• bjorney
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    3 months ago

    numbers are just cursory googles so they may be off, e.g. “carbon footprint of a burger” (~3.2kg CO2 per) followed by “calories in a big mac” (590)

    The majority of the calories in a burger come from the bun and condiments, so it’s pretty far from a “stupid” amount of meat - As sad as it is, the average american eats 12.2oz of meat a day, and a big mac only has 3.2oz

    Food production (particularly beef and rice) are among the worlds largest sources for methane (a worse GHG) - also usually fossil fuels burned by production/transportation is generally factored into these estimates

    Regardless, the point i was poorly making is that this infographic sucks because it makes a false equivalency between “energy efficiency” and “good for the environment”. As I noted - biking is substantially more energy efficient than driving an ICE (~21x; 800 vs 16680), but after adjusting for the carbon footprint of food, that 21x becomes somewhere in the range of ~1-9x depending on diet. I suspect this graphic doesn’t list ICEs because they weight half as much and likely come in at a higher efficiency (despite being better for the environment) - which of course goes against the narrative it’s trying to present