Comment by nkurz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nkurz | Hacker News Reader

To put this in perspective, changing your diet from omnivore to vegetarian appears to have about the same effect on greenhouse gas production as a roundtrip flight across the United States (5000 mi / 8000 km total distance).

Here are approximate figures for CO2-equivalent emissions different diets:

  Omnivore: 6500 lbs/year (3000 kg/year)
  Vegetarian: 5300 lbs/year (2400 kg/year)
  Vegan: 4500 lbs/year (2000 kg/year)

http://www.kohalacenter.org/HISGN/pdf/carbofoodprint.pdf

And here's data for a round trip flight from JFK-SFO (New York to San Francisco):

  JFK-SFO: 700 lbs (300 kg) (each way)

https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/P...

The savings of going from omnivore to vegetarian is thus slightly less than avoiding the cross-continent flight, and the savings from going from omnivore to vegan is slightly greater. This doesn't mean that you should or shouldn't change your diet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but if you are flying more than one long haul flight per year, I think it does mean that there might be more benefit to reducing your travel than changing your diet.

One should also note that a vegetarian diet may not be optimal for your individual health profile. People with colitis, diversticulitis, chron's disease / IBS or other allergies might not do well on a high fiber diet. In other words, there's a lot of debate still about which diets are optimal for humans. Clearly there's a spectrum, but a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet may not be the most healthy diet for a given individual.

> Clearly there's a spectrum, but a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet may not be the most healthy diet for a given individual.

Your comment would've been comprehensive if you'd also said that a meat based diet may not be the most healthy diet for a given individual. Without that, it's just one sided argument for your preferences, the exact notion that you seem to be against (in all your comments) with respect to the article's author.

I concede that, although I didn't think that was necessary. I'm not arguing for meat here-- everyone should decide what's best for their health. I'm addressing the article, not your desire for me to be comprehensive.

For comparison, my electric company, Puget Sound Energy, has a thing called the Green Power Program. You can pay extra on your bill and that somehow pays for renewable power to be added to the grid, offsetting your carbon footprint [1].

For $4/month, they say it will reduce my carbon footprint by 5328 lbs CO2/year. $6/month give 7991 lbs CO2/year. It looks like it goes up linearly.

My guess is that convincing the average person to pay $4/month will be a lot easier than convincing them to give up meat, and it has a bigger impact.

[1] https://www.pse.com/green-options/Renewable-Energy-Programs/...

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