So far, everything seems to be going swimmingly. Lee (who is looking into environmental impact of food) has decided that we should utilise free opportunities as much as possible, and has found a 12.5kg sack of oats for free on Freecycle (collection only). Which could live in the department kitchen and we could all have free porridge for a month.
Kicking off day 1 with a vegan sort of party was also successful. Ralph's home-made humous and Kirsty and Marcos' vegetable curry were particularly popular, but happily large enough that I can probably live off leftovers for a week. However, I am missing meat a little bit. And I still wasn't really sure of the impact that different diets can have on the environment. So, starting with one of the more-established metrics, I had a look at the carbon footprints of different types of diets.
There are lots of ways to measure the environmental impact of foot, from land use to water requirements. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases produced by a particular product or activity, and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent. Its becoming particularly popular with the increased attention focused on climate change and the impacts of CO2.
As per normal, trying to calculate anything to do with life-cycles and with lots of variables is irritatingly vague. I attempted to get some estimates using the Carbon Footprint Calculator at www.carbonfootprint.com.
Looking at different eating habits, the Carbon Footprint Calculator gave the footprints of each diet as:
Kicking off day 1 with a vegan sort of party was also successful. Ralph's home-made humous and Kirsty and Marcos' vegetable curry were particularly popular, but happily large enough that I can probably live off leftovers for a week. However, I am missing meat a little bit. And I still wasn't really sure of the impact that different diets can have on the environment. So, starting with one of the more-established metrics, I had a look at the carbon footprints of different types of diets.
There are lots of ways to measure the environmental impact of foot, from land use to water requirements. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases produced by a particular product or activity, and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent. Its becoming particularly popular with the increased attention focused on climate change and the impacts of CO2.
As per normal, trying to calculate anything to do with life-cycles and with lots of variables is irritatingly vague. I attempted to get some estimates using the Carbon Footprint Calculator at www.carbonfootprint.com.
Looking at different eating habits, the Carbon Footprint Calculator gave the footprints of each diet as:
- Hungry Carnivore (lots of red meat): 1.43 tonnes CO2/yr
- Carnivore (eats some red and white meat): 1.18 tonnes CO2/yr
- Vegetarian: 0.42 tonnes CO2/yr
- Vegan: 0.17 tonnes CO2/yr
(this includes lots of other estimation too, for example how much you try to buy organic or local food compared to imports, but those variables were all kept constant to attempt to solely compare the impact of meat eating vs vegetarianism vs veganism).
Attempting to put these into context, your carbon footprint from taking these flights (economy, naturally) would be:
Attempting to put these into context, your carbon footprint from taking these flights (economy, naturally) would be:
- One-way flight London to Boston: 0.42 tonnes CO2
- One-way flight London to Barcelona: 0.12 tonnes CO2
Values from www.carbonfootprint.comSo, according to these numbers, going from a meat-eating Carnivore to a vegetarian diet, potentially offsets enough emissions in one year compensate for the emissions produced by a return flight from London to Massachusetts. This surprised me.
Values from www.carbonfootprint.comNotes so far:
1) Whatever the impacts of veganism may or may not be, so far it has forced me to be more aware of what I'm buying and eating. Impulsive snacks (probably the ones that have travelled a long way in lots of packaging) are pretty much out. And thinking about impact in this respect also makes me more aware of what else I am and am not doing (not that its changing my behaviour, but I'm thinking a little bit more about stuff). This may just be a novelty and will wear off in a few days.
2) I miss steak. A chestnut-tofu cutlet just isn't quite the same. Any steak-substition suggestions gratefully received.
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