abowles:
The reasons behind my saying I was not sure about that chart:
1) 17 year old data
2) very imprecise Y scale- you see 20, but it looks more like 14 to me
3) terribly general categories. I mean, come on- Industry? Energy Use? What the heck goes into those categories?
4) no applicable transporatation category, though you seem to have equated transportation with energy use for some reason. Without a transporation category, it's impossible to do an apples-to-apples contrast with the PETA spokesman's relative comparison. For all we know, transportation costs related to agriculture were bundled into that column, and the transportation costs related to industry were in that column, etc.
Basically, it seems to me to be a near-useless chart with no context or explanation. In context it may be valuable but it doesn't help us here at all. I'm not saying I know for sure that you're wrong or that PETA is right- the USDA link does state that
Quote:
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Worldwide, agricultural activity accounts for about 20% of the global GWP, but agriculture contributes only about 7% to the total U.S. GWP.
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but they are hardly an unbiased source, and once again, the data is old (this page was last updated in 2000 and it does not cite a source for the figure, so who knows how far back it goes?).
Pardon my constant skeptical need for precision- I'm just that way.
