TEDBlog

« What are you optimistic about? | Main | A Bezos Blast »

04 January 2007

The cheeseburger footprint

TED2006 speaker Jamais Cascio has a very interesting way of considering cheeseburgers. He tries (in this post) to calculate their carbon footprint: how much carbon is produced in the process of cooking the burger, plus growing the feed for the cattle, growing and milling the wheat to make bread, growing the other ingredients, slaughtering and freezing the cattle for meat, pickling cucumbers, storing and transporting, driving to the fast-food restaurant, etc, not to forget, at the beginning of the chain, the methane emissions from the cattle. He details the sources of his data and his calculations in the post, and concludes that

the overall CO2-equivalent emissions from all the cheeseburgers consumed in the US [in a year] roughly equal the greenhouse output of 100'000 SUVs.

Posted by Bruno Giussani | | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.ted.com/cgi-bin/mte/mt-tb.cgi/2948

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The cheeseburger footprint:

Cheeseburgers or SUVs? from purplemass.com
"the overall CO2-equivalent emissions from all the cheeseburgers consumed in the US [in a year] roughly equal the greenhouse output of 100'000 SUVs." Read more here More...

Tracked on January 18, 2007 12:21 PM

Discuss Blog Post

  • CHOPS – January 14 2007

    You might find comments that Tony Robbins made in his book Awaken the Giant Within about this topic. He also mentioned a book by John Robbins (no relation) called "Diet for a New America."



    The amount of resources used to make cheeseburgers is staggering, and appears that it takes a daily toll on the environment.


Tools for TED.com

Find out more about -- and download -- the handy TED Miro player >>
As we complete transcripts, we share them here >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog's RSS feed >>
Join the TEDTalks official Facebook Group >>
Download TED and Ideo's Big Questions widget >> Get TEDTalks updates via Twitter >>

Tips? Comments? contact (at) ted (dot) com


Get involved: TED Prize wishes

Once Upon a School

Meet the Greens

Next Einstein

InSTEDD

Open Architecture Network

Encyclopedia of Life

Pangea Day


Get the latest TED Prize news on TEDPrize.org>>

TED Bloggers

Chris Anderson | Curator
June Cohen | Director of TED Media
Amy Novogratz | TED Prize Director
Tom Rielly | Humorist
Bruno Giussani | TED European Director
Jason Wishnow | Director, Film + Video
Emily McManus | Editor, TED.com
Matthew Trost | Editorial Assistant, TED.com

Blogs we watch

>> TEDPrize.org | Updates on the 2008 TED Prize winners and wishes:
Dave Eggers' wish blog
Karen Armstrong's wish blog
Neil Turok's wish blog

>> Thomas Dolby | TED Musical Director, blogging at ThomasDolby.com
>> Bruno Giussani | TED European Director, blogging at LunchOverIP.com
>> Emeka Okafor | TEDAfrica Director, blogging at Timbuktu Chronicles and Africa Unchained

by topic

Archives

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Powered by Movable Type

What we blog about