Cyclists pollute more than cars, claims Swiss economist; Scary HGV close pass video sparks cycling infra debate; Why can’t all cyclist v driver clips be like this? Cyclist hits van and apologises; Arty bike stand divides opinion + more on the live blog

173 thoughts on “Cyclists pollute more than cars, claims Swiss economist; Scary HGV close pass video sparks cycling infra debate; Why can’t all cyclist v driver clips be like this? Cyclist hits van and apologises; Arty bike stand divides opinion + more on the live blog”

1. I know that stretch of road

   I know that stretch of road well as it’s part of the route I use when going to visit my mother, and it’s a rare time that one gets to that junction without someone being over the give way line. I must say though, for my own safety, once I saw the lorry encroaching on the cycle lane I would have backed well out of it; the cyclist even keeps going when he’s seen the lorry flattening some of the wands, which strikes me as foolhardy in the extreme. Not shifting any blame away from the lorry driver, but to me that’s one of those I’d rather give way, even if the driver is in the wrong, and stay alive than insist on my rights and be dead situations.

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   • Yeah, CS7 is my usual commute

     Yeah, CS7 is my usual commute.  That junction can be “fun” with vehicles doing the old “Tooting shuffle” (ie rat running the backstreets rather than using the high street) emerging from the left, RLJing vehicles (yes and bikes) from both sides etc.  As you say, I think I’d have backed off when I saw the van sticking out especially with an HGV also thrown in to the mix.

     Even if you are engaged in some friendly silly commuter racing through there (it can be pretty fast through the junction & into the downhill section) its never worth taking silly risks.  Not saying the guy was, I’ve no idea about his skills & personal risk assessment methodology, but I’m often moving at reasonable pace through there.

     Does prove the point that paint & wands are no protection.  Those “do not pass on the inside” stickers you often see are interesting aren’t they?  Good advice, but very regularly you get put in the same position by an HGV coming past you (often at close quarters in infrastructure like that).  Just saying.

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     • Clem Fandango wrote:

       Those “do not pass on the inside” stickers you often see are interesting aren’t they?  Good advice, but very regularly you get put in the same position by an HGV coming past you (often at close quarters in infrastructure like that).  Just saying.

       — Clem Fandango

       I’ve never passed a moving HGV/Bus on the inside, but I’ve been caught on the inside of them plenty of times by drivers going for overtakes they must have known they wouldn’t be able to complete.

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   • I didn’t understand the

     I didn’t understand the twitter comment about “the discourteous cyclist should have let that van out of the junction” – given that there was a HGV in the way, the only way that would have worked is if the cyclist had stopped in their cycle lane, dismounted, maybe made a coffee or checked their phone, then let the van come out and resumed their journey…

      

     (Funny how so many motorists expect cyclists to ‘courteously’ let vehicles come out of side roads, but expect to have full priority on the main roads too – when has a driver ever just waved you out of a side road, however busy the traffic?)

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     • I started to engage with that

       I started to engage with that commenter without taking the elementary precaution of checking his timeline first, unsurprisingly it turned out to be an anti-vax, anti-immigrant, anti-fuel tax, anti-LTN, anti-cycle lanes and climate change denial swamp.

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2. Very poor driving from the
   Very poor driving from the lorry going over wands but is the cyclist actually suicidal? If you see him do it once why go up the inside?

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   • On reflection, I think

     On reflection, I think perhaps the risky manoeuvres were done intentionally to highlight the poor quality of the cycling infrastructure. This cyclist strikes me as quite a competent bike handler, if a bit of a risk taker, so might have been willing to take these risks (and it is mainly themselves they are putting at risk).

     Problem is, riding like you’re in a Lucas Brunelle alleycat race video is not going to get the message of poor infrastructure over to the people who need to hear it, all they’re going to see is crazy cyclist!

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3. I would not have squeezed

   I would not have squeezed between the lorry and van. Presumably the cyclist was familiar with the lay out and could have held off so the lorry passed the junction before he got there.

   I stay away from lorries anyway.

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   • Yup. Everything they’re

     Yup. Everything they’re saying about the HGV being in the compulsory lane and the wands doing nothing to stop it is spot on, but after the first brown-trouser moment at 0:12 seconds in, I would have stayed behind the HGV.

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4. City planners, the lorry
   City planners, the lorry driver and the van driver are the ones endangering others.

   With that said I have to say the cyclist did seem a bit mental for not slowing down a bit to get clear of such a dangerous driver.
   ‘Right of way’ provides as much protection as a painted line against an incompetent motorist.

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5. That’s about par for the

   That’s about par for the course for CS7.  Note also how the wands, which are relatively new, have been installed on the cycle-lane side of the white line, taking up a notable percentage of the lane.  They’re also filthy, not easy to see at night and are not good to hit with your handlebars.  They’re also inconsistent – sometinmes presnet, sometimes not.

   People are always edging out of that turning on the left.  It’s followed by vehicles intruding into the bike lane as they try and squeeze past cars turning right across the incoming trafffic.  It’s then followed by a floating bus stop, which floods badly.  It’s a delight.  And if you think that’s bad, you should try going in the other direction.

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   • Add Deliveroo (etc) motorbike

     Add Deliveroo (etc) motorbike riders parking in the bike lane to your list of issues.

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6. The way that lorry is being
   The way that lorry is being driven, I doubt a kerb, unless it was basically a wall made of vibranium and even then it’s 17 tonnes of vehicle unladen, 44tonnes fully loaded, would have made much difference to it.

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   • Yep, a kerb would have made

     Yep, a kerb would have made no difference at all. The lorry ran over the wands when trying to squeeze past an oncoming bus. The lanes are just too narrow for large vehicles like that.

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     • similar to the Jeremy Vine

       similar to the Jeremy Vine one, which brought us then back to why are such large vehicles allowed on urban roads that arent designed for them ?

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7. I’d repeat a lot of what has
   I’d repeat a lot of what has been said here. I would not have gone on the inside… though have found my self on the inside by an overtaker plenty of times.

   I’ll always try and make eye contact with the motorist in the wing* mirror. Once eye contact has been made they are less likely to kill you. It is astonishing how many motorists do not use their mirrors, arseholes.

   On the plus side, my personal experience is that London bus drivers have improved their mirror usage in the last 5 years or so.

   *fa la la la la I don’t caaaaaaaaare!

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8. The reason the HGV moved over

   The reason the HGV moved over the dashed line is because there’s a pedestrian island. I think this road is too narrow for islands and HGVs, imagine being a pedestrian waiting on that island with HGVs passing on both sides!

   So that is why the solid line of the cycle path turned to a dashed line at this point, because it is designed so that large vehicles will need to drive into the cycle lane to get around the pedestrian island. Rubbish infrastructure again. In practise, a dashed cycle lane means no protection whatsoever, it’s just part of the road.

   But having said that, this cyclist displays absolutely appalling hazard perception. They needlessly rode into a dangerous gap, twice. You can’t do much about a close pass from behind, but when you can clearly see it coming and don’t react, you have to take a look at yourself.

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9. Yet another cyclist safety
   Yet another cyclist safety incident descending into “The cyclist shouldn’t haves…..” and missing the point entirely.

   Yet another video graphically illustrating how the roads are stacked against cyclists by design, conditions and driver awareness. This is the crap we face every day in the face of planners and drivers who are oblivious to the problems and don’t care to be part of the solution.

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   • No point in having nmotd

     No point in having nmotd unless we all reflect on what we could have done better. Hazard perception, risk assessement are all part of road craft regardless of your second, valid para.

     As Muncrundle said before “if you are moving, there is almost certainly something you could have done to mitigate the risk. If you are stationary, there might have been something you could have done.”

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   • Is it not fair to do both if

     Is it not fair to do both if the situation warrants it? Every commenter here has acknowledged that the root cause of the problem is that the infrastructure is not sufficient, and that the HGV driver has driven into a compulsory cycle lane. But is it not also fair to say that if a clear and obvious danger has presented itself, it’s perhaps best to back off?

     The above video highlights the need for properly segregated infrastructure, but it also highlights the value of a little hazard perception. 

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   • It doesn’t miss the point at
     It doesn’t miss the point at all. No-one is arguing the infrastructure isnt crap or that the lorry was competently driven but the cyclist displays little or no situational awareness. Cycling into obvious hazards will end up getting them seriously hurt or worse. The lorry encroaches on the cycle lane several times in that video. The first time was enough for me to be saying “he hasn’t got the foggiest where his arse end is, time to back off and keep him in front where he poses no danger to me” and yet after that the cyclist goes back into danger by moving alongside, then gets far too close to the moving lorry rather than let the van out. Yes the van should not have been there but it was so resolve the situation safely not put yourself in more danger. Then, still not having reacted to the hazard, he almost gets trapped when the lorry encroaches again and still decides not to back off but to push on through and get into the blind-spot. To put this one bluntly, that was the cycling equivalent of putting your head in the lion’s mouth, after it has already snapped and snarled at you a few times.

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     • If the situation were
       If the situation were reversed, would your opinion be the same? If the HGV came alongside a cyclist (and is therefore traveling faster than the cyclist) in a separate lane, and the cyclist wandered into the HGV’s lane, do you think the HGV should hold back after the cyclist got back into its own lane? I wouldn’t begrudge the HGV from continuing to pass the slower road user in a separate lane, and if the cyclist veered into the other lane again, it would be the cyclist at fault.

       If passing other road users in separate lanes is considered an “obvious hazard”, why do we do it on a daily basis? Why do we have multi lane carriageways at all? Why do we have cycle lanes? Or pavements for that matter (noting that the pavement is part of the highway after all).

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       • Read my post again. At no
         Read my post again. At no point did I say that generically no cyclist should pass an HGV on the inside when in a cycle lane.

         Risk assessment and hazard perception are simple concepts. If you spot an obvious hazards (in this case the HGV encroaching into the cycle lane in the first few seconds of the video) with potential consequences that you can’t justify (in this case getting crushed by a 44 tonne artic) then look for a control measure that you can immediately put in place to reduce that risk. You can’t immediately change the infrastructure to one that properly segregates, you can’t immediately make the HGV driver aware of his surroundings or prevent the lorry from encroaching, the only thing you can do is position yourself in such a way to control as to remove yourself from the danger. The cyclist in this clip did not attempt to do that, rather he immediately re-entered what had already been clearly shown to be a danger zone without anything changing to make it safer. In fact the only apparent change, the van partially blocking his path, made the situation more dangerous and yet he ploughed on. Sorry but that is atrocious hazard perception.

         To answer your question, if I were driving a car or HGV alongside a cycle lane and a cyclist in front veered into the vehicle lanes, then that would affect my calculation on when it was safe to pass knowing what I then knew – that this cyclist was perhaps not the most stable for whatever reason. In the real world, you can’t rely on everyone around you to keep you safe, you need to play a part in keeping yourself safe. If the cyclist veered into the vehicle lane again would it be their fault? Not in the way you are meaning. I would be distraught if I hit a cyclist who had not seconds before demonstrated that they did the unexpected and I just ploughed on into them regardless as that would also demonstrate immensely poor hazard perception.

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         • LeadenSkies wrote:

           that would affect my calculation

           — LeadenSkies

           But you would still pass them. Of course you would. It’s not a criticism at all – I would too.

           I find it interesting how as a society we place greater responsibility for preventing harm on those who are at greater risk of being harmed; and not those who are at greater risk of causing harm. We (myself included) wouldn’t expect the HGV to back off and stay behind a slower-moving cyclist, but we do expect a cyclist to back off and stay behind a slower-moving HGV.

         • I am not sure what’s so hard
           I am not sure what’s so hard about this. I would look to pass them when safe to do so. If they were veering in and out of lane then I would wait til I was sure I could execute an extra slow and extra wide pass to allow room for any such wobble occuring. I would not dive straight in and pass them if they had just wobbled in front of me and I couldn’t see why, so I at least had an idea it wouldn’t happen again. Same with this lorry. I would not have passed it until I was sure I could do safely. That may be when it was stopped in traffic, it may be when the road widens and it moved out (I have no knowledge of that road so it may not) etc. If no opportunity presented itself that was safe then I would have stayed behind it. I would rather be 5 minutes later home for dinner than risk not arriving at all.

           That’s not putting any more responsibility on the cyclist, it’s saying when you see a danger in front of you to yourself or others, don’t just continue as normal, recognise the risk, stop what you are doing, think what you can do to reduce that risk and act accordingly. Do that whether you bike, drive or walk.

         • LeadenSkies wrote:

           wait til I was sure I could execute an extra slow and extra wide pass

           — LeadenSkies

           That’s very considerate of you. Far more considerate than the vast majority of road users I would say, and more considerate than the standard required by the highway code, which does not even specify a minimum distance when passing a road user in a different lane.

           The vast majority (including those adhering to the minimum standard in the highway code, which does seem to be the standard that is considered acceptable in the UK) would merely pass a cyclist in an adjacent lane without a second thought. But here the cyclist is expected to anticipate and control the hazard through their actions.

         • I can’t account for what
           I can’t account for what others do. My philosophy is to minimise risk to myself. At its most basic, it’s a very selfish thing – I don’t want to be involved in an incident that I could reasonably have anticipated, controlled and prevented. That goes for every mode of travel I take and a whole lot of other activities I undertake too. Let.me be very clear, it in no way absolves others of their responsibility to drive safely, responsibly and obey the law, and nor should it be taken as such.

         • I’m sure if everyone were as
           I’m sure if everyone were as considerate as you (i.e. exceeded the standard required by the highway code), the roads would have far fewer incidents.

         • Minimising your risk on the
           Minimising your risk on the road has a positive effect on other road users. You only have to watch a few dash cam videos on YouTube to see that !

   • I dont think its that, the

     I dont think its that, the video would still graphically demonstrate everything about the roads and cycling if the rider had held back behind the lorry, and would then have had more room to pass the encroaching van.

     having been put in that position on more than one occasion with an artic overtaking me (might even have been closer I try my best to forget about them) and with no barrier “protection”, theres a cat in hells chance Id ever choose to ride up the inside of lorry like that even if the driver was driving normally, because the driver hasnt a clue where you are, and you really are in the danger zone to get crushed just as easily as one of those bollards with those things, those wheels are head height when you are on a bike.

     I totally get the feeling lanes like that make you think well this is my space and its ok, but that lorry driver demonstrates multiple times theyre happy to take that space so as for them to not slow down or stop, and you are only one slip or one move on the lorry drivers part from becoming another statistic, thats how risky it is to be there.

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10. E-bike batteries have caused

    E-bike batteries have caused 200 fires in New York: ‘Everyone’s scared’ (Grauniad)

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/14/new-york-e-bike-batteries-fires-delivery-workers

    New York City delivery workers have to deal with an array of threats: speeding cars, volatile weather, armed robbers and app algorithms that can “deactivate” them if they don’t rush to customers quickly enough. Lately, workers have added another to the list – their electric bikes bursting into flames.

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11. Another for road safety week

    Another for road safety week

    

     

    Although joking aside, I have not been impressed the last few days with drivers in grey or silver cars with no lights on in the mist and patchy fog.

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    • its begun…

      its started… 🙂

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12. The best way to respond to
    The best way to respond to the bog-roll that is the Daily Fail.

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    • I remember reading a similar

      I remember reading a similar story once upon a time, and usually the Big Media Company will just go ahead and use the art/video/whatever anyway, even without permission.  If caught out, they just apologise for any confusion and take it down.

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13. Re: cyclists polluting more

    Re: cyclists polluting more than cars.

    So, let me get this straight – to arrive at these numbers, he’s:

    • Based his consumption-per-kilometre figures on what a cyclist would eat to fuel a long endurance ride and applied this to shorter rides where most cyclists wouldn’t eat anything extra (I never used to eat extra calories to fuel my commutes, despite his numbers assuming I’d need 200g of beef per day).
    • Based his figures on cyclists only eating just about the most inefficient and highest carbon-emitting food we are capable of creating (farmed beef). It looks like he has a pop at vegans too but doesn’t seem to quantify this with any numbers.
    • Ignored the fact that drivers will, in fact, also eat.
    • Compared cyclists only with “well occupied” cars, when we all know that most aren’t.
    • Compared cyclists only with “economical cars”, when many aren’t.
    • Ignored all other factors in running a car (waste products, fossil fuel production, manufacturing the vehicle, ect).

    By his logic, body-builders must be more damaging to the environment than nuclear meltdowns. What utter, utter nonsense.

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    • Some discussion below on

      Some discussion below on “suicidal” cylists. I tell you what would be “suicidal”, eating 1kg of beef for every 100km I rode.

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      • (No subject)

        

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      • IanMK wrote:

        Some discussion below on “suicidal” cylists. I tell you what would be “suicidal”, eating 1kg of beef for every 100km I rode.

        — IanMK

        The numbers need to be re-run based on 1kg of cake

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    • I did wonder if he had taken

      I did wonder if he had taken into account the food car occupants had with his 30g per passenger per km, but have now noticed he decided to use a car with four passengers to massage the figures and not taken into account their food consumption.

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      • He’s massively undersold the

        He’s massively undersold the emissions per passenger Km for cars.

        For a start, you can multiply his number by 3-4 because we all know most cars won’t have four people in them. Then you can probably double them again based on his definition of an “efficient” car. Then, you can add the daily average calorific intake (what? 2,200-2,500 cals – in beef of course) to his emissions per passenger Km. And finally, you can create a distance threshold before which most cyclists wouldn’t actually intake extra fuel (20km?).

        That brings the car back to well above the bicycle, even in his fantasy world where everyone has a cow-only diet.  

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    • Sounds like this chap may

      Sounds like this chap may have been moonlighting on road.cc recently!

      It’s probably just a case of “follow the money” e.g. where’s he / his institution / his favourite politician getting their money from.  (I’d be surprised – nay delighted – if this was a sinister cycling mafia or “useful idiot” permaculturists / the local branch of “Tyre extinguishers” but I somehow feel not).  It may be that he’s taken creative licence of the “externalities of motoring” e.g. drawing a rather narrow circle around the *cost* of this activity.  This is very common too.

      More usefully and positively I’ve read that actually the most energy efficient mode of transport* is the electric unicycle / monowheel.  Hawkinspeter will be smug!  After that, an e-bike, then a normal bike.  Escooters are near this but are let down presumably partly by higher friction from the wheels / losing more energy over small bumps and also by short lifetimes.

      The key point for me is all are not only much more efficient than cars and other motor vehicles but have a host of other benefits – they’re just more suited to human transport needs in general.  (Just a passing nod to the rabbithole of “transport needs vs. wants” e.g. I need to get to the hospital, to the out-of-town shops,  take my child to the good school, get away to the Seychelles by plane…)

      Horses (or cycles) for courses.  I favour non-powered cycles for most as you still get excellent energy efficiency.  They’re much simpler and less resource-intensive – you avoid batteries (if you run dynamo lights), charging etc.  Scooters / velomobiles and others have different pros and cons outside of just efficiency of course.

      * Caveats – for a human on land (assuming at a certain low-ish speed, for normal transport purposes) and assuming you’re not dining on steaks of some hyperpredator which you roast over a crude-oil fire…

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      • chrisonatrike wrote:

        Sounds like this chap may have been moonlighting on road.cc recently!

        — chrisonatrike

        I didn’t want to say anything, but this is a level of disingenuous application of out-of-context statistics that a couple of Road.cc users would be very proud of.

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      • chrisonatrike wrote:

        More usefully and positively I’ve read that actually the most energy efficient mode of transport* is the electric unicycle / monowheel.  Hawkinspeter will be smug!  After that, an e-bike, then a normal bike. 

        — chrisonatrike

        I’ve seen figures that plausibly make an e-bike more carbon efficient than human power with an average diet if you both make your batteries using locally mined lithium, and charge them with renewable energy. So possibly in Canada, less so in the UK.

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    • I get most of my calories

      I get most of my calories from red wine. I think I’m saving the plane because it’s all plant based.

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    • The assumptions he has made
      The assumptions he has made to reach his outcome are a bit implausible but the overall topic is quite interesting.

      Taking the figures from: https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet/

      You get vegans producing 1.6kg CO2 for every 1000 calories and an “average” diet producing 2.6kg.

      According to Strava I burn about 33 calories per km.

      30 kilometres therefore has a carbon footprint of between 1.6 and 2.6kg depending on what I’ve eaten. If we call it 2.1kg as an average that’s 70g per kilometre.

      From a pure climate perspective you may well be better off taking public transport or sharing a ride in a small car.

      Caveats:
      1) It’s entirely possible I’ve got my maths wrong!
      2)I have no idea how accurate Strava’s calorie estimates are.

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      • You have also forgotten to
        You have also forgotten to factor in the difference in trip types between motorists and cyclists.

        Most car journeys are “purposeful”, that is to say they go from one place (point A) to another (point B) to achieve a given task. There are exceptions to this, such as Sunday driving and F1 races, but these are outliers.

        By contrast, a vast percentage of cycling journeys are leisure-based and serve no purpose other than personal pleasure (point A to point A). In fact, in the strictest sense of the word you couldn’t really call them “journeys” at all, as they start and finish at the same place with no meaningful stop in-between. As they don’t go anywhere, these cyclists are producing pollution for nothing.

        So this difference in trip types should also be factored in to this leading economist’s calculations, and would skew pollution further towards cycling.

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        • Ooh, another post signed off

          Ooh, another post signed off by Boo/Nigel. Shame Road.cc just ignore these. 

           

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          • Particularly as the poster

            Particularly as the poster clearly revels in revealing themself – starting off in a different character, then slowly and not so subtly letting all the same catchphrases come out.   

          • Exactly – that whole

            Exactly – that whole ‘purposeful’ vs ‘leisure based’ journeys (AB vs AA) thing was a definite bugbear of Nige.  This is all just getting ridiculous… 

        • Rakia wrote:

          You have also forgotten to factor in the difference in trip types between motorists and cyclists. Most car journeys are “purposeful”, that is to say they go from one place (point A) to another (point B) to achieve a given task. There are exceptions to this, such as Sunday driving and F1 races, but these are outliers. By contrast, a vast percentage of cycling journeys are leisure-based and serve no purpose other than personal pleasure (

          — Rakia

          Yet according to the national travel survey:

          “The most common purpose for a trip by car was for leisure (30%).” It also says that 15% of car journeys are for commuting yet 20% of cycle journeys are for commuting. 

          Edit: Shit, I didn’t realise who I was responding to.

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          • Hard to keep track of names,

            Hard to keep track of names, eh?

          • chrisonatrike wrote:

            Hard to keep track of names, eh?

            — chrisonatrike

            It was going so well…

        • The irony of you complaining
          The irony of you complaining about a waste of good oxygen is lost on nobody.

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        • Using actual data, there

          Using actual data, there doesn’t seem a lot of difference. Assembled this off the DfT website. 2020 was obviously exceptional because of Covid, 2019 is probably more representative of normal conditions, but even in 2020 leisure trips by cycle didn’t account for “a vast percentage”.

           

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          • Shopping is mostly a leisure

            Shopping is mostly a leisure activity so near 50% of car journeys are leisure.

        • “Most car journeys are

          “Most car journeys are “purposeful”… these are outliers.”

          Hahahaha…

          And a quite a bit of “shopping, other escort and personal business” will in fact be leisure too, so we’re probably looking at a figure around or over 40% of car trips for leisure purposes.

           

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          • All my shopping trips are for

            All my shopping trips are for the sole purpose of buying beef…entirely purposeful.

      • What is not factored in there

        What is not factored in there is that most people in the west are at a calorie surplus most of the time. (Obviously not all people, obviously not all the time. I am not an idiot.)

        The food they are eating to power those journeys at 70g/km would be eaten anyway and then cause a burden on the health system or require a car journey to a gym to burn off. 

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        • As David Hembrow points out,

          As David Hembrow points out, you need to exercise, and about half an hour / 15 km / 9 miles a day of cycling meets that need. So the first half hour at least should count as zero. Avoiding becoming a burden on the healthcare system reduces your carbon emissions per year (although it may increase your lifetime carbon emissions due to your extra years of living.)

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        • You’re assuming they don’t
          You’re assuming they don’t adjust their calorie intake after exercising.

          “I cycled to work today so I’m going to have another slice of cake” is definitely not something I’ve ever said…

          There are, obviously, a huge number of variables to take into account but it is interesting quite how carbon intensive exercise is. IIRC ebikes have a lower lifetime carbon footprint than regular bikes for that reason.

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          • Rich_cb wrote:

            There are, obviously, a huge number of variables to take into account but it is interesting quite how carbon intensive exercise is. IIRC ebikes have a lower lifetime carbon footprint than regular bikes for that reason.

            — Rich_cb

            I think there’s something to reflect on here, though I personally think it’s more a fact of being aware of where our food comes from and the carbon-footprint of the food chain, rather than being a reasonable comparison of bicycle vs car.

            To reach the conclusion he has, the professor had made so many hypothetical assumptions that don’t exist in the real-world (assuming that all cyclists eat nothing but beef whereas drivers and passangers eat nothing, assuming that the cyclist would eat way more than they actually would for short (so, the majority of) journeys, comparing one cyclist to four passengers when most car journeys are probably single-occupancy, comparing the bicycle to a car with economy figures that are not representative of the average car, ignoring the many externalities of producing and running a car, ect).

          • I don’t think the diet of the
            I don’t think the diet of the car drivers and passengers needs to be included.

            Their diet is not fuelling their transport so can be ignored for the purpose of the comparison. Sitting at home on the sofa burns as many calories as sitting in the backseat of a car.

            Cyclists will need to fuel their exertions and that fuel will have a carbon footprint.

            Once you add in the manufacture of the car then the comparison is always going to benefit the cyclist but on an individual journey basis, Eg cycle somewhere or catch a lift with a friend who’s going to the same place, it gets more interesting.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            I don’t think the diet of the car drivers and passengers needs to be included. Their diet is not fuelling their transport so can be ignored for the purpose of the comparison. Sitting at home on the sofa burns as many calories as sitting in the backseat of a car. Cyclists will need to fuel their exertions and that fuel will have a carbon footprint. Once you add in the manufacture of the car then the comparison is always going to benefit the cyclist but on an individual journey basis, Eg cycle somewhere or catch a lift with a friend who’s going to the same place, it gets more interesting.

            — Rich_cb

            If you’re not going to include the maintenance calories of the car passengers, then you should also remove the maintenance calories of the cyclist.

          • I didn’t include the
            I didn’t include the maintenance calories of the cyclist.

          • But journeys you might go to
            But journeys you might go to / arrive at with a friend aren’t going to be 100 km. The comparison does not reflect typical journeys of which over 60 % are 8km or less.
            Also the claimed fuel economy is unrealistic.

            A better measure is the marginal amount of calories to go the 8km or less.

            Edit and you should be using more calories when driving as you should be using your brain !

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            I don’t think the diet of the car drivers and passengers needs to be included. Their diet is not fuelling their transport so can be ignored for the purpose of the comparison.

            — Rich_cb

            I think they should (or the ones for the cyclist shouldn’t) up to a certain distance. I eat exactly the same breakfast/lunch if I cycle in to work or drive into work. I only eat more food than I otherwise would have done if I’m going for a long leisure ride. I’d expect that most cycle rides are short enough that no “extra” calories are consumed.

            I don’t think it’s quite right to think of it as cyclists are always fuelling their exertions over the maintenence calroies of drivers, it’s probably closer to the truth that drivers are in a calorie surplus generally and cyclists don’t need to “top-up” until they hit a certain level of exertion (and it’s only these “top-up” calories that should be counted).

          • BalladOfStruth wrote:

            I don’t think the diet of the car drivers and passengers needs to be included. Their diet is not fuelling their transport so can be ignored for the purpose of the comparison.

            — BalladOfStruth

            I think they should (or the ones for the cyclist shouldn’t) up to a certain distance. I eat exactly the same breakfast/lunch if I cycle in to work or drive into work. I only eat more food than I otherwise would have done if I’m going for a long leisure ride. I’d expect that most cycle rides are short enough that no “extra” calories are consumed.

            I don’t think it’s quite right to think of it as cyclists are always fuelling their exertions over the maintenence calroies of drivers, it’s probably closer to the truth that drivers are in a calorie surplus generally and cyclists don’t need to “top-up” until they hit a certain level of exertion (and it’s only these “top-up” calories that should be counted).— Rich_cb

            Am I the only one here who eats LESS when I cycle? Admittedly I’m not a 100k cyclist, more like 20-30 miles across two journeys. But the days I don’t cycle I eat more.

          • If you’re cycling then you’re
            If you’re cycling then you’re burning more energy than you would if you were sedentary.

            You may not realise that you are eating more to compensate for that but you almost certainly are.

            A long time ago I changed jobs and had to drive to work instead of cycle 6 miles each way as I had been doing. I didn’t change my diet at all and within a few months was 5 kilos heavier. If you had asked me prior to the change if I ate more because of my cycling I would have said that I didn’t.

            To stop gaining weight I had to eat quite a bit less.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            If you’re cycling then you’re burning more energy than you would if you were sedentary.

            — Rich_cb

            But you’re not necessarily eating more if you’re cycling shorter journeys (eg commuting). We’ve got an obesity crisis in this country, and most people are going to be in a calorie surplus even if they’re sat in a car (64% of people in the UK are overweight and 28% are obese). So you can’t assume that drivers are eating exactly maintenece, and you can’t assume that people who commute by bike are eating more to do so than thet would if they drove (I don’t). Even if you did, a lot of people excersise and would view the commute as a workout replacement, so those additional calories would be consumed/burned anyway if they didn’t commute by bike. 

            You may not realise that you are eating more to compensate for that but you almost certainly are.

            — Rich_cb

            I measure my food intake. I’m telling you, I’m literally not.

          • You cannae change the laws of
            You cannae change the laws of physics.

            Regardless of the length of the bike trip it will require more energy than being sedentary for the equivalent time.

            That energy is derived from food.

            That food has a carbon footprint.

            The bike trip will therefore have a carbon footprint.

            Excessive eating also has a carbon footprint. The existence of excessive eating however does not remove the carbon footprint of cycling.

          • I do agree with what you’re

            I do agree with what you’re saying, a bike ride does have a carbon foorprint, I just think that the food aspect has been oversimplified a little. Yes, you burn more energy cycling than sitting, that’s true. But there are still other considerations:

            • People don’t eat exactly wha they require for the activity they’re doing, some will eat more, some will eat less if they’re thrying to get healthy (and there will be significant overlap between these people and people cycling to work).
            • Active/healthy people excercise, and some will view their cycle commute as a replacement for some/all of this excercise. So if they didn’t cycle, they’d work out and that energy would be consumed/expent anyway.
            • Regular cyclists will get fitter and more effecient at using energy. So someone who’s fit, and cycles to a desk job actually can burn less calories total, in a day, than someone who’s unfit and drives to that same desk job.

            To make the comparison in such simple terms, you have to make some non-real-world assumptions (like the professor has in his comedy scenario above).

            So, you can’t really count the 2500 cals I’ve eaten as part of the carbon foorprint of the bike ride, but totally ignore what the guy in the car next to me has eaten. It’s “fuelling” his drive too – if he’d eaten nothing, he might pass out at the wheel. He also might have eaten more than me, even if he hadn’t he might have eaten imported meat, whilst I’ve eaten vegetables I’ve grown myself, so the carbon footprint of his food is way higher. This is why you either have to remove the food from the discusion and make that it’s own comparison, or include it for the driver (along with all of the other, significant externalities of driving).

            What you’d probably be better off doing would be comparing a bunch of average cycle commuters’ daily diet with the diet of a bunch of average car commuters who travel about the same distance. If you consider that most people in the UK (64%) are overweight or obese, you’ll probably find that the average cycle commuter (just by a function of being a littel fitter) will probably eat less food, and not produce emissions from their vehicle (as well as not requiring the mining/refining of fossil fuels, having a vehicle that’s way less damaging to produce). If you’re going to make this comparison, you have to do it in a real-world way.

            So yes, a bicycle ride will have a carbon footprint, but I don’t it would ever be the case that it would be (as you suggested in your first post) more enviromentally friendly to take a car over a bicycle.

          • BalladOfStruth wrote:

            I do agree with what you’re saying, a bike ride does have a carbon foorprint, I just think that the food aspect has been oversimplified a little. Yes, you burn more energy cycling than sitting, that’s true. But there are still other considerations:

            • People don’t eat exactly wha they require for the activity they’re doing, some will eat more, some will eat less if they’re thrying to get healthy (and there will be significant overlap between these people and people cycling to work).
            • Active/healthy people excercise, and some will view their cycle commute as a replacement for some/all of this excercise. So if they didn’t cycle, they’d work out and that energy would be consumed/expent anyway.
            • Regular cyclists will get fitter and more effecient at using energy. So someone who’s fit, and cycles to a desk job actually can burn less calories total, in a day, than someone who’s unfit and drives to that same desk job.

            To make the comparison in such simple terms, you have to make some non-real-world assumptions (like the professor has in his comedy scenario above).

            So, you can’t really count the 2500 cals I’ve eaten as part of the carbon foorprint of the bike ride, but totally ignore what the guy in the car next to me has eaten. It’s “fuelling” his drive too – if he’d eaten nothing, he might pass out at the wheel. He also might have eaten more than me, even if he hadn’t he might have eaten imported meat, whilst I’ve eaten vegetables I’ve grown myself, so the carbon footprint of his food is way higher. This is why you either have to remove the food from the discusion and make that it’s own comparison, or include it for the driver (along with all of the other, significant externalities of driving).

            So yes, a bicycle ride will have a carbon footprint, but I don’t it would ever be the case that it would be (as you suggested in your first post) more enviromentally friendly to take a car over a bicycle.

            — BalladOfStruth

            I eat less when I cycle (or do other exercise in the morning). I don’t know why but I suspect because I over eat when I don’t exercise. I don’t know how this works, possibly because exercise helps regulate blood sugar, possibly because exercise regulates mood. But categorically, I eat less when I cycle.

            It all evens out.

      • How does that stack up if you

        How does that stack up if you power yourself with roadkill (or mangelwurzels that fell of the back of the truck, as appropriate)?  What does it do to the numbers as frequency of cars decreases and you have to add in the extra riding / lights / cricket bat for harvesting your own critters – or spade for rustling veggies?

        If your bike photosynthesises (or more realistically collects some of its own electric power – like this one, someone else’s calculations on CO2 saved here too) how much does that help?

        I do find these kind of things interesting if ultimately beside the point.  (Because most of the people – and probably all of the people in charge – are not looking at those kind of calculations to make their decisions).

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      • But people will be eating

        But people will be eating anyway and eating excess calories judging by the number of drive throughs.

        No account of running costs though – you can’t just say fuel is the only factor for CO2 emissions. Then you would have to adjust for short trips and the weather in the fuel economy.

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        • It’s never going to be a
          It’s never going to be a precise measurement but it is, ahem, food for thought.

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          • There’s a difference between
            There’s a difference between imprecise – calories used for an hour of cycling and just ignoring things as the prof has done.

    • BalladOfStruth wrote:

      Based his consumption-per-kilometre figures on what a cyclist would eat to fuel a long endurance ride and applied this to shorter rides where most cyclists wouldn’t eat anything extra (I never used to eat extra calories to fuel my commutes, despite his numbers assuming I’d need 200g of beef per day).

      ​

      — BalladOfStruth

      Exactly this, I consume exactly the same diet on the days I’m commuting a 50 km round-trip as on the days I’m not (if I’m not riding at all). The only time I take on extra calories for riding is if I know I’m going long or planning to go hard, and even then, even for a 100 miler, they amount to maybe a larger bowl of porridge and an extra banana with breakfast and a couple of flapjacks and protein bars en route.

      It’s also absolutely ludicrous that he is measuring CO2 output by theoretical beef consumption as well, chicken has a carbon footprint 10 times lower than that of beef, and tofu 20 times lower, it’s about as valid as calculating the average motorist’s CO2 output by assuming that every motorist drives a Humvee.

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    • The other glaring omissions

      The other glaring omissions in the professor’s ramblings is he totally ignores physiological effects of exercise.  It is no surprise that those doing regular aerobic exercise (ie sucking in more oxygen and burning more calories) tend to be lower weight. Also, depending upon the level of activity (in my case climbing cols several times per week), we have a physiology adapted to make more efficient use of energy. So in simple terms, while we may use more energy while exercising, we use considerably less when going about our daily business, because we are carrying less weight, and doing so more efficiently. If you don’t believe me, walk up a couple of flights of stairs alongside a sedentary person, and see who is sucking in more oxygen at the top! 

       

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14. Car occupancy is around 1.5

    Car occupancy is around 1.5 persons per car.

    And how are cyclists eating all that beef when McDonalds won’t let them use the Drive-Thru?

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15. How good is cycling for the

    How good is cycling for the environment? Co2 emissions of transport ranked – BikeRadar – October 30, 2020 –

    “Cycling has a carbon footprint of about 21g of CO2 per kilometre. That’s less than walking or getting the bus and less than a tenth the emissions of driving
    About three-quarters of cycling’s greenhouse gas emissions occur when producing the extra food required to “fuel” cycling, while the rest comes from manufacturing the bicycle
    Electric bikes have an even lower carbon footprint than conventional bikes because fewer calories are burned per kilometre, despite the emissions from battery manufacturing and electricity use
    If cycling’s popularity in Britain increased six-fold (equivalent to returning to 1940s levels) and all this pedalling replaced driving, this could make a net reduction of 7.7-million tons of CO2 annually, equivalent to 6% of the UK’s transport emissions

    We want to compare the emissions from cycling with driving the equivalent journey. Internal combustion cars are considerably less economical over short trips, due to idling, cold starts, stop-starting etc.

    The ECF estimates that for short journeys that compete with cycling, the average European car emits 266g CO2e per kilometre of driving, including both tailpipe and well-to-tank emissions.

    This figure is still not ready to be compared to cycling because cars can carry multiple people. The ECF estimates that for such short trips, the average car has an occupancy of 1.16 passengers. That works out at 229g CO2e per passenger-kilometre from fuel use and fuel manufacturing.

    Total Co2 emissions for cars compared to bikes

    Adding this to the manufacturing emissions (42g/km) gives a total of 271g CO2e per passenger-km of driving. That’s around 13 times the emissions from cycling.

    What’s the bottom line?

    By these calculations, cycling has the lowest carbon footprint of any mode of personal transport, even when compared to walking.

    From a climate perspective, it makes sense for as many journeys as possible to be made by bike.

    On an individual level, cycling instead of driving (or any other method of travelling) can make a positive impact on your carbon footprint.

    But on a national scale, cycling has a limited role in addressing climate change. Because cycling is restricted to short journeys for most people, it can only replace a small fraction of the kilometres covered by cars.

    Even if half of all sub-5-mile car journeys were replaced with cycling (a deliberately optimistic scenario) this would save around 7.7-million tons CO2e in the UK, equivalent to 2 per cent of UK domestic emissions in 2016. Not to be sniffed at, but not a silver bullet.”

     

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    • BikeRadar wrote:

      “Even if half of all sub-5-mile car journeys were replaced with cycling (a deliberately optimistic scenario) this would save around 7.7-million tons CO2e in the UK, equivalent to 2 per cent of UK domestic emissions in 2016. Not to be sniffed at, but not a silver bullet.”

      — BikeRadar

      Also true. This is where we can look beyond “assuming nothing else changes…” though because with this scale of change all things will not remain equal.  It seems clear that a considerable reduction in travel consumption – bluntly: fewer medium-to-long journeys, and travelling less far in general – will also be needed*.

      There is also the overall financial benefit (never mind “quality of life”) from more self-powered low-impact local travel.

      * “Needed” – assuming we want to make a dent in some of our current pollution/health/resilience issues.  Which not everyone agrees!  This may be impossible because humans and this requires compromise, discipline and cooperation which we just don’t have the ability for.  Or maybe “not only do we not ‘need’ it, we will fight to keep ‘growing’ as any reduction in this is anathema to us / if we stop the others will overtake us / take us over.  It’s natural – keep competing and expanding until you run out of resources”.

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16. As a cyclist who exclusively

    As a cyclist who exclusively exists on beef, washed down with the odd spot of alcohol, I can confirm the good professor’s conclusions.

    Intimations of side effects are grossly exaggerated.

    Mooo.

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    • Interestingly, fuelled on
      Interestingly, fuelled on beef, cycling costs more per kilometer than driving.
      From interwebs, 1 kg Swiss beef costs $50 (and that’s eating it raw), whereas 5 litres of petrol costs just $10. If you lubricate the cyclist with alcohol costs can only escalate further.

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      • Let me see if I’ve got this –

        Let me see if I’ve got this – so to save the planet that means … that everyone should cycle everywhere but only drink petrol?  Would that help balance the budget too because motorists are a cash cow because of all the tax on fuel?

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        • I think you’ve nailed it.
          I think you’ve nailed it.

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        • chrisonatrike wrote:

          Let me see if I’ve got this – so to save the planet that means … that everyone should cycle everywhere but only drink petrol?

          — chrisonatrike

          No, you haven’t got this.  We should cycle everywhere but drink only alcohol; it’s not as energy intense as petrol, but tastes nicer.  And it’s plant based, as long as you ignore the yeastie things, and I’m not sure if they are plant or animal.

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          • Fungi, own part in the what

            Fungi, own part in the what was 5 kingdom thingy.

            Not quite sure what it’s up to now, and I think there is a bit of a friendly debate about it (massive career destroying dispute?)

          • ktache wrote:

            Fungi, own part in the what was 5 kingdom thingy.

            Not quite sure what it’s up to now, and I think there is a bit of a friendly debate about it (massive career destroying dispute?)

            — ktache

            I told a some jokes at the hostel on Sunday evening, and got a few laughs, so am I an animal or a fun guy?

17. Good to see the cyclist/van

    Good to see the cyclist/van driver clip.  Similarly, I rode into the back of a Jaguar outside a petrol station trying to point out a classic car to my riding buddy.  The driver was a lovely guy, who firstly was concerned I was ok, assured me that the paint mark would polish out, then offered to buy me a coffee to settle my nerves!

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18. My inner child thinks fat
    My inner child thinks fat bikes are cool and I’m planning to get one to ease my midlife crisis

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    • JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote

      My inner child thinks fat bikes are cool and I’m planning to get one to ease my midlife crisis

      — JustTryingToGetFromAtoB

      The Fatbikes piece is wierd.

      I can only assume this is a perception thing.  There is nothing about an Fat eBike that doesnt apply to “normal” eBikes.  so its either simply the size of the things or the demographics of the riders (those bloody kids)

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      • Secret_squirrel wrote:

        My inner child thinks fat bikes are cool and I’m planning to get one to ease my midlife crisis

        — Secret_squirrel

        The Fatbikes piece is wierd.

        I can only assume this is a perception thing.  There is nothing about an Fat eBike that doesnt apply to “normal” eBikes.  so its either simply the size of the things or the demographics of the riders (those bloody kids)— JustTryingToGetFromAtoB

        I suspect that demographics has something to do with it, with a corresponding over-reaction. No doubt some people act like absolute dicks on them and there is probably something attracting people who cycle like dicks to fat bikes… much like Audi/BMW seem to attract dick motorists though without hhe corresponding death rate.

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    • Good call – if you’re going

      Good call – if you’re going to do the full MLC and shout it you should maybe go for a Jones – spaceframe design with front truss fork of course.  Titanium ideally.  Or if you want to stick to the road, go fast and fill your storage space then it has to be a velomobile!

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19. Look, if there is a problem
    Look, if there is a problem with the carbon footprint of the beef and dairy industry, you’d take it up with farmers, not cyclists. If you want to compare cyclists with motorists, taking calories into account, you’d assume they had a similar dietary balance.

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20. Swiss scientist discovers
    Swiss scientist discovers that people cycling or walking expend more calories than people sat on their fat arses in a car shocker.

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    • Of course many cyclists don’t

      Of course many cyclists don’t consume more calories than motorists – they’re just not fat!

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      • LeadenSkies looks himself up
        LeadenSkies looks himself up and down. Decides he fails on both fronts! I definitely cycle to eat.

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21. Those fat e-bikes are surely

    Those fat e-bikes are surely the bike world’s SUV? Bigger than necessary, but don’t really achieve anything more than a ‘normal’ bike would?

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    • No surprise. Here, many

      No surprise. Here, many people buy cars for getting around and quite a lot of those cars are far bigger / more powerful than they need, even considering the market range.  In NL, many people buy cars AND bikes.  Similar story for both?

      Marketing and “goes up to 11” feature inflation maybe.  If you’re not especially interested in bikes but just want one to get around, why get a bike if you can afford an ebike?  Apparently the price difference from new may be closer in NL because normal bikes there are more full-featured / robust.  Same for manufacturers and shops – e.g. see this interview with a Dutch bike shop owner noting the amount this adds to turnover.

      What may be interesting is why not everyone there has one yet.  Is it just that they are more expensive (and also tempting to thieves), or that it’s so easy to get a standard bike (since most still are)?  “Flat” but “we have wind” over there and bridges can be steep!  E-bikes are heavy but the average Dutch bike isn’t light either (build for living outdoors with little attention) and that doesn’t matter if you’re not pushing them uphill or carrying them up to your flat.  Or is it some other reason (up to and including “cutural” e.g. a Dutch tradition of not wanting to “stand out” / be seen to be too flashy)?

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    • Jem PT wrote:

      Those fat e-bikes are surely the bike world’s SUV? Bigger than necessary, but don’t really achieve anything more than a ‘normal’ bike would?

      — Jem PT

      I think they certainly wouldn’t be attractive to people at the legal limit, however when chipped to do 50 km/h presumably people who aren’t experienced cyclists feel safer on the massive tyres. I see several most days in London and I’ve yet to see one that seemed to be limited to 25 km/h.

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      • Just this afternoon I

        Just this afternoon I discovered what delivery folks and hooded sweater afficionados are hiding in those “dairylea triangle / vache qui rit” in the front triangle.  Disc brake poseurs note – there’s nothing you can’t stop with a cheap cantilever brake apparently:

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22. I can do 80 miles on little
    I can do 80 miles on little more than two rashers of bacon and an egg in a bap/barm/batch.

    Powered by pig. Bacon will save the world.

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    • .

      .

      Bun / roll / bin lid / stottie.

      .

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23. In what possible way is an

    In what possible way is an economist morally justified in commenting on the environment. Economics disregards the environment which is why we are in dire straits.

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24. I have seen a “who produces

    I have seen a “who produces more CO2” thing before. They decided the cyclist were getting the extra calories from air transported South American asparagus. Also complete nonsense/work of great irony.

    I’m not rating the competence (or perhaps lack of bias) of Swiss economists.

    And if average car occupancy is only 1.16, that would mean shifting a tonne per person. That’s a lot

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    • They were telling me bees

      They were telling me bees couldn’t fly a while back!

      Clearly those Swiss economists have a lot of spare time.  You’d think they’d be busy watching the economy or economising the watches…

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      • what was it Harry Lime said

        what was it Harry Lime said in 500 years they only invented the cuckoo clock

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        • Awavey wrote:

          what was it Harry Lime said in 500 years they only invented the cuckoo clock

          — Awavey

          Which is so unfair, because there’s also Toblerone.

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          • Lazy stereotyping.  The Swiss

            Lazy stereotyping.  The Swiss have contributed lots to the world.  Like the Swiss Army Bike.  Look at all the attachments!

          • Rendel Harris wrote:

            what was it Harry Lime said in 500 years they only invented the cuckoo clock

            — Rendel Harris

            Which is so unfair, because there’s also Toblerone.

            — Awavey

            And holes in cheese.

    • Average car weights far
      Average car weights far higher than 1 tonne these days. A naked Fiesta is 1.2 tonnes before you put passengers, fuel or furry dice in. A non-compact car is over 2 tonnes and a big SUV is heading for 3 tonnes.

      I think his magic indirect calculation via fuel smacks of one of those calculations that prove that the force from cycle wheels destroys roads more than cars.

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25. Lachlan Morton, the

    Lachlan Morton, the Australian currently redefining what it means to be a professional cyclist, is not beginning to turn his attention towards possibly his biggest two-wheeled adventure yet.

    No story there then, anything else that somebody is not doing that you feel is worth a report? 

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    • I can think of lots of things
      I can think of lots of things that people aren’t doing that is newsworthy. See: politicians not doing their jobs.

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26. So, which policy is Professor

    So, which policy is Professor Eichenberger advocating:

    • A ban on beef for cyclists, which would apparently devastate the livestock industry, seeing as they’d lose their best customers, who are somehow inhaling stabs of raw meat by the kilogram whenever they go for a spin?
    • A legal requirement for motorists to carry three passengers wherever they go, perhaps enforced by teams of genetically-engineered, superintelligent police cows, who will trample anyone to death who drives with an empty seat?

    I’d be in favour of the second one, but I suspect it wouldn’t be his choice, nor will any of that “well occupied car” bollocks be mentioned by the petrolheaded bores who quote his “research” from now on.

    Presumably he just wanted some attention, so he figured assuaging the guilt of the majority at the expense of a minority is always good for a few column inches, plus some free wine and nibbles in the green room of whatever the Swiss equivalent is of Fox News / GB News.

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    • Neither, cowboy; or rather

      Neither, cowboy; or rather both.  You’re right about the bullocks though although they come with their own emission issues:

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    • I thought he was making a

      I thought he was making a satirical comment highlighting the massive role of farming and eating habits in climate change and environmental destruction… then he had a pop at the vegans?

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27. And yet still no cycling kit

    And yet still no cycling kit manufacturer makes cycling tops with a pocket you can fit 1kg of beef in!

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    • henryb wrote:

      And yet still no cycling kit manufacturer makes cycling tops with a pocket you can fit 1kg of beef in!

      — henryb

      No need.  You just stop at a field of cows and take a bite.

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28. Cycling is by far the most
    Cycling is by far the most energy efficient form of transport. So there are no extra calories being consumed.
    Whose pocket is this shit-stirring Swiss professer living in?

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    • Cycling as a form of exercise
      Cycling as a form of exercise does consume calories. A human burns more calories when cycling than at rest, that’s just a fact. However, that’s pretty much the only part of the economist’s analysis that holds water – which I find pretty indicative of the accuracy (or more to the point, the lack of accuracy) of economic analysis.

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    • Is it?
      Is it?

      From a carbon perspective you’re probably better off taking certain forms of public transport than cycling.

      Just looking at trip emissions you may even be better off sharing a car for some trips too.

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      • Rich_cb wrote:

        Just looking at trip emissions you may even be better off sharing a car for some trips too.

        — Rich_cb

        But that’s the problem, looking at just trip emissions (and I’m somewhat dubious of those numbers), you’re ignoring all of the externalities that absolutley contribute to the carbon footprint of driving.

        E: and as pointed out in the main blog – walking is less efficient in calorie use than cycling, so if you honestly think that cycling five miles is worse for the environment than driving five miles, then you must also think that walking five miles is worse than both? C’mon, really?

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        • Not just that, the 12kg is

          Not just that, the 12kg is just for burning fuel so that is being compared with the footprint of food production ignoring the footprint of fuel production and delivery.

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        • It depends on how you look at
          It depends on how you look at it.

          Driving a car yourself for a short trip will never be less carbon intensive than walking/cycling.

          Sharing a trip is a different matter.

          If a vehicle is already travelling where you want to go then the marginal cost of carrying an extra passenger is minimal in carbon terms.

          Eg Carbon cost of a 10km journey in a car is x kg CO2.
          Carbon cost of same journey with an additional passenger is y kg CO2 the marginal cost of catching that lift is y-x. This is likely to be very low even for a car. For a train it’s going to be absolutely tiny.

          Most of the calculations simply divide the entire x by number of passengers which isn’t always appropriate.

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          • This is all true. However,

            This is all true. However, you’d then need to consider whether the car trip has to be a car trip (and the whole argument sort of relies on that assumption) – if not, you should be comparing four people on bikes going 10km vs four people in an car of “average fuel efficiency”. Otherwise, what you’re doing is saying that the only one who has any significant carbon footprint is the driver who has decided to make the trip by car, and the three passengers are almost irrelevant. Then, the only way you’re making the comparison favour the car is by ignoring the driver and comparing the cyclist to one of the passengers. I think that’s maybe a little disingenuous.

            In your example, say you want to go the park and you spot a car with three people in it being driven to the park (that, for some reason has to be a car journey), so you flag it down and jump in. In this case, you’re right in saying that the weight of the extra passenger has a minimal effect on carbon emissions (though whether this is less than cycling the same trip depends on the car – you can’t just assume, as the professor has done, that the car in question is unreasonably fuel efficient compared to the average car).

            However, this is a somewhat far-fetched example. In reality, it’s going to be four people who have made the joint-decision to take the car. In this case, you have to consider whether the journey has to be made by car. Then, you are dividing the “x” number by the number of occupants (along with all of the other externalities of the car – you can’t count the production/transport of the cyclist’s fuel and ignore the production/transport of the car’s fuel, you have to consider the impact of the car existing in the first place compared to the bike), and compare this to the four of them cycling to the park instead.

            I think the above is a case of altering the scenario (or at least being a little selective with its variables) to make it fit the hypothesis, and to do so, you’d have to remove any resemblance to how these things work in reality.

          • I do agree but I don’t think
            I do agree but I don’t think the necessity of the car journey is that relevant.

            What matters is that the car journey will take place regardless of what you, as a potential passenger in said car, decide to do.

            The CO2 cost of your journey is therefore marginal and worked out in comparison to the cost of the journey taking place without you. In that way it’s directly comparable with public transport.

            If there is public transport running in the direction you want to go the marginal CO2 cost of cycling will always be higher than the marginal CO2 cost of taking the already running transport.

            For a car it will depend on the efficiency of the car but it would have to be a pretty inefficient car to have a higher marginal CO2 cost.

            Whilst dietary choice will impact marginal cost of cycling I doubt even the most carbon efficient diet could compete with public transport marginal costs.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            I do agree but I don’t think the necessity of the car journey is that relevant.

            — Rich_cb

            I think this is the sticking point where we’re probably not going to agree.

            The comparison (in my opinion) is car vs bicycle. That is, is it better for four people to cycle than share even an economical car (spoiler: yes). The comparison you’re making is car vs car AND bicycle, which is a different story, because it relies on a car journey (that, for some reason must be a car journey) going exactly where you want, when you want, full of people that don’t mind you just randomly hopping in, and it still ignores the externalities of driving, fuel production, ect. This isn’t (in my opinion) a real-world scenario. Also, the whole point of the “we should cycle more, it’s better for the environment” argument is to reduce the amount of these car journeys that would be happaning anyway.

            I think this is re-framing the argument in a way that’s unfair to the bike, because what I’m saying is it’s better to have four million bike trips instead of one million car trips (which is true), and what you’re saying is it’s worse to have one million bike trips as well as one million car trips (which is probably also true – though it sort of depends on the diet discussion we had earlier).

            Your argument does map better to public transport, but there are still other considerations to be made – Public transport journeys aren’t A-to-B, they’re A-to-Z (I don’t live anywhere near a bus stop now, but in my old village, a trip to town wasn’t a 2 mile bike ride vs a 2 mile bus trip, it was a 2 mile bike ride vs 10 mile bus trip). Public transport are less efficient vehicles – yes they are often shared between many people and this brings overall efficiency to be much better than private cars, but they’re often not full, so you have to consider the impact of an old deisel bus driving around with nobody on it, and there are still the other externalities of driving. 

            I think we’ll probably have to agree to disagree on this one, but I’ll concede that you’ve made good arguments on the dietary impact of cycling, and that cycle journeys do have a larger carbon footprint than many assume.

             

          • I would disagree that it’s an
            I would disagree that it’s an unlikely scenario.

            If you work somewhere pretty big it’s quite likely there will the opportunity to share a ride to and from work. This has certainly been the case for me many times.

            In that situation the marginal cost is the main focus.

            I do think agreeing to disagree is probably the best outcome here though. Thanks for an interesting discussion.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            I would disagree that it’s an unlikely scenario.

            — Rich_cb

            It’s not impossible, but as others have pointed out, the average car occupncy in the UK is 1.5 people. So, generally speaking, it’s not guaranteed for a car to have two people in it, let alone four.

            Going back to my “trip to the park” example, the argument is based on “adding” a cycle journey to a car journey that would be happening anyway – in which case the “marginal cost” of the cyclist hopping in the car is negligable (providing that you view the carbon footprint as being “owned” by the driver, and the three passengers being marginal additions – which I’m not sure I’m on board with). When viewed this way, it makes the cycle ride look like a bad choice, environmentally speaking. However, the reality of the stiuation is that the cycle ride is likely to replace one of four seperate car journeys.

            Statistically speaking, cycle rides in the UK are likely to entirely replace single-occupancy car journeys, and that (I think) is where we’re disagreeing. You made another comment talking about personal costs vs aggregate, systemic costs which I agree with 100%. I think you’re arguing the “personal” side (“I’m just going to hop in this car that’s already going where I want, the driver’s creating the carbon cost, I’m just along for the ride”), and I’m arguing the “systemic” side (“it’s better to replace that car with two bikes”).

            But it has been an interesting discussion, and if anything, we’ve proven that (contrary to what some say) people can disagree respectfully on this site.

          • If you look at the modal
            If you look at the modal share of transport in Amsterdam whilst cycling appears to have displaced a lot of car journeys relative to other major cities it has also displaced quite a bit of public transport by the same comparison. Example Vs London below.

            Cordial disagreement indeed!

          • Ah, but what if you’re a

            Ah, but what if you’re a cyclist who powers themselves by foraging for berries, nuts and road kill?

          • The marginal CO2 cost of road
            The marginal CO2 cost of road kill and foraging is probably negative so you can cycle to your heart’s content.

          • Not really following that

            Not really following that diagram.

            Is the top the start postion and the bottom the current position ?

          • Top is London. Bottom is
            Top is London. Bottom is Amsterdam.

            Deloitte analysis. Pre pandemic I think.

            Obviously no two cities are directly comparable but public transport provision in Amsterdam is, IMO, on a par with London so gives an indication of what we could expect if the cycling modal share in London increased substantially.

          • Good digging.  On

            Good digging.  On “displacement” again I’d caution that we’re not necessarily comparing like with like in the before and after.  I imagine (I don’t know – but otherwise people are walking epic distances!) that is showing “trips” or journeys.  So it’s not clear that all *distance* covered by the public transit trips are replaced by the same *distance* for cycling – which obviously has bearing on the energetics.

            Even in the UK “traffic evaporation” is a thing – and when some people decide not to go a certain route by car some of those journeys simply don’t take place at all.  (They could simply cease, or people find a more local alternative etc.)

            In the UK currently I think you’d be right though – I seem to recall that there is data for some places (London, was it?) that journeys were shifting between public transport and cycling and walking but over the time period the private motor vehicle transport numbers (including taxis IIRC) remained fairly static.

            A notable feature of the Dutch example is that they’ve really facilitated multi-modal longer distance transport – so bike / train / bike for example.  Excellent and reliable public transport, plus the O.V.Fiets national railway-station-based bike rental scheme is likely behind that.  However they’ve also retained a lot of longer car journeys.

          • I haven’t been to Amsterdam
            I haven’t been to Amsterdam for a while but used to go fairly often and the traffic levels felt much lower than the figures suggest.

            In a similar vein if you compare rush hour gridlock and free flowing traffic the difference in vehicular numbers is not that big. Small differences in traffic volume can translate to big differences in traffic flow.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            … In a similar vein if you compare rush hour gridlock and free flowing traffic the difference in vehicular numbers is not that big. Small differences in traffic volume can translate to big differences in traffic flow.

            — Rich_cb

            Isn’t this a feature of motor vehicle traffic particularly?  I’m guessing because a) unless you’re just running fully occupied buses motor vehicles tend to be space-inefficient so it’s pretty easy to reach capacity for few extra *people* and b) because of safety requirements we have traffic lights, which aren’t required for pedestrians or cyclists as those modes can safely negociate / merge at low speeds?

            Aside: lots of countries have de facto “traffic light free junctions” where safety *might* be OK e.g. when busy (that’s not to say that the country as a whole has good road safety).  I recall some crazy intersections when travelling in Thailand apparently with everyone coming from every direction.  However vehicles were only going about as fast as e.g. cyclists in a Dutch city.  (Which helped because elephants don’t move quickly – until they do, but you really don’t want that to happen!)  Also this kind of “shared space” definitely doesn’t work well (as it doesn’t anywhere) for cyclists and pedestrians.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            If there is public transport running in the direction you want to go the marginal CO2 cost of cycling will always be higher than the marginal CO2 cost of taking the already running transport.

            — Rich_cb

            The problem with focusing only on the “marginal” impact when it comes to public transport is that the public transport is only running because enough people take it. Any one passenger could argue their trip only accounts for a marginal increase, but if no passengers ever took the bus/train, it wouldn’t be running. 

          • OnYerBike wrote:

            The problem with focusing only on the “marginal” impact when it comes to public transport is that the public transport is only running because enough people take it. Any one passenger could argue their trip only accounts for a marginal increase, but if no passengers ever took the bus/train, it wouldn’t be running. 

            — OnYerBike

            Unlike planes that keep flying when empty so that the airlines don’t lose their runway slots.

          • It’s a bit of an intellectual
            It’s a bit of an intellectual riddle really.

            If you take the aggregate carbon cost (eg cost of manufacture, maintenance etc divided by total users) you will get a completely different picture to the marginal cost.

            Which is correct though?

            If an empty bus is driving past my house, going exactly where I want to go the marginal carbon cost of me catching it is close to zero but if you allocated the entire carbon output of the bus journey to me as the only passenger the carbon cost would be huge.

            In reality the marginal cost makes more sense for individual decisions and the aggregate cost for systemic decisions.

            If that hypothetical empty bus were running regularly and I needed to make the journey regularly individually speaking it would be less carbon intensive to catch the bus than to cycle.

            Systemically though it would make more sense to cancel the bus route and let me cycle instead.

        • According to my garmin watch

          According to my garmin watch last week I did 7.59 km cycle 228 calories, 7.9 km walk 706 calories. Conclusion buy a second hand car and save the planet.

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          • I think this is why this is

            I think this is why this is such a stupendously complicated way of looking at it. You’d probably burn ~100 calories during the length of that walk even if you’re not moving, so you should only be looking at excess calories. In the real-world, people don’t eat exactly maintenence calories anyway, so you’d have to compare excess “fuel” calories for the cyclist vs excess “surplus” calories for the driver and passengers. You have the fact that those who cycle everyday will be fitter, will process food/energy more efficiently, and therefore it’s totally possible for someone who’s fit, and who cycles to a desk job, to consume less food in total (have a lower “maintenence”) than someone unfit who drives to the same desk job. You have to consider that some who cycle are doing so to improve their health, and so won’t be consuming a “fuel” surplus (or maybe even a defecit) in order to lose weight. You have to consider that those who cycled partly for health reasons would excersise (and consume the fuel to do so) even if they didn’t cycle. Finally, you have to consider that many who cycle do so for environmental reasons, and so might have a diet with a lower impact anyway.

            We’re better off viewing food as it’s own discussion.

      • “From a carbon perspective

        “From a carbon perspective you’re probably better off taking certain forms of public transport than cycling. “

        No.

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        • You’ve mistaken energy
          You’ve mistaken energy efficiency for low carbon intensity.

          A bicycle may take very few watts to power it but if the engine providing those watts is inefficient then it may still have a relatively high carbon intensity for a given distance travelled.

          Here are some carbon intensities. My very rough calculation of 70g CO2 per km for a cyclist can be compared.

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          • As user Wales56 posted

            As user Wales56 posted earlier Cycling is 20g CO2 per km. So you’re wrong.

          • I believe that 6 is a smaller
            I believe that 6 is a smaller number than 20?

            Even if cycling only produced 20g CO2 per kilometre there would still be forms of public transport that are less carbon intensive.

            Which was my point.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            I believe that 6 is a smaller number than 20?

            Even if cycling only produced 20g CO2 per kilometre there would still be forms of public transport that are less carbon intensive.

            Which was my point.

            — Rich_cb

            When I’ve got a little more time (I’m migrating servers today), I’ll have to dig into the methods used to arrive at those two numbers, because I find them highly dubious. I don’t think they’re following the same methodologies. I suspect the cycling number has considered all of the “cradle-to-the-grave” externalities of cycling, and the train one is more of a “fingers-in-the-ears” denial of all the externalities, only focusing on the energy expended to move the train. It won’t be including, building the train, building the infrastructure, maintaining the train, maintaining the infrastructure, producing spare parts, it’s probably assumed that all electricity is produced via 100% renewables and occupancy is 100%, ect.

            We already know that you burn ~3 times the calories walking than cycling, so if that 20g does map accurately against the 6g of the train, we end up with ~60g for walking. So that chart is suggesting we can generate the power to move that train 1km for a tenth of the carbon intensity of putting on some shoes and going for a stroll? I seriously struggle to believe that.

          • Well, whatever the answer, a

            Well, whatever the answer, a water powered cliff railway beats them all.

          • I suspect you’re right
            I suspect you’re right regarding externalities but that brings us back to marginal Vs aggregate.

            The cycling figure is pretty dubious imho.

            Firstly, it appears to be based on a global average diet which doesn’t remotely resemble the ‘average’ UK diet.

            Secondly it’s based on 11 calories per kilometre energy expenditure. Which is considerably below anything I’ve seen anywhere else.

          • Are you really arguing that
            Are you really arguing that Eurostar or a channel ferry is a form of transport that could replace a bike trip???
            (Those figures look pretty dodgy to me btw.)

          • marmotte27 wrote:

            Are you really arguing that Eurostar or a channel ferry is a form of transport that could replace a bike trip??? (Those figures look pretty dodgy to me btw.)

            — marmotte27

            Exactly. Public transport and cycling actually compliment each other. It’s not a battle between the two!

            A bus or train is never going to be a door-to-door solution, you need something to fill that last mile gap. If you look at The Netherlands, the reason they have such huge bike parking facilities at train stations, is because people do multi-modal journeys – cycling at both ends of a train journey.

            Bike + public transport will easily beat private motor vehicles when it comes to CO2 emissions (and a whole host of other metrics too). That’s what the argument should be about.

          • I’m arguing that there are
            I’m arguing that there are forms of public transport that have a lower carbon intensity than cycling.

            Electric trains would come in closer to the Eurostar figure than the national rail figure.

            Electric buses would likely be far lower than their diesel equivalents (see difference for cars).

            The 20g per km figure for cycling seems implausibly low for someone eating an average UK diet (it appears to be based on a global average diet which is far less carbon intensive). 11 calories per km also seems implausibly low.

            Even a slight modification of both those figures will increase the calculated carbon intensity of cycling considerably.

          • The 20g per km figure for cycling seems implausibly low for someone eating an average UK diet (it appears to be based on a global average diet which is far less carbon intensive). 11 calories per km also seems implausibly low.

            Even a slight modification of both those figures will increase the calculated carbon intensity of cycling considerably.

            — Rich_cb The 20g per km</strong><br /><p>[quote=Rich_cb

            This is where (IMO) things get a bit complicated, because there are so many thousands of variables at play when it comes to the wild variances of peoples daily food intakes – I actually think that both of those numbers are implausibly high because they don’t consider journey type/frequency.

            Take this as an example:

            I’m sat around in the house, I wasn’t intending to do anything today, and I’ve just eaten a salad. I get a call from a friend asking to meet up a few km away. Now, I have a choice between cycling there or driving there. If I cycle there, then I am technically burning the energy I’ve consumed by eating the salad (and depending on what was in it/where it came from, that might lead you to arrive at a number like 20g/km).

            However, I’d have still eaten the salad if I choose to drive (I’d have still eaten the salad if I wasn’t going anywhere at all), so it’s (IMO) unfair to attribute that salad as the “cost” of the cycle ride. Compared to the car, the cost of the bike journey is really 0g/km because I’m not eating anything extra, but the car is burning fuel. It’s only if the cycle ride became a regular, daily part of my routine that I would change my average food intake to suit (and even then, I might not if I was using the cycle journey as a way of improving my health as well as a form of transport).

            There will be plenty of cycle rides that are short and occasional and which do not incur a change in the “baseline” food intake. These journeys (providing the bike has been ridden enough to offset it’s own production) are 0g/km.

            You can’t remove food from the equation, because that is very much a cost of the cycle ride, but the above figures (IMO) are the result of abstracting too far away from a real-world scenario. You still have to consider things like:

            • People don’t eat exactly maintainence – most people (according to stats) are likely in a surplus, so additional calorie intake for a bike ride may not actually be “additional”.
            • Occasional rides likely won’t impact average food intake, so it’s unfair to attribute calories burned as a cost of the bike ride.
            • Some people would excersie anyway if they didn’t ride.
            • Some people would commute by bike specifically to improve health and would not intake extra food (at least for a few months/years).
            • Fitter people use energy more efficiently and so can make bike journeys whilst still requiring less energy than someone sedentery.

    • I’m with rich_cb on this in

      I’m with rich_cb on this in that the energy has to come from somewhere.  Also while cycles are extremely efficient machines they are powered in part or whole by humans.  Humans are inefficient converters of energy into movement.  They generate a LOT of heat doing so – so much so that we need externally powered fans for our turbos to try to dissipate that!  With notable exceptions covered on this site they are pretty feeble motors – their maximum power output is tiny compared to a car and over anything more than a minute it drops considerably.

      Further – the energy (and wider environmental) cost of our food – especially in Western nations – is huge.

      However – humans will move a certain amount regardless.  (To keep healthy we need to as has been mentioned).  With the aid of an extremely efficient machine to convert our normal efforts into forward motion (cycle) this can fit into our lives very well for a moderate amount of extra calories.

      One aspect not mentioned before cycling as a “life enhancer”.  It is foolish to look at our current travel patterns and simply compare replacing all car journeys with cycled ones.  Aside from being physically unrealistic cycles lend themselves to different patterns of travel and indeed life.  More local.  Which enhances communities.  Ultimately the real potential for cycling to improve not just “carbon emissions” but our wellbeing is by aiding us to travel less but get more benefit from it.  (Sitting in a car in traffic is a real waste of human potential)

      So mass cycling is more “superpowered walking”.  Recall that cycling started as a replacement for the horse.  As opposed to cars which were a new type of carriage and are also (now) a competitor to the train.

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      • chrisonatrike wrote:

        I’m with rich_cb on this in that the energy has to come from somewhere.  Also while cycles are extremely efficient machines they are powered in part or whole by humans.  Humans are inefficient converters of energy into movement…

        Further – the energy (and wider environmental) cost of our food – especially in Western nations – is huge.

        — chrisonatrike

        100% agree, and I think what we’re actually having here is a discussion about the impact of our food chain, and how our food choices are factor into this (veganism vs animal agriculture, food miles, ect). Except, it’s being weirdly framed as a discussion on cycing.

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        • If we are going to do the
          If we are going to do the exercise properly though I think you have to go a lot deeper into the true energy costs of car ownership, so much like you can look at the fuel cost of a journey and ignore the overhead of running a car, which I have a sense our economics professor is doing, if you look at the carbon cost per mile of a car, electric or ICE, then you have to factor in the build costs and arguably the costs of the infrastructure.

          That last one is a Lulu. Consider the road infrastructure of the 1960s. What is the carbon footprint of that expansion of the road network simply for capacity and the carbon footprint of the ever-increasing added infrastructure that is added purely to control careless and dangerous drivers.

          We can accept that basic level of infrastructure is required, even for a world of optimal public transport and walking and cycling but surely we are at a stage where there is a massive hidden cost, e.g. in roads and driveways simply to store the excessive number of cars that exist.

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29. 100 km on 5 litres of fuel,

    100 km on 5 litres of fuel, that’s 76 miles to the gallon, what car has that level of fuel economy. He’s an economist, says it all.

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    • I make it 56 which might be

      I make it 56 which might be achieved on a longer trip constant speed. But would make more sense to use a typical journey of up to 5 miles for comparison.
       

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30. We would be viewed as

    We would be viewed as monsters, but would getting all of those calories from veal rather than beef be more green. I’m not advocating white veal, of course,ethically produced British rose veal.

    It’s almost a waste product from the dairy industry.

    Not quite as tasty, but very tender.

    Lot of waste boy calves needed to get those ladies milking.

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    • Hang about – you’re not going

      Hang about – you’re not going to riff this into “A modest proposal” RE: the cost of living are you?

      I think rich_cb is veggie or vegan (?) – hope you’re not being provocative!

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      • I try and eat very little
        I try and eat very little meat but am not vege etc.

        I’m fully in agreement with Ktache though, if we’re going to eat meat it makes sense to eat meat with a low marginal CO2 cost. Veal as a byproduct of the dairy industry is a good example but the best is probably culled venison.

        Wild venison chilli con carne is superb.

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        • Folks here in Scotland should

          For some reason I thought you were – don’t know why.  Anyway happy to help out by eating venison (I also don’t eat much meat).  Us folks here in Scotland could certainly eat more deer given that it’s being culled!  And likely e.g. farmed rabbit, fresh sea food etc.  I’d definitely find it difficult to give up cheese though.  I did once by fiat once living in a country with no tradition of dairy product use until recently – discovered that it was important then!  I have trained myself to use soy milk though.  (Does that make me part of the wokerati?)

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          • chrisonatrike wrote:

            I have trained myself to use soy milk though.

            — chrisonatrike

            But what are the baby soys going to drink?

          • I still don’t understand soy

            I still don’t understand soy milk.  As the song says – how do you milk a bean?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHBFnx7P8GM

        • Rich_cb wrote:

          I try and eat very little meat but am not vege etc. I’m fully in agreement with Ktache though, if we’re going to eat meat it makes sense to eat meat with a low marginal CO2 cost. Veal as a byproduct of the dairy industry is a good example but the best is probably culled venison. Wild venison chilli con carne is superb.

          — Rich_cb

          I had a kangaroo meat burger, years ago.  In the UK.  In hindsight, I dread to think what the carbon footprint of that (very tasty) burger was…

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          • brooksby wrote:

            I had a kangaroo meat burger, years ago.  In the UK.  In hindsight, I dread to think what the carbon footprint of that (very tasty) burger was…

            — brooksby

            Kangaroos are considered pests, so I doubt that it was farmed which should help with its carbon footprint. Mrs HawkinsPeter tried kangaroo once whilst in Australia (she found it a bit tough), but I guess that flying over to Australia is far worse in terms of CO2 than getting a steak shipped to the UK (to be fair, we didn’t go over there just to try a steak).

          • If it was shipped it probably
            If it was shipped it probably wouldn’t be too bad. Shipping is surprisingly low carbon on a per kg basis.

            If it was flown it would be awful.

            On that note, out of season Asparagus (air freighted from Peru) is IIRC the worst food from a CO2 per calorie perspective.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            If it was shipped it probably wouldn’t be too bad. Shipping is surprisingly low carbon on a per kg basis. If it was flown it would be awful. On that note, out of season Asparagus (air freighted from Peru) is IIRC the worst food from a CO2 per calorie perspective.

            — Rich_cb

            How about celery? That’s often considered to have negative calories when you factor in the chewing.

          • That’s a good point.
            That’s a good point.

            To save the planet we’ll all have to stop chewing our celery.

          • Rich_cb wrote:

            That’s a good point. To save the planet we’ll all have to stop chewing our celery.

            — Rich_cb

            Luckily enough, I consume all of mine Intravenously.

    • To ethically eat meat, if all

      To ethically eat meat, if all vertebrate lives matter equally, we should minimize the deaths per pound of meat. Therefore, we should only eat blue wales, or barring that, elephants.

      At 100,000 kg, the meat of one blue whale would easily supply two cyclists for their entire lives with the required two kilos of meat per day to commute.

      We’d need big deep freezers, though.

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      • How do you feel about

        How do you feel about parasitism?  Don’t need to eat the whale all at once, you could just take small chunks like a cookiecutter shark.

        Not as unlikely as it sounds as several human cultures have used animals for literal vampirism (e.g. as renewable supplies of blood).

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