The energy efficiency of organic machines

Factual Questions
1

You know how they’re always telling you to ride your bike to work, use the stairs instead of the elevator, yadda yadda yadda?

One part of that, I assume, is the desire to live more ecologically/environmentally friendly lifestyles. My question is: How does the environmental impact of having to provide caloric energy for living beings factor into that comparison? Is it really better for the planet to feed humans to perform manual labor instead of using specially-designed machines with specially-designed fuels for very particular jobs?

2

Well, in America, generally we’ve gone ahead and eaten surplus calories above and beyond what we’d need to use the stairs instead of the elevator. So we’re not consuming any more than we would have to start with.

3

We did this awhile back: How "green" is biking to work? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board

4

Pwned by the human Google.

Thank you :slight_smile: