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That is an absurd argument. The modern food chain is not carbon neutral [0]. If I start running to work, I have to consume more food. If I have a vegan diet I

That is an absurd argument. The modern food chain is not carbon neutral [0]. If I start running to work, I have to consume more food. If I have a vegan diet I am eating the direct result of photosynthesis. That is, we could imagine the embodied carbon of my apple resulted directly from my previous exhalation of CO2. I do not dispute that some part of the 'life cycle of food' is a closed loop in this regard. Yet I can't just 'eat an apple'. I also require someone to grow the apple (with fertilizer and its GHG emitting production chain), protect it (likely with pesticides), clean and package, transport, store and sell the apple. By the time I chew into the apple I have already contributed to the demand of GHG emitting processes. So if you want to rigorously compare scooters with walking, running or riding a horse (all which affect quantity of food consumed), you need to take into account the carbon footprint of food. Just as when you look at GHG emissions of fuel, you don't just look at its combustion - you look at the supply chain. If you only look at where carbon is added (e.g. fossil fuel combustion) or removed (e.g. carbon forest sinks) from the cycle, you miss out on learning about how individual actions or choices affect the rate at which addition or subtraction occurs. [0] - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Henk_Westhoek/publication/257160858_The_price_of_protein_Review_of_land_use_and_carbon_footprints_from_life_cycle_assessments_of_animal_food_products_and_their_substitutes/links/59e329bc458515393d5b49dc/The-price-of-protein-Review-of-land-use-and-carbon-footprints-from-life-cycle-assessments-of-animal-food-products-and-their-substitutes.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Henk_Westhoek/publicati...

DanBC 7y ago
> I have to consume more food. Most people probably don't, and many people could afford to both run to work and eat less.
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  My environmental studies prof did an experiment cycling and getting the bus to university on both the amounnt of money spent and energy consumed. He found that he would spend more if cycling than the bus fare on food to keep the same energy input equal. People also generally cannot sustain eating less continually but obviously there's a health benefit from some changes. The ecosystem approach to food energy and carbon brings some surprising convulsions too. For example wrapping and selling fruit in plastic bags is better than buying them loose. This doesn't make sense unless you think about the whole picture. I suspect that the recent HN craze for indiscriminate feel good tree planting is also ecologically and sustainably suspect if looked at holistically.
- probablypower 7y ago
  You're right that a lot of people eat more than they should, and exercise less than they should. We aren't efficient in this regard. Yet when a human exercises, they breathe more, and produce more CO2. There is an internal carbon cycle that must be maintained. If any person exercises more without changing their diet, their rate of 'carbon accumulation' (to be kind) will decrease. For someone like myself who isn't in the habit of accumulating carbon - a long-term impact of riding to work will be that I will lose weight [0]. As a carbon-based life form, if I don't change this to be non-negative, I'm clearly down a path of self-destruction, and will need to increase my food intake eventually. [0] - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f407/588843385c964c7de0bc9e680499c806c734.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f407/588843385c964c7de0bc9e...
mytailorisrich 7y ago
The biological food chain is perfectly carbon neutral, whether you eat meat or not. But, as I wrote in my previous comment, the industrial production chain may not be, and in fact isn't. In any case, this is a red herring because that makes no difference when comparing means of personal transportation: Whether I walk or ride an electric scooter I will have to eat very close to the same, close enough to be a rounding error.

DanBC 7y ago

> I have to consume more food. Most people probably don't, and many people could afford to both run to work and eat less.

thinkingemote 7y ago
My environmental studies prof did an experiment cycling and getting the bus to university on both the amounnt of money spent and energy consumed. He found that he would spend more if cycling than the bus fare on food to keep the same energy input equal. People also generally cannot sustain eating less continually but obviously there's a health benefit from some changes. The ecosystem approach to food energy and carbon brings some surprising convulsions too. For example wrapping and selling fruit in plastic bags is better than buying them loose. This doesn't make sense unless you think about the whole picture. I suspect that the recent HN craze for indiscriminate feel good tree planting is also ecologically and sustainably suspect if looked at holistically.
probablypower 7y ago
You're right that a lot of people eat more than they should, and exercise less than they should. We aren't efficient in this regard. Yet when a human exercises, they breathe more, and produce more CO2. There is an internal carbon cycle that must be maintained. If any person exercises more without changing their diet, their rate of 'carbon accumulation' (to be kind) will decrease. For someone like myself who isn't in the habit of accumulating carbon - a long-term impact of riding to work will be that I will lose weight [0]. As a carbon-based life form, if I don't change this to be non-negative, I'm clearly down a path of self-destruction, and will need to increase my food intake eventually. [0] - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f407/588843385c964c7de0bc9e680499c806c734.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f407/588843385c964c7de0bc9e...

mytailorisrich 7y ago

The biological food chain is perfectly carbon neutral, whether you eat meat or not. But, as I wrote in my previous comment, the industrial production chain may not be, and in fact isn't. In any case, this is a red herring because that makes no difference when comparing means of personal transportation: Whether I walk or ride an electric scooter I will have to eat very close to the same, close enough to be a rounding error.