Russell McMahon wrote:

>> When someone compares the effect of mere burning of some gas with the
>> whole infrastructure behind industrially creating some luxury food and
>> conveniently seems to forget to consider the resources necessary to
>> create the gas... What do /you/ think when you see this?
> 
>> This is the third time I'm writing this, and it seems you just don't see
>> it.
> 
> I assume that you are referring to similar comments on a related but 
> different item on a prior occasion. 

No. One on this thread (before the above cited one, cited by James's reply
to which you responded) and one a day or so before when Jinx (IIRC) posted
the link to that same article.

> In this case I think the man may have been "flying a kite" / "setting up
> a straw man" / trolling / ... BUT I'm also aware that reports of what
> someone said and did are often enough less than fully correct. In this
> case I didn't go past the initial article so I can't say whether his
> analyses are as shonky as others have suggested. They may be.

I don't know either. I commented on the claims as stated in the newspaper
article. That was the posted link.

> I note only in passing that it can be legitimate to compare incremental
> costs of two systems. For example, if one were to already possess a
> motor vehicle and a pair of legs then it may in some instances be
> reasonable to compare the incremental cost and cost benefit of using
> each of them to perform a given task - such as going down the road for
> fish and chips. 

If this were what they had written about in the article, I wouldn't have
commented. But this is not what they wrote about... 

They compared the CO2 released by burning the gas (assuming the gas comes
out of nowhere, is "just there") with the total CO2 released not by
digesting the 100g of beef but by putting it on the table (and digesting
it). A more realistic approach would be to include the CO2 released along
the way of bringing the gas to the table, so to speak; don't you think?
(That's now the 4th time I'm writing this :) 

The second faux-pas is that they assumed that we only eat (in terms of food
energy) what we need. I don't think that this is anywhere near reality.

And the third blunder they made is the conclusion. Assuming that their
previous results showed in fact something, there is a number of conclusions
you could take from that: eat less meat, for example, is one. Drive less,
another one. But drive more? Give me a break. How is driving more reducing
anything?

(And before you say that they said "drive more, walk less, and therefore
eat less meat" -- I don't think I have to show you the fallacies in that
conclusion chain, right? :)


> If the argument was about owning or not owning a car at all 

It is not. That's just a side aspect. You can ignore it (or consider it
irrelevant for the issue of the article), and there's still everything else
(what I wrote above and the preceding 3 times :). 

But since this is the only argument you're bringing (funnily though, not
relevant to the article :) ...

> I suspect that a substantial majority of western "greenies"* who walk,
> bicycle or publicly transport, also own or use a motor vehicle when
> occasion seems to merit. In such cases the differential cost of use may
> well be a valid basis for comparison.

Now come on, we are engineers, aren't we? We calculate lifetime figures. A
car mostly gets "spent" when driven. The lifespan of a car is generally
measured in distance driven. While the distance driven is not the only
dependency, it's the major contributor. You talked about incremental cost.
If I drive 40Mm per year and the lifespan of my car is 400Mm at that rate
(and the roads I drive, my driving style, my maintenance efforts etc),
that's 10 years. Over my active lifetime of 60 years, that's 6 cars I go
through. If I drive 20Mm/y, that's probably 4 or so (considering that time
without distance also has a lifetime cost). All approximately, to
illustrate that in driving a car there is an incremental (differential)
cost involved with distance driven that goes far beyond gasoline, even if
you already own a car. 

You may not see your car age with each km you drive, but it /does/. And you
know it... :)

> * I gain the impression that a number of people who comment adversely
> when I discuss environmental issues assume that I am anti-green. This is
> far from the case.

This is not about green or anti-green. (What is "green"? :) This is about
reason and reality.

I agree with you that many things are not as they appear, and when thinking
about resource usage and side effects of policies, we're pretty much
tapping in the dark -- still. But that article... it does a disservice to
any reader, I think. It annoys the ones who can reason about its claims,
and it misleads the ones who can't.

Gerhard

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