Why Walking to Work Can Be More Polluting Than Driving to Work (2013)

https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2013/McKenziewalking.html

by ArtemZ • 3 years ago

7 25 3 years ago

econlib.org

lukas099• 3 years ago

If you drive, you still have to exercise. Walking to work gets the exercise done and gets you to work.

jmclnx• 3 years ago

so my takeaway from the article is if you do not eat, then walking to work is less polluting :)

aeternum• 3 years ago

The articles always consider the entire supply chain down the manure used to fertilize the fields for both alternate modes of transport and EVs.

Then when it comes to gas cars, somehow all they consume is the gasoline. The car itself and all the oil drilling and refining infrastructure doesn't count.

fatnoah• 3 years ago

Don't forget the energy needs of the people that make the cars.

My favorite point, however, is that for my car, 100% of the energy used is for purposes of propelling the car from point at to point B. For a human, the energy from walking is a fraction of the total energy use for the day, so if I want to take into account the cost of the food supply chain devoted ONLY to my walking to work.

Steltek• 3 years ago

Yeah, that kind of omission is enough that no one should bother reading this "article". What a bunch of bullshit.

rspoerri• 3 years ago

It also doesnt include building and maintainig the roads, theyr space requirement and the negative influence on nature.

manicennui2• 3 years ago

Don't forget the wars we fight to secure access to energy resources.

skrtskrt2• 3 years ago

this cannot be a serious article.

Edit: it's part of the "Liberty Fund Network" along with "AdamSmithWorks". Get this trash off HN.

they just took an article about the environmental cost of beef and did napkin math to make a pro-car right wing think tank point

no accounting for which food I'm eating at all, first of all.

acting like the food creation and distribution is somehow so massively less efficient than petroleum extraction and distribution.

People have to exercise and food has to be eaten anyway. Petroleum products do not have to be extracted and burned.

Please be for real.

MarkusWandel• 3 years ago

Cherrypicked statistics, as usual. This article at least mentions that it only works for efficient cars; if you have an inefficient one, then walk.

But they compare walking by a very unfit person - 200 food calories, i.e. 2 nice cookies, burned in a 2 mile walk is wishful thinking if you do this kind of walking regularly - the body gets more efficient with practice - with optimal automobile usage, i.e. fully warmed up car, straight highway to the office, stop. No traffic lights, no congestion.

WastingMyTime89• 3 years ago

Stupid article.

First, most humans already consume enough extra callories for not having to consume more to walk to work. Actually, doing so would only be a net benefit healthwise for most.

Even then, the way they count the emission of food production focuses on cattle which is known to be highly inefficient.

Garbage premise, garbage conclusion.

gspencley3• 3 years ago

I agree but, to play Devil's Advocate, I think the larger point is still a good one: always consider the unseen rather than only focusing on the immediately obvious.

That said, people in general do tend to eat too much. I'm not even just talking about processed and "junk" foods. Throughout most of human history food was very scarce and we can go a shockingly long time, by modern standards, without eating.

Speaking from personal experience, the less I eat the less hungry I feel and therefore the less I want to eat. From my limited understanding, this is hormone related. Insulin is the hormone that our pancreas releases when our blood sugar spikes and it's our body's way of saying "there is energy here to store." Once the insulin spike drops you start burning stored fat and your fat cells release another hormone called ghrelin which triggers the hunger response. So as unintuitive as it is, eating less is actually a good way of feeling less hungry in general (after the initial hormone spikes have dropped). I've also heard that physical exercise can act as an appetite suppressant, though I don't know why.

So you're absolutely right, if people made healthier lifestyle choices in general (and knew what those choices were since there is so much contradictory information out there) then that would reduce demand on the food supply chain.

rsclient• 3 years ago

My own take: I only see people worrying about the "unforseen side effects" when its conservative people worrying about liberal concepts.

Are there any takes on the gross energy inefficiency of mega-churches? The political downsides to allowing single corporations to own mulitple radio and TV stations? The waste of super-profiling internet users in order to (slowly) serve ads?

Nope, never. It's always an "analysis" showing that some generally liberal-oriented thing is bad.

skrtskrt2• 3 years ago

You don’t need to play devil’s advocate for a bad-faith terribly-written, terribly-argued, and terribly-researched article.

No one involved in serious research or policymaking needs to be reminded that second order effects exist.

passwordoops• 3 years ago

Good example of being too smart for your own good and ignoring the obvious question: do people who walk actually eat more than drivers?

aaronbwebber• 3 years ago

How does this kind of shit get upvoted?

it really takes about 5 seconds of thinking about this to realize why this "analysis" is stupid - he takes an INCREDIBLY expansive view of what counts as "pollution" from food production and then takes the narrowest possible view of what counts as "pollution" from driving a ICE car.

It's frankly embarrassing that econlib would even host this kind of crap which would get a failing grade in an undergraduate econ class.

_cenw• 3 years ago

Nothing in this article is interesting or thought-provoking. In fact I think it's actively trying to make me get into a stupid argument (and all without culture war shenanigans).

vonnik• 3 years ago

This is one of the stupidest articles ever written.

One of big assumptions is that walkers eat more than non-walkers.

Walking to work will make many of the people who do it healthier. And that health will have many knock-on effects in a society bearing the costs of widespread metabolic syndrome.

Anyone who wants to walk should let this partial and faulty reasoning get in their way.

usful• 3 years ago

There are so many problems with this conclusion it is hard to even start.

The foundation of this entire argument is off by a large factor.

... computes that a 180-pound person walking one mile to and from work at a pace of two miles per hour will burn 200 calories above the 2,000 calories burned each day to maintain the body’s basic metabolism.

Walking is very energy efficient, walking one mile burns 40-60 calories depending on weight. Two way trip is 80-120.

Khelavaster• 3 years ago

Depends on how much work you put into car repair and maintainence yourself, I guess...

It's almost like our modern monetary system reflects 'total' carbon emissions to some degree, including emissions from all labor..

piva00• 3 years ago

Liberty Fund stuff... A pro-corporate think tank trying to peddle bullshit about how walking consumes more resources than running a car. It's just ludicrous.

The laws of thermodynamics are unchangeable, except when bent by free-market absolutists it seems.

fabiofzero• 3 years ago

One thing I like to do when I see an article like this is look up:

1. Where it's published 2. Who published it 3. Which think thank did it 4. Who's paying for it

Econlib is "The Library of Economics and Liberty". These days "Liberty" has a very clear right-wing association. Cool, let's dig further.

This website is owned by Liberty Fund Inc., self-described as "a private educational foundation established to foster thought and discussion of enduring issues pertaining to liberty". There's out think thank. Let's find out who's involved with it.

From Wikipedia: "Liberty Fund was set forth in an unpublished memo written by Goodrich "to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals"

Found the libertarian in the room! They even mention Alexis de Tocqueville in the article! Let's keep going.

"In his book The Assault on Reason, former U.S. Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore wrote that between 2002 and 2004, 97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges were Republican administration appointees. Gore suggests that such conferences and seminars are one of the reasons that judges who regularly attend such conferences "are generally responsible for writing the most radical pro-corporate, antienvironmental, and activist decisions"."

There you go. File under junk.

upofadown• 3 years ago

When humans eat animals to get their replacement calories for walking to work...

Yeah, if I am hungry after a walk I throw a steak in the frying pan. /s

Energy for extra activity comes out of carbs and fats. Moderate level activity like walking does not increase the need for expensive food with protein in it.

manicennui2• 3 years ago

In addition to the nonsense that others have pointed out, I found it humorous that they felt the need to take a dig at electric cars with nonsense like "If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime".

Why Walking to Work Can Be More Polluting Than Driving to Work (2013)

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