Archives » Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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Sharon Begley
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Jul 18, 2007 02:39 PM
Sacrifice is not a message most Americans want to hear when it comes to
what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint; my favorite, from a
party held in conjunction with the LiveEarth concerts on July 7, was to
take only one napkin with your fast food, not a handful. A study from
Japan offers support to more meaningful action. The researchers have
calculated that one beef cow during its lifetime is responsible for
10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent (that is, greenhouse gases
with the same heat-trapping power as that much CO2). In more
user-friendly terms, that means a couple pounds of beef—about what
Americans would buy to grill for a family of four carnivores this
weekend—is responsible for about as much greenhouse gas emissions as
“driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home,” as
the British weekly New Scientist calculates.
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