5 ms·
The 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 m
by 001sky 12y ago
The 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]