This is curious. Greenpeace is giving away free pedometers at COP16 in Cancun. Watch the video below. I don’t really understand the point of all this, except maybe its some sort of guilt over the limousine largess from COP15 in Copenhagen, and they want people to walk to their hotels? Even so, they apparently are unaware of this Times Online article which points out, walking apparently produces more CO2 than driving:
Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’
Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.
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. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.
…
{Goodhall says] “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.”
Well, that’s inconvenient. Greenpeace says the opposite. They write on the Greenpeace More Walk Less Talk page:
COP 16 will be the seventh Conference of the Parties since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in February 2005. That’s a lot of talking.
The physical layout of these meetings means there is a great deal of walking. Walking, as we all know is very good for you – it’s credited with helping breathing, improving circulation, bolstering the immune system, and helps people stay in shape.
It is also, of course, good for the climate. But, as international climate negotiations processes show, sadly so far – not enough governments are “Walking the Talk.”
So, in Cancun – Greenpeace is hosting “More Walk, Less Talk” – a competition to find the person and the country that covers the most ground in Cancun.
Yes, the race to the future starts here. Grab your step-counter and go!
Well I’ve got no beef with the “walking improves health” message. I wonder what the winning prize is? Watch the promotional video:
And the battle continues over the issue of walking versus driving, the Pacific Institute wrote a rebuttal to the walking is worse versus driving story.
As noted by Goodall, what really stands out in this comparison is the astoundingly high GHG values for walking when the calories come from beef or dairy. The idea that moving a 2,853 pound Nissan Sentra42 plus a 189-pound driver could possibly generate fewer GHGs than if that driver simply walked the same distance underscores the staggering carbon intensity of beef and dairy production. To be fair to Goodall, this was in fact his underlying message: meat-intensive diets are energy intensive and greenhouse gas intensive.
So obviously, the message missing from the Greenpeace Pedometer message at COP16 is “walk but don’t eat meat or dairy”.
So much for those fancy Cancun dinners on whomever is funding the attendee. Bean burrito for you!
Of course the whole “walking to save the planet” idea gets negated by the simple fact that none of these people arrived by sailboat in Cancun, but used some fossil fuel gussling airplane and then maybe a train or taxi.
But at least they’ll feel better about themselves walking around hungry, right?
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I’m feeling so nostalgic reminiscing about the climategate email leak that happened about a year ago today.
This week I get another document leak I can revel in. OK, I admit, I’m a rebel and enjoy these kinds of things for some reason. The thing I’m having trouble with is what to call it. Do we call it Cablegate or Wikigate?
OK, I know my favorite story about the sun was a couple of threads ago but I have to post this story from last night on CNBC World related to that story so people can see it here.
Sunspots Predict Next Crisis
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1672921479&play=1
@Michael
In reference to what to call Wiki Leaks: I don’t know. A clear and present danger, perhaps (with the ramifications that go along with that)?
But, I know what to call the leakers: Traitors.
John from CA says:
Is this a climate conference or a trade show?
Its the World Climatechange Jamboree 🙂
@Christopher – November 30, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Dumping oil and toxic waste, you have no idea what is being dumped in the North Sea, a lot of captains rather run the (small) risk of being spotted while cleaning out their ballast tanks for example than to pay up and get rid of it through a specialised company during their stay in the harbour.
BTW: by the looks of the video (wich starts in Hoek of Holland harbour by the looks of it) they made it easy, the (ore/oil) tanker is already dumping while still in the “Nieuwe Waterweg” canal, and that is highly unusal or downright stupid in real life. We must not forget that this is still a (ship) simulation, its not the real world 🙂
BTW(2): My 72 year old dad who retired 11 years ago loves this game, but then he sailed the seven seas for most of his life, first with the Dutch Navy, then on coastal shipping to the Baltic and Scandinavia, radio-piracy and his last 30 years for Smit Salvage.
mike g says: wrote
November 30, 2010 at 7:56 pm
@Michael
“In reference to what to call Wiki Leaks: I don’t know. A clear and present danger, perhaps (with the ramifications that go along with that)?
But, I know what to call the leakers: Traitors.”
As one who is a judge of the entire planet, I don’t see how sho[o]ting the messenger accomplishes anything.
It’s a good bet that the pedometers were made in China – in factories powered by – COAL! And that they were shipped to Cancun by sea and air using PETROLEUM-fueled ships and planes!! Way to go Greenpeace!!! [LOL]
Breaking news. Perhaps JOSH can make a cartoon.
The ECOnomist magazine has devoted an issue to Climate Change with a stress that it WILL happen.
Now I know why it is called the ECOnomist (stress on ECO) – it is honor of their editorial philosophy, which is decided by ECO-loons and ECO-tards.
There is even a picture of one of these loons on the cover of the latest edition:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayCover.cfm?url=/images/images-magazine/2010/11/27/CN/20101127_CNA400.jpg
I should probably also point out that the tradeoff here is not due to One necessarily having additional meet in their diet to get energy to move forward and walk to that store.
You can take about a gallon of fuel in your car and EASILY travel 40 miles in LESS then one hour. If you attempt to walk those same 40 miles, that likely will take two days. You now have to include the co2 output of about 5 meals of food. You also now have to include heating fuel used for 1 or 2 nights of heating for your lodging if you walk that distance.
And you also have to include the energy used to cook and process those 5 meals. So both heating co2 and the co2 cost of those 4 or 5 meals needed to travel those 40 miles MUST be included in this co2 trip cost.
Compare the above to hardly one gallon of fuel and LESS then one hour of travel time (the fact that you are at rest means less co2, but LESS then 1 hour is the key concept here). At the end of the day, it’s amazingly how efficient 1 gallon of fuel can be to move the 40 miles in less than 1 hour. And, if you have a passenger, then you done 80 people miles here without the fuel consumting being changed noticable.
And this discussion really does not matter if you break the above into 4 trips of 10 miles each. Machines are far better at converting energy into motion than a human beings walking. So what’s important here, is it’s just not the fact that you have meat in your diet, but in fact one needs to add up ALL OF the multiple meals that have to be cooked and processed for you to travel the 40 miles. And as noted, there might be loding involed to walk that 40 miles.
Some people have pointed out that people don’t decide out of the blue to eat more meat so they can achieve their goal of transporting themselves to the market to buy food. In fact, that is moot point since likely your food consumption will not change a whole lot bit by walking to the market then that of driving. In fact eating food and exercising might even reduce your food intake as compared to sitting on the couch.
I daresay when you include all of the consumption of energy and food to walk the 40 miles, the car becomes far more efficient in terms of co2 output to achieve that 40 mile trip .
The fact of the matter is that transporting by vehicle is much more efficient than a human by walking and this produces far less C02 if you include the above.
In other words once again the advice being given to walk to the store vs. driving to the store is the wrong advice but it is certainly the political correct message to give.
Albert K
[Reality check. Small towns (those created in the 3000 years before cars were invented) are always about 30 miles apart (town-center to town center). This is a ten-hour day at 3 miles per hour, no stops for meals or watering the horses/people. Your pace may vary. Robt]
AK;
No, actually only the EXTRA food consumed because of the exertion counts. You’d have eaten those 5 meals anyway, perhaps with fewer calories in them.
But it probably still works. Even bicycling takes extra calories, and it’s very efficient. Road racers can consume up to 6000 Calories/day, to give an extreme example.
Those things are so cheap now they sometimes arrive in cereal packets. I have two in a draw in the kitchen.
The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes.
Actually, by eating and exercising and breathing and farting, human beings (like animals) are only *recycling* carbon (as well as other elements) that has been ingested via food. The CO2 that we (and all animals) breathe out goes back into the atmosphere to be re-absorbed by plants, which in turn are eaten by animals and humans – and the cycle goes on. So next time some Green idiot tells you that you should feel guilty for simply existing, or that domestic cows and sheep are adding CO2 to the atmosphere just by standing in fields doing their thing, you can tell him why that is just bullshit.
Greenpeace: “[Walking] is also, of course, good for the climate.”
That doesn’t even make sense – but I’m guessing the illiterate who wrote that meant to say “good for the environment.” But then again, since these utterly mad F-wits believe that the climate is ideally a stable thing to be maintained and nurtured, they probably really did mean to say that. Either way – it’s typical of the outpourings of Green simpletons.
Meanwhile here in the city of Sheffield (in the county of Yorkshire, England) the snow is coming down thick and fast, as it has been doing on-and-off for the last several days. Not climate (just weather) – but winters here have been getting progressively colder and more snowy year after year for the last few years. And this year we have seen the kind of snowfall in November that is usually reserved for January. This is starting to look like a trend. And given the travesty that there has been no warming for 10+ years, I wonder how many Green scientists are now wishing they’d stayed backing the Global Cooling horse all those years ago.
[But will you enjoy your (environmental) walk in the snow this evening? 8<) Robt]
I see this differnt.
To travel that 40 miles I WILL NOT have eaten those 5 meals. The fact that I will consume those meals and do something else for the next two days is MY choice. You have to include the cost of co2 for that travel of 40 miles. I might use the other two days to walk for 10 other trips or spend time helping the poor with that food energy in my body (so that cost is applied to other tasks).
It is my choice what I do with the two days of time and co2 energy I saved by driving in place of walking. You must add up the total cost and co2 used to travel the 40 miles and there is NO other way to do this.
The fact that you plan to consume that food + energy in the future is a moot point. The fact that you plan to do some walking tomorrow does NOT count in that cost of traveling 40 miles today. That would be like saying that it don’t matter to go to the store two times in the future in place of going once now because I going to go to the store again in the future anyway?
This is basic math and accounting of costs to achieve a GIVEN GOAL. You simply must add up the total co2 used to travel the 40 miles. You have to apply the costs to the ONE TASK. You don’t out of the blue toss in other events and tasks that are NOT related to this task such as me reading WUWT here.
At the end of the day, you can choose to travel the 40 miles by walking or driving. There is no other way to compare and compute the cost difference between the two co2 footprints of this ONE task.
@John from CA (5:55pm): “The part I don’t understand is why all these stray groups were allowed to attend a UN climate conference. ”
Including the stray groups in the process was a major focus of the man who started the UN climate scare – Maurice Strong (he was the first Executive Director (1971-1975) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)). He wanted the NGOs included because sovereign countries were not cooperating in giving away power to the UN.
Strong stated: “It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle-class … involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and ‘convenience’ foods, ownership of motor-, numerous electric household appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning … expansive suburban housing … are not sustainable.” and “United States is committing environmental aggression against the rest of the world”
See the United Nations section in: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_History.htm
Hold on, aren’t those pedometers made out of plastic? And isn’t plastic made out of Gaia killing oil?
face/palm
David, UK says:
November 30, 2010 at 9:56 pm
“Actually, by eating and exercising and breathing and farting, human beings (like animals) are only *recycling* carbon (as well as other elements) that has been ingested via food.”
Halleluja David. At last some sense in the “cattle PRODUCE carbon meme.
I have few cattle on my property, those boys DON’T CREATE carbon out of thin air (so to speak). They just recycle what’s in their food, i.e. nett nil result.
But here in Oz (and NZ I believe) they’re trying to tax farmers for their cattle. Our CSIRO is even doing research with plumbing attached to cow and sheep butts.
Millions are being wasted on a non-problem, carbon in = carbon out, unless they can somehow show ovines and bovines create carbon in their system somehow.
Further than far out.
Bio fuels are thought better than fossil fuels as they don’t change the “carbon balance” so why doesn’t that apply to all ingesting and exhausting living creatures? How does any living creature add carbon by the process of living. This is just bizarre.
The lunatics are beyond belief .
Bio fuels would be recycling atmospheric/plant carbon if that was the only input vs. fossil fuels. (Fossil fuels are considered by green to have been ‘out of circulation’ because they were buried in wells or mines till we pumped or dug them up.) But biofuels require investment of energy for cultivation, fertilization, harvesting and processing, and it’s now been calculated that those inputs (which come from fossil fuel sources) exceed the energy ultimately reaped/obtained from the biofuels, by double (give or take). To make it clearer, if biofuel were used for the energy input to cultivate and process the biofuel, it would take about 2 gallons to produce 1 gallon. A true loser’s proposition.
The key to the value of fossil fuels is that so much of the energy input has been done for us, in the deep past, and we are now draining/exploiting that.
These people are mad.
They say ” Conference of the Parties” don’t they mean conference and parties.
Also if Greenpeace had everyone walking at Copenhagen they would have had many deaths and cases of frost bite.
James.
Now I’m really confused. I’d better go and lie down.
I remember reading that a cyclist emits the equivalent of about 50g of CO2 per km, which is much higher than someone just sitting. So 2-3 people sitting in a car emit less CO2 per km than if they were cycling. That doesn’t get much press.
Now we have someone saying that walking emits more CO2 per km than driving! It just shows how the automotive industry is achieving great things improving engine efficiency. They don’t get much credit for what they’re doing.
As I’ve said before, if governments are serious about reducing CO2 emissions they should ban all sporting events because they generate excess CO2 merely for entertainment. As a dedicated greenie, David Cameron should yesterday have been lobbying FIFA to cancel the football World Cup, not to hold it in UK!
Ah this is all part of a dastardly plan to thoroughly confuse the well minded who try and keep everyone happy. Why oh why, so I get the distinct impression that we are all Lab Rats in some post normal science laboratory of the abnormal.!!
Reminds me of the parable of the man and the donkey trying to please everyone and in the end pleasing no one!
correction its do, not so of course…
Greenpeace, “Savoiurs of the Planet.” Don’t make me laugh – they are proposing acts of pure piracy and terrorism. Why are they allowed to continue in operation? These vessels and their crews should be arrested, charged and locked away.
To back up Mooloo’s point; a year or so ago, Canterbury University, NZ, carried out an in-depth investigation into the ‘evil airmiles’ nonsense so beloved of English ecomentalists and discovered that sheepmeats, beef and dairy products produced by unsubsidised NZ and Aussie grassland farmers, who have their livestock outdoors all year round, is vastly superior in cost effectiveness regarding ‘airmiles’ than meat and dairy produced in the UK. Not to mention the totally enormous subsidies the EU vintners get to take off the long-suffering UK taxpayer through the Brit payments to the EU, while antipodean wines arrive in the UK without even a suspicion of subsidy. As a (temporary) resident in the UK, I have researched said huge subsidies to farming and farmers paid from the UK Revenue, which are a national disgrace. If the Brit taxpayer realised that they are being shafted on a truly massive scale by their own government on one hand and those that pose as their environentally-aware ‘friends’, there would be revolution in the land. On second thoughts, maybe not; but the Brits would defintely demand a cup of tea and a scone, though.
I get the distinct impression from Greenpeace that they would be happy if those of us who are not believers in their mad Marxist fantasy would just lie down quietly, take minimal sustenance through a straw and take shallow breaths until we slide into death.