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Greenhouse Gas Calculator?

Old 01-05-08, 09:39 PM
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Greenhouse Gas Calculator?

Hi Everyone,

I've been watching the debates and the issue of global warming and greenhouse gasses has come up a few times.

Is there an online calculator somewhere online to compute the decrease in emissions we as bike commuters create? On an individual basis?

I wish there was an option on bike journal to log this. That would mean a lot more to me than the number of calories I burn.
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Old 01-05-08, 09:47 PM
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Check this link which a google search turned up: https://www.usctcgateway.gov/tool/

It shows 1000 lbs of carbon equivalent to 189 gallons of gasoline or 5.29 lbs carbon per gallon. Figuring a compact car at 30 mpg, that's about 0.18 lbs carbon per mile. (This is carbon, not carbon dioxide). Double that for a big pickup, 2/3 or half that for little hybrid.
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Old 01-05-08, 11:21 PM
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Replacing your motor vehicle with a human powered bicycle will actually cause more pollution! Your vehicle has the latest in pollution controls, you have none. I dare say that once you start riding a bicycle you will start to pollute more than your car. As you start exerting yourself your body will require more food and water. it will also start exuding body fluids and gas with no pollution controls. Consequently you will purchase more food requiring the corporate owned farms to produce more food. Producing more food requires even more chemicals be added to the soil and pesticides applied. All this stuff must be transported using petroleum fuels as well. More people riding bikes or walking to work would be an environmental disaster!
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Old 01-06-08, 12:32 AM
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Originally Posted by n4zou
Replacing your motor vehicle with a human powered bicycle will actually cause more pollution! Your vehicle has the latest in pollution controls, you have none. I dare say that once you start riding a bicycle you will start to pollute more than your car. As you start exerting yourself your body will require more food and water. it will also start exuding body fluids and gas with no pollution controls. Consequently you will purchase more food requiring the corporate owned farms to produce more food. Producing more food requires even more chemicals be added to the soil and pesticides applied. All this stuff must be transported using petroleum fuels as well. More people riding bikes or walking to work would be an environmental disaster!
Are you my evil twin? Because I use the hackaday logo as my avatar at times(not on this forum), and you somehow know my real name!!

Sorta valid point, although I'm pretty sure you're joking. Although last time I checked I'm pretty sure I wasn't farting methane gas by the metric ton

Also I'm pretty sure caloricly speaking even if I were to eat more (which I do) i would still be better in the long run. I think I read somewhere that cycling is roughly 35 calories per mile, whereas driving is well over 1,000 calories per mile, in terms of energy usage anyways. So still works out in my ( and the environments) favor, even if you factor in pollution produced by bicycle production.

I ride a Surly, read their spew here:

https://www.surlybikes.com/spew18.html
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Old 01-06-08, 12:46 AM
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Driver + car = ~3000-5000lbs
Rider + Loaded Bike ~250lbs

It would take one hell of an efficient car and catalytic converter to make the car pollute less.

There was a thread about this a few months ago, based on an article that made that same argument.
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Old 01-06-08, 08:37 AM
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Originally Posted by scottbot84

Sorta valid point, although I'm pretty sure you're joking.
Wink Wink ~ Nudge Nudge I just wonder how many will think I'm serious?

This Global warming stuff has gotten out of hand. In all reality the temps stopped inching up 6 years ago. Then just a few days ago we learned that all the temps are being recorded in large metropolitan city's with all that pavement, concrete and steel causing inaccurate temperature readings. A few weeks ago they also discovered cyclic changes in currents added to the melting of ice. The vikings colonized Greenland during one of those cycles until it froze again confusing everyone about how a frozen wasteland could acquire that nice sounding name. The global warming cultists have started pushing there pagan mother earth religion extra hard the last couple of years for a reason, the solar cycle has bottomed out and resent observations have shown a few spots to have reversed magnet poles signaling the start of the next solar cycle. This will cause a decrease in solar radiation as more energy is used by solar storms causing a return to cooler temps and changes in ocean currents. I would bet that in about 8 years as the solar cycle progresses well will see a return of dire global cooling warnings just as we see dire warnings about global warming from the media now.
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Old 01-06-08, 10:54 AM
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The temps stopped going up 6 years ago? Its the sun its the sun give me a break! Its been thousands of years sense we have seen such a RAPID increase in temperature. Someone needs to do some researcher. We had record breaking ice melts in the North Atlantic/Arctic last year 2007. It opened up new shipping lanes for even more oil drilling.

Lets see the pavement is black a heat source. Cars need pavement and parking lots all made from oil. The Planet has never had an increase in warming this fast in history.
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Old 01-06-08, 12:37 PM
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You can keep track of your mileage, time, average speed as well as CO2 emissions at www.mycyclinglog.com. It's a free on-line log and works great.
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Old 01-06-08, 11:20 PM
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great site!! Might start using it instead of bikejournal after awhile.

Right now I'm using both, until I decide.

The only thing that's missing is a calorie calculator.
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Old 01-07-08, 09:54 AM
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I believe a gallon of gasoline, when burned and combined with the oxygen in the air, produces about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. My commute, if I drove, would require half a gallon of gasoline based on the distance and mileage of the car. Therefore, each day I commute I refrain from producing ten pounds of carbon dioxide, plus the other by-products that I know nothing about.

I saw an article on the internet some years ago that tried to prove, through calculation, that one biker would cause more pollution with his bike than he would with his car. The reasoning was that on an average trip a certain number of automobiles would have to pass him, and to do so they would have to slow down, wait for the opportunity, move to the left a bit, pass, and then get back up to speed. The getting back to speed would burn some extra gasoline, and the extra gasoline burned by all those people passing the bike would make up for the gasoline not burned by the bike.

I think you can prove just about anything with enough effort.
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Old 01-07-08, 10:34 AM
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Originally Posted by swwhite
I think you can prove just about anything with enough effort.
Especially for the very gullible produced by government run education, if you can call it an education.
This same crap was going on in the 1960's and 1970's with global cooling. Search for photos of the first Earth Day and you'll see people with global cooling signs. That period was from the downward side of that solar cycle. Of course the people that prophet from these media driven "disasters" requiring government funded research will never tell you the real cause, as this would cut off there funding.
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Old 01-07-08, 12:03 PM
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Another arguement I've seen, of how cycling creates more CO2, is that cyclists live longer because of the health benefit, thus causing the person to produce more CO2 over an extended lifetime.
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Old 01-07-08, 01:24 PM
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I worry little about it. Aside from setting off some fanatic. It has been recently noted that during the modern period of "Global Warming" more and more of the official weather reporting stations across the Globe have been moved to improper locations or have had stuff like asphalt parking lots or offices built near them which artificially warms the air.
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Old 01-07-08, 02:36 PM
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Originally Posted by ken cummings
I worry little about it. Aside from setting off some fanatic. It has been recently noted that during the modern period of "Global Warming" more and more of the official weather reporting stations across the Globe have been moved to improper locations or have had stuff like asphalt parking lots or offices built near them which artificially warms the air.
Yeah...and that explains why glaciers are retreating, and ski resorts in the Alps are in danger of going out of business unless they manufacture their own snow.
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