, Middlesex

You forgot to take into account the fact that the couch potato will die sooner, reducing his carbon footprint still further.

There may be many reasons for making one choice or the other, but the fact that the _total_ cost of raising beef in Japan is in some vague sense greater than the _marginal_ cost of driving a car is not one of them.

This appears to be becoming a regular column. Before the next issue, get your child to help you with their maths homework. Please!

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK