Brynn Marie Evans

I am using a new site called, Diigo, to submit this post. Diigo lets you tag, annotate, collect, and organize web documents you come across in your daily browsing activities. They advertise themselves as being a useful research tool. And, it turns out, I might start a research study looking at how services like Diigo, Google Notebook, and Plum, facilitate (or hinder) the building of a collective intelligence online. Thus, it is only appropriate for me to become a participant in my own study

My first bookmark on Diigo was a really intersting article about cancer immunotherapy. My second bookmark, today, is about the carbon footprint associated with eating meat (Eating beef ‘ is less green than driving’). The article claims that:

2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have the same effect as the carbon dioxide released by an ordinary car travelling at 50 miles per hour for 155 miles, a journey lasting three hours. The amount of energy consumed would light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.

They say that 2/3 of the energy goes towards producing and transporting the meat. Of course, cows are fed plants, hormones, and other goodies — but I still wonder how much of a carbon footprint is associated with eating vegetables, since you still have to produce and transport them. This supports the claim I’ve heard before that better than buying organic is buying local.