Which is worse?

Hummer owner with vegan diet argues meat-eaters cause more carbon emissions

By peter korn

Pamplin Media Group, Nov 12, 2009 (8 Reader comments)

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Does a vegan Hummer driver have a smaller carbon footprint than a carnivore?

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Casey Harrington is tired of the dirty looks. He won’t even drive his favorite car downtown anymore because he’s afraid people will vandalize it.

Harrington drives a Hummer H1, an honest-to-goodness military-style vehicle.

But the Northwest Portland resident has a message for all those eco-snobs who give him grief. He’s a vegan, and he figures all those people who drive hybrids or ride bikes to work – but who eat meat – leave a larger carbon footprint than he does.

“I believe if you truly care about the environment, you’re vegan. If you’re not, you’re a hypocrite.”

Harrington may have a point, but is he right?

“It depends on how much he drives,” says physicist Gidon Eshel of Bard College in New York. Eshel produced what may be the most comprehensive comparison of transportation and diet when it comes to carbon emissions, a leading cause of global warming.

If Harrington drives like an average American, a little under 10,000 miles a year, his Hummer is responsible for about 6 tons of carbon release a year, Eshel says.

Harrington’s vegan diet is responsible for about 3 tons of carbon release each year, compared to 4.5 tons of carbon release for the average American diet, Eshel calculates.

So Harrington is saving about 1.5 tons of carbon emissions by virtue of his diet.

But a typical American driving a Hummer is responsible for 2.5 more tons of carbon each year than their neighbor driving a Toyota Camry. So the vegan Harrington is not compensating for the Hummer-driving Harrington, if he drives his Hummer regularly.

Trucks a big factor

Calculating the carbon costs of transportation is a lot easier than calculating diet, Eshel says. There are many hidden and surprising costs with food.

For instance, Eshel says, the method used to get non-local food to market often is the factor most responsible for its carbon release. Food shipped by boat is not nearly as carbon-costly as food trucked or flown to market.

A chunk of cheese bought in New York that was shipped by boat from France has a lower carbon footprint than a chunk of cheese trucked to Chicago from nearby Wisconsin, Eshel says.

Some meats he calls “ostentatiously wasteful” when it comes to environmental impact, while others are almost as efficient as plants. Beef is the worst, followed by pork and then poultry. Some fish, such as tuna and swordfish, require a lot of fishing boat fuel to find and catch and bring to market. Other fish, such as sardines and anchovies, don’t take much carbon to harvest.

And not all vegetables are low-impact. Spinach, according to Esher, is delicate and often grown in hothouses that use inefficient kerosene heating. Locally raised chicken has a lower impact than spinach, he says.

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