The London Times, which has been a Murdoch property for a while, is not quite like our own NY Times, which still has pretensions of both liberalism and objectivity (arguably.) But I doubt the Grey Lady would've published what the British used to charmingly call arrant nonsense such as this article, referenced in the blog Veritas et Venustas under the apt heading "Idiot of the Month." [at right, Goodall image from bbc.co.uk]
Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’ The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.
“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”
V et V notes: "More importantly, almost no one walks three miles to buy their groceries, while Americans routinely drive 30 miles or more to go to Sam's Club for their Agribeef, which can come from 3,000 miles away."
Also, I might add, using beef, that most carbon-intensive of foods in the specious argument shows how far author Chris Goodall needs to skew his statistic. The amazing thing about this is that Goodall is a Green Party candidate and the author of a well-respected book, "How to Live a Low Carbon Life," which details ways of cutting your carbon use without "being extreme" and is characterized as "brilliant...bristling with facts."
So what happened? Maybe it's a joke in some obscure British style and we furriners don't get it.
Or as V et V suggests, "If Goodall is not an idiot, he's an irresponsible publicity monger." Like the Year Without Toilet Paper headline, this could be a way to generate intense publicity for himself (and intense it is, Googling the title "Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’" produces 1,350,000 hits.)
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