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Study: Chocolate and Alcohol Are Bad for Your Planet
You may already know how food manufacture contributes to global warming—it's had its fair share of coverage lately, though the actual numbers have varied. In 2007, climate change experts pegged agriculture as producing 10 to 12 percent of global emissions. A Greenpeace study bumps this number up to 17 to 32 percent when you factor in land-use changes such as deforestation and overgrazing.
But a four-year UK study recently released by the Food Climate Research Network is likely to be the most comprehensive research so far. Pegging 19 percent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions as food-related—with meat and dairy contributing half of those—the report serves up more than the usual recommendations to shop locally and walk to the store.
Among the options? Eliminating "unnecessary" foods with little nutritional value like alcohol, which it says contributes 1.5 percent of emissions from food, and chocolate. According to Cadbury, notes the report, the milk in a chocolate bar is the source of 60 percent of the bar's greenhouse gas emissions (no word on whether dark chocolate-lovers are more eco-friendly).
Other personal change recommendations include: using microwaves more often, covering cooking pots for efficiency, shopping on the Internet, and accepting "different notions of quality"—presumably eating bruised peaches.
The UK report also states that by 2050 we'll all need to eat similar to developing countries today: A four-ounce portion (or two sausages) of meat every other day, four cups of milk per week, max, and no cheese. (Currently, the average Brit consumes more than three times that, or the equivalent of two chicken breasts, four ham sandwiches, six sausages, eight pieces of bacon, three hamburgers, 12.5 cups of milk, and three and a half ounces of cheese each week.)
But what do the meat and dairy associations have to say about this? Not surprisingly, the National Farmers' Union in England calls the proposals "simplistic". Chocolate lovers have yet to weigh in.
—Brittney Andres
Obsessing over chocolate? Come on?. It would be more helpful to focus on providing birth control and sex education domestically and abroad.
It's true if we all- meaning the entire world- stopped having so many kids it would greatly improve the environment.
Check out this article:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2008/05/kids-carbon-footprints.h...
Obsessing over chocolate? Come on?. It would be more helpful to focus on providing birth control and sex education domestically and abroad.
It's true if we all- meaning the entire world- stopped having so many kids it would greatly improve the environment.
Check out this article:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2008/05/kids-carbon-footprints.h...
That's rather unfortunate because I'm willing to bet if you polled America right now they'd probably choose chocolate over the stability of the planet.
This is bad news - as a veggie I thought I'd been doing my bit in minimising my greenhouse gas emissions; no, the glass or two of red I enjoy are not just affecting my liver...
And if the NFU think it's a 'simplistic' report; I wonder what the French Wine producing farmers will think of it!
Control you hand and mouth. People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns.
The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey(UK), also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially "low nutritional value" treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.
It urges people to return to habits their mothers or grandmothers would have been familiar with: buying locally in-season products, cooking in bulk and in pots with lids or pressure cookers, avoiding waste and walking to the shops - alongside more modern tips such as using the microwave and internet shopping.
The report goes much further than any previous advice after mounting concern about the impact of the livestock industry on greenhouse gases and rising food prices. It follows a four-year study of the impact of food on climate change and is thought to be the most thorough study of its kind.
Be green, go vegetarian. I don't eat chocolate or drink wine. Chocolate will make be break out, and wine puts empty cals which means fat pounds. I am thin because I eat right.
I don't care for milk chocolate anyway. DARK chocolate is the way to go. No milk so ok for the climate. And it's got a bushel of benefits. I've seen it listed among 'superfoods' alongside broccoli. And several times I've come across opinions that consider it an excellent survival/emergency food.
Damn, that good ol boy Pol Pot sure had some good ideas. Why don't we just round up a few hundred million people and just feed em grass. We can save Mother Gaia if we just cut down on the human vermin.
Imhotep, you are not talking socially responsible. You need to go to re education camp next summer to get your thinking straight.
Go Green, smoke weed.
Deny BigPharma the Power to control self-medicating.
Collegiate excess has repercussions far beyond hangovers and missed classes, and should be of concern to members of the surrounding community. "Binge drinking hurts not only the drinker but also others near him," says Henry Wechsler, Ph.D., a lecturer at the Harvard school of Public Health, where he was also the director of the College Alcohol Study, and author of Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on College Campuses.
"The binge drinker disturbs the peace, through noise, vandalism and sometimes violence. Like secondhand smoke, binge drinking pollutes the environment."
"The [social] cost of alcohol is in the billions of dollars. Roughly half the total is related to what's called alcohol addiction," says Paul Gruenewald, scientific director of the Prevention Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which is funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
"The other half is related to other harms that happen to people when drinking; primarily drunk driving, drunk driving crashes, pedestrian injuries, violent assaults, and various criminal behaviors and various injuries," Gruenewald said.
"It's not a pretty picture. It's quite ugly from the public health point of view. It's a much bigger problem than crime related to illegal drugs," he added.
Alcohol, not marijuana, is the most abused drug in the United States. There are an estimated eight million known alcoholics in America, and the number increases by 450,000 every year. One survey reported that 75 percent of all crimes and 60 percent of all divorces have drinking in their background. The National Safety Council reports 50 percent of all traffic deaths are caused by drunk drivers.
According to Dr. John MacDougall, over seven percent of the adult population in the United States suffers from alcoholism, resulting in decreased productivity, accidents, crime, mental and physical disease and disruption of family life. Excessive consumption of alcohol leads to liver disease, cancer, birth defects (fetal alcohol syndrome) and multiple vitamin deficiency diseases.
A report by the World Health Organization states that "Alcohol is a poison to the nervous system. The double solubility of alcohol in water and fat enables it to invade the nerve cell. A man may become a chronic alcoholic without ever having shown symptoms of drunkenness." The conclusion of the report is that nobody is immune to alcoholism and total abstinence is the only solution.
Dr. MacDougall writes that excessive consumption of caffeine leads to an elevated heart rate, irregular heart beat, increased blood pressure, frequent urination, increased gastric secretion, nervousness, irritability and insomnia. Caffeine is known to cause birth defects in animals, and may do the same in humans. Caffeine stimulates the growth of breast cells, causing benign lumps.
Excessive intake of caffeine may cause a rise in blood fats. Cancer of the urinary bladder has been linked to caffeine use and it contributes to loss of calcium from the body. Moreover, the body actually becomes physically addicted to caffeine. Withdrawal symptoms include headaches, drowsiness, tension and anxiety.
I used to really try my best to do everything possible to be environmentally responsible. But now that I've been bombarded with articles like this for so long, I'm so bloody sick of all this eco-shite I'm actually beginning to look forward to the destruction of the planet.
Forget chocolate and alcohol (I'll watch the planet burn before I give up my ale, you might want to shift your focus to war and nukes. One day soon, it's likely that the two will meet and we'll all be blown to hell anyway.
And it's not like anybody important (world leaders, governments) is doing anything to preserve this little world of ours - not America, not Britain, not China, not India, not Russia - nobody that could make a difference is doing anything real.
This planet will outlast this silly human race as it has all the other extinct species of this world, no matter what we do. We will die off before completely ruining the planet and good effing riddance to us all!
Nutz-
I'm right with you. Eating chocolate and drinking wine will ruin the environment? I think all the factories and cars running on fossil fuels are more to blame. I do believe that farming cattle for meat is wrong, though. Hey, if stopping that helps the environment, too...I am already on the bandwagon.
I am a modest eater. I can go down the list. Now, I'll not make drastic changes until industrial producers of greenhouse gasses take their drastic measures.
yeah.... isn't this like using a squirt gun on a house fire?
moderation, my friends. give up my dark choc and cocoa? i don't think so. there's not even an explanation as to why we should, other than the milk aspect, but true dark chocolate, nor cocoa powder, does not contain milk.
why don't you write about the things that really will make a difference? you think everyone giving up driving would be great? it would be. know what would be even better? if everyone gave up meat, dairy and eggs. that would have an even greater impact on deforestation, gas emissions and global hunger. not ready yet? go half way, for even half the impact. just give up these things for half the week, or consume half in general what you normally consume.
make your own food. cook your own beans, freeze things, buy fewer processed and packaged foods.
buy local wine and beer. no need to give it up completely, but consume moderately.
chocolate and alcohol are not bad for the planet. headlines like this do not help. and really, with the economy and everything else, i think we could all use a pint or two of a local microbrew.
Obsessing over chocolate? Come on . It would be more helpful to focus on providing birth control and sex education domestically and abroad.
It's true if we all- meaning the entire world- stopped having so many kids it would greatly improve the environment.
Check out this article:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2008/05/kids-carbon-footprints.h...
Good lord liberals are fools...How much "carcon" was spent to determine how much "carbon" is created to supply chocolate and booze to the world???
Global warming/climate change is a total hoax - this is the proof - Sun cycles are going to bring us a cooling period for at least the next decade or two.
How much $$$ do you liberals think these "scientists" made for this study???
I think I'll request a million dollars from the EU to study the effects of Mexican restaurants and flatchulance, - I think we can reduce "carbon output" by eliminating them - it's just a matter of time people...How much are you willing to pay in a "carbon offset tax" for your baby??? $1,000, $5,000 - MORE ???
SHEEP - ALL OF YOU...
Nutz said "eco-shite." The word "shxxx" is one of the forbidded words to use per the FCC. Nutz dear, please refrain from using your potty mouth to spew forth such language. It just makes you look uneducated and lacking in the ability to intelligently express yourself. This is a blog for intellectuals to post upon, not the unwashed potty mouth speaking masses.
I wonder how locally brewed beer from a keg sits compared to other drinks?
No bottling, no labeling, just straight outta the tap! No transportation too if you're drinking at a brewpub :).
For all it's benefits, it still doesn't explain why this hangover hasn't going away yet though.