Michael Pollan Retracts Comment about Meat-Eating Prius Drivers
At last week’s 2009 Poptech conference, author Michael Pollan made this claim: “A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius.”
Michael Pollan
Days later, Pollan, author of the bestseller Omnivore’s Dilemma, retracted the statement after researchers showed that Hummers are significantly more destructive to the environment than hamburgers.
In a blog posted by Reuters’ Adam Pacisk, this evidence came to light:
- Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin of the University of Chicago found, in a 2006 study, that the difference between a heavy meat-eating diet and a vegan diet was about 2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person per year.
- The professors found the difference between a Prius and a Hummer-sized SUV is 4.76 tons per year.
Therefore, switching to a Prius from a Hummer saves more than twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as giving up meat. Of course, going vegan and hybrid at the same time would be like super-sizing your carbon offsets.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment