The internet's energy footprint is soaring by more than 10 per cent a year and now produces more greenhouse emissions than flying, according to a report in The Guardian.
Badmouthing the sausage sanga may be positively un-Australian, but the humble, belchin' and fartin' five-stomached cow emits more than her fair share of the greenhouse gas methane (scientists are looking at ways to bottle it). Cattle also require huge tracts of rainforest in the Amazon, Queensland and elsewhere to be cleared for their grazing pleasure. A cow consumes about a hundred times more food than it yields as meat, which means meat-eating means humanity needs more land to feed itself. Pork is not quite as bad, but you still have to put a lot more food into a pig than you get out. Meat consumption is soaring among the new Asian middle class in places like China, the world's population is soaring, the amount of cultivatable land is finite... you do the maths. At least we've still got hot chips.