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Old Sat, Aug-17-19, 17:41
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bevangel bevangel is offline
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Plan: modified adkins (sort of)
Stats: 265/176/167 Female 68.5 inches
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Progress: 91%
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Keto dieters who fuel up on bacon and butter are 'irresponsible' stewards of the planet..."

I read thru the article till I was stopped cold by this quote given in support of the proposition that eating beef is "irresponsible."
Quote:
Earlier this month, scientists calculated that if everyone in the US stopped eating beef completely, the carbon footprint benefit would be equivalent to taking 60,000 cars off the road. (my emphasis).
I've seen that statistic quoted numerous times although never with any attribution as to WHO made the determination or how they arrived at that number.

This time I decided to do a little math of my own. First, let's assume that the quoted statistic is absolutely accurate...

According to Hedges & Company (which pulled the data from vehicle owner databases), there were 276.1 MILLION registered vehicles in the U.S. in 2018. That is 276,100,000 vehicles.

That means that If EVERYONE in the U.S. stopped eating beef tomorrow, the impact on the environment would be like removing one car out of every 4602 cars currently on the road. (276,100,000 divided by 60,000 = 4601.6666. I rounded to 4602.)


But the environment only gets that much benefit if every single beef-eater in the U.S. complete quits eating beef.

Next time you're in a traffic jam with 4601 other vehicles blocking your way, just think how much easier it would be to get across town if you could magically remove ONE of those 4601 vehicles so that there were only 4600 other vehicles jamming your way.

That's how much better off the environment would be if ALL beef eaters stopped eating beef.

If only half of beef eaters can be convinced into giving up beef, the environmental impact will be only half as large. Instead of removing one car out of every 4601.7, it would be like removing one car out of every 9203.4 of the ones currently on the road.

But HEY, as Dr. Walter Willett says in the article,
Quote:
with the state of the earth in dangerous shape, we do have look at virtually everything we do from an environmental health lens
And, if THAT logic won't make your give up your hamburgers and steaks in favor of making the environment cleaner, well, you're just utterly IRRESPONSIBLE and selfish. "You oughta be ashamed of yourself! You...you... you meat-eater you..." I can just hear Dr. Walter Willett sputtering in indignation!
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