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Headline seems to be contradicted by the article. If we get the equivalent of 42mpg walking -- and we assume that people are walking downtown in large cities wh
by lauradhamilton 12y ago
Headline seems to be contradicted by the article. If we get the equivalent of 42mpg walking -- and we assume that people are walking downtown in large cities where there is a lot of traffic -- that's far better gas mileage than a car gets. (It can take 10 minutes to go 1 mile in a car downtown.)
Although maybe if you ate a diet of 100% beef and only walked along highways going 55mph walking would be less efficient...
- x1798DE 12y agoDubious reasoning there, but I think the headline is based on the next paragraph, which explains that a Prius gets better than 42 mpg, and 2 or more people in a normal car that gets better than 21 mpg alone gets better than 42 passenger-miles per gallon.
- 001sky 12y agoThe capital investment to produce the car uses energy--so no, I highly doubt this math. The cow is a capital investment like the car (ie, and energy sink that makes other things happen with less energy). If the cow alows you to not buy a car, you are doing better off perhaps? The appropriate analysis is to look at the entire investment in the car-infrasctucture-industrial complex: Roads Gas Stations Auto supply stores Tool makers Auto Companies Auto Parts Suppliers Shipping Industry that transports the cars etc.
- maxerickson 12y agoI think it is legitimate to consider the incremental impacts of the choices we make, the starting line for those choices is what exists today. Trying to do it within a clear context is a good idea though.
- 001sky 12y agoEven at this low level, the analysis is false. Walking consumes no gas. This is why you cannot arbitrarily pick an incongruent levels of abstraction. The entire premis of gas_equivalent_calories is flawed, then, unless we take steps to apply it correctly.
- rosser 12y agoThe physical act of walking, itself, consumes no gas, sure. That's not the point. The point is to be mindful of where the calories you're burning came from. And if you're in the developed world, with industrial agriculture, then your food is almost certainly steeped in petrochemicals.
- 001sky 12y agofood is almost certainly steeped in petrochemicals. So is automobile production. So the analysis is flawed. Which is fine, but it's also false once corrected for capital intesity (and depreciation). So the result is lame. It is not counter-intuitive or even...interesting. But YMMV.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 12y agoA better title didn't really present itself, so I just used what was there. The article is anyway more about considering the energy use of agriculture than it is about trying to win the comparison.