Milk is Evil

I saw an article about carbon emissions yesterday that made me smile. I smiled because the article kind-of sort-of implied that I’m more environmentally friendly because I’m lactose intolerant. How cool is that! Does it make sense? Hell no. The article has been conflated and misinterpreted and passed around the internet and further maligned. But that’s why it’s fun.

Chris Goodall is the poor author who is at the center of the brouhaha. He’s an environmentalist of some sort and he was giving an interview to promote his book. He was attempting to make the point that while a lot of attention is given to the carbon impact of transportation there is still very little attention given to the carbon impact of our food supply production. In particular Chris is worried about the carbon impact of animal products in our food supply. Chris made the mistake of concocting an example to try and explain his point. The following example was printed in the New York Times:

“If you walk 1.5 miles, Mr. Goodall calculates, and replace those calories by drinking about a cup of milk, the greenhouse emissions connected with that milk (like methane from the dairy farm and carbon dioxide from the delivery truck) are just about equal to the emissions from a typical car making the same trip. And if there were two of you making the trip, then the car would definitely be the more planet-friendly way to go.”

Basically Chris is just trying to say that food production does have a serious carbon impact. I think it’s a bad example…but I don’t really care. What’s funny is while he trying to raise awareness of the evils of carbon emissions he’s become the patron saint of hummer drivers. People have latched on to his example and are using it to justify how all those smelly hippy environmentalist are killing the plant with all their walking instead of safe eco-responsible driving.

Personally I love this argument. The only way we’re going to save this planet is if we all stop eating food and start burning fossil fuels! Who’s with me?

What I really love is milk is made out to be the villain. Yes, it’s about time someone has stuck it to Big Dairy. It’s not bad enough that they make a product that makes me physically ill to consume…then they have to go and rub my nose in it by claiming its super healthy and my bones will disintegrate if I don’t consume it. Yeah well….at least I’m not killing the planet.