Carbon Footprint

Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.

Another day I read in The Focus magazine (December 2008) an article on an influence of eaten food on an the global warming. At first I was very skeptical and even laughed out the idea. Nevertheless I read the article and now I feel a bit brainwashed.

Here is a bit of what I have found in that article.
A annual carbon footprint of an average household is 8.1 tons which is almost twice of the CO2 emitted by car (19 000 km/year, 9l/100km) per year. Scientists started to measure how much of gases are emitted during a production of food. The calculations are very complex because every joule of energy must be analyzed on a the way from a field to a fork. In case of meat methane and nitrogen have to be also considered. Methane stays in the atmosphere from 9 to 15 years and holds warmth 21 times better than CO2. Even worse is nitrogen oxide released from fertilizers and stable manures. That gases make warmth accumulate in the atmosphere 296 times more than CO2 and remains more less 114 years.

So, what is measured?
For instance when you want to find out how much you influenced the environment having a chicken breast for dinner you need to consider:
1. Production of granulated feed
a. Cost of fertilizers, growing, harvest
b. Processing seeds into small granules
2. Heating huge buildings for quarter million birds
3. Gases produced and energy used by slaughterhouses, processing plants, factories that produce packages
4. Transport from/to slaughterhouses, factories, warehouses, stores, houses,
5. Storage of flesh in freezers
6. Cooking

The chicken is a rather simple example. If the process is longer and more complex it is harder to calculate the production of CO2.
Astrid Scholz created a carbon calculator. The program doesn’t show any specific calculations but we can find out for instance that a hard-boiled egg emits 333 grams of CO2, a bowl of cereals with milk 1224 grams (like an SUV on distance of 6km). But the worst problem is red meat. For each kilogram of chicken 2.3kg of seeds is needed, for kilogram of pork – 5.9kg and for beef even 13kg of seeds and twice more of hay. Not to mention methane and nitrogen.

400g of beef = 6400 g CO2 eq
4 big apples = 110 g CO2 eq
1kg of potatoes = 240 g CO2 eq
1l of milk = 1050 g CO2 eq
1kg of carrots = 45 g CO2 eq
1kg of onion = 80 g CO2 eq
300g of cheese = 2600 g CO2 eq
300g of tomatoes = 2800 g CO2 eq
6 eggs = 1650 g CO2 eq 1
50g of salmon = 300 g CO2 eq
25g of potato crisps = 55 g CO2 eq

CO2 eq - unit is obtained by converting all emitted greenhouse gases during a production a product into such amount of CO2 that would cause the same warming of the atmosphere.

Well… it brings thousands of questions on my mind.
Does it mean we have to stop eating meet and many tasty things and be confined to a selection of products determined by someone? How far can we believe in such articles and scientists? Or maybe it’s really the only way for us to help the environment? What do you think?