Ekdog

I came across this interesting article from Canada and it made me wonder: Are any of you interested in car-free or car-light living mainly or partially because you are concerned about the environment? I know it is one of the principal reasons I decided to go car-free but, surprisingly, it is rarely mentioned in this sub-forum. I am aware that there are other great reasons for cycling, walking and using public transport, but I wonder if I am the only one here that cares about the effects so many cars are having on the air we breathe and on catastrophic climate change. Any tree huggers around here? I would love to hear from you in this thread.

When you choose to walk or cycle instead of driving, you help to reduce pollution in the environment.

Active transportation, such as walking, cycling, in-line skating or skateboarding, is a great way to reduce greenhouse gases. These gasses harm our environment as they contribute to climate change.
According to iCANwalk's Canadian Vehicle Survey:
The average car emits 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year.
Vehicles contribute to about 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
We would save about 3.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year if every Canadian left their car at home just one day a week. This is the equivalent of taking about 800,000 cars off the road.
In addition, motor vehicles are a major source of smog, which is a mixture of air pollutants including vapours, gases and particles. Smog sometimes looks like yellowish-brown haze in the air but sometimes you cannot see it. Polluted air particles can irritate your breathing, become trapped in your lungs and cause various health problems.
Active transportation does not require fuel and does not cause air pollution. It also frees up more space on the roads, making your neighbourhoods more pleasant.
If active transportation is not an option for you, choose public transit if possible, as one fully-loaded bus can replace about 50 cars.

You can read the rest of the article here: What are the environmental benefits of walking and cycling?

Smallwheels

I really don't care about global warming. I started walking to the grocery store and later riding my bicycle to pollute less. Automobile exhaust stinks and the hydrocarbon pollutants are bad for people. Cars take up a lot of space and resources to manufacture. Manufacturing causes more air pollution.

Cars are great tools. They just aren't used to their full capacity all of the time. Thus they are wasteful.

Using my body to transport myself makes me feel good physically and mentally. Not putting money into a car lets me survive on less income. It also disentangles me from some government regulations.

So I started doing it for the environment and other benefits came along with it which are also appreciated.

jwarner

Someone will be along shortly to tell us that walking and cycling harms the environment more than everyone driving their own car.

To answer your question: Yes. Studied biology at a research university with excellent ecology and marine programs, and have spent much of my life kicking around in some pretty cool wild places. It PO's me what we are doing to our planet and health, as does the utter stupidity of those who refuse to accept that we need to make a lot of changes, or will face even greater consequences than we are now.

Edit to add: I've seen the change in the landscapes I have spent time in for many years (i.e. in glaciers, wildlife habitat, waterway eutrophication, etc...). It's going to suck when everything is reduced to a few R-selected species clinging to the warm mud.

The other part... it just seems wasteful to drive when I am fit, healthy, like being out in all weather, most places I need are want to go are under fifteen miles away, and I rarely have to carry anything that won't fit on my bike.

Disclaimer: I do keep a truck, which for the most part, only gets used if I'm headed out sea kayaking, climbing, or skiing. These activities do not lend themselves well to cycling or public transportation, or if they do, I haven't yet figured out how.

Ekdog

Being surrounded by such magnificent natural beauty must keep you aware of how much we all have to lose if something is not done about climate change. Thank you for posting.

gerv 

Something will be done to fix climate change. The only question is whether it will be too late.

Like your signature line!! I'm feeling pretty smug myself these days.

B. Carfree

Of course such amenities vary by location, but most places where I have lived have buses to ski resorts (there's usually decent X-country near the downhill stuff). I have friends and relatives who have ridden their bikes to kayak and climb, but they are indeed exceptions.

I always found it sad that with all the buses that operate to/in Yosemite, none of the regular climbers ever show up without their motor vehicles. Considering the devastation that the smog has wrought on the views there, I would have thought that at least some of them would have figured this out. Maybe they're all too young to remember what the views used to look like.

B. Carfree

This part really should be expanded on. Particulate pollution, primarily from motor vehicles, causes many thousands of deaths from stroke and heart attacks annually. In addition, it damages the intelligence of children in a way that is comparable to feeding them lead paint chips. This isn't just sore-throat kind of stuff, it's a serious public health disaster.

Dave Cutter

I am confused.... are you suggesting that the Pleistocene period is over? Do you believe than that we are in a interglacial period? Is this based on your observations? And do you have a plan to reverse this process?

jwarner

I am going to be brutally honest here. Please don't feel like I'm harassing you. It isn't my intention.

Human beings have changed our climate by dumping carbon dioxide and particulates into the atmosphere. No credible scientist out there denies this. There is such on overwhelming body of evidence to support this, anyone who believes different, quite frankly is a bloody idiot.

Of course it has become fashionable to attack scientists and the scientific method among some certain groups who refuse to believe the overwhelming evidence presented to them. This is often because 1) they have a monetary or other interest in polluting industries or activities, or 2) do not have the intelligence or intestinal fortitude to step outside party lines and think for themselves. Believe me, at no time during the 15 years of hard work it took me to earn three hard science degrees cumulating in a Ph.D., did I learn to do anything but make observations, collect data, and draw supportable conclusions from this data. I've quit jobs when I was damned hungry because I refused to "fudge" data to present unsupported results. If the data gave any indication that we were not changing the climate, and that there were not going to be catastrophic consequences because of this, I would be all over that, as would many of my peers. This simply isn't supportable.

Further, I don't know how much you know about the peer-review process, or the consequences of presenting unsupported data, but it makes the Spanish inquisition look like a little girls tea party. In case you are wondering, I wasn't born some tree-hugging hippie. I grew up in an auto shop, spent 8 years as a paratrooper in the army (half of this a pretty hard-bitten engineer sergeant), am a veteran of two wars (it is how I kick-started my education), and am also a journeyman heavy equipment operator and millwright. In short, I worked my ass off to go to school, went a bit later than most folks, and know quite a bit about both sides of this stupid debate. It is a stupid debate driven by greedy and ignorant people.

Stepping outside the observations I've made as a scientist producing data and analysis for multiple organizations, which has included well supported evidence of warming sea temperatures (very important that -- look it up if you are at all interested in something other than being obstinate), temperature driven biotic regime changes, and loss of species abundance, complexity, and resilience, I've also seen these changes on a personal level. You see I've also been an avid alpinist, sea kayaker, skier, and diver for most of my life. I've seen glaciers receding and reducing in mass, changes in species composition, and a multitude of other changes that experience, combined with my education as a scientist, as well as my overwhelming desire to truly and honestly understand the world around me, have led me, and every single one of my colleagues with any credibility know beyond a doubt that we are changing the world around us, we are not doing a good thing, and that if we expect any kind of a future, we need to immediately change what we are doing to mitigate these effects as much as possible.

In reality, based on your post, and others that I have read from you throughout this forum, I am fairly certain I have just wasted a whole bunch of time trying to explain something to you that most people in this world who aren't idealogical slaves find fairly obvious. I ask you this, who has the most to gain? Is this academics who are going to get crap pay no matter what, or is it industry supported "experts" who stand to earn a good salary by prostituting their ideals?

I wish you a good day sir. I'm sure I've got your dander up, and you are going to post some kind of opinionated argument based on how you "feel," or one with some kind of crazy support from industry pseudoscientists. I am going to try to save you the trouble. Unless you have some credible peer reviewed information that contradicts the many thousands of scientists with their many millions of hours of work on this subject, I am simply not interested.

Forgive the attached plot. This was from a different edit when I was approaching this dumb argument in a more academic manner. The plot seems to be stuck here, and I can't get rid of it. By the way, you should still probably look at it, as it isn't very good news about what is happening with our oceans. Look up the specific heat of water sometime, and spend some time reading about how ocean temperature affects weather patterns.

Roody

I first decided not to drive a car 40 years ago because I was worried about the effects on the chemistry of our atmosphere. Back then it was called the greenhouse effect, and scientists were only 80 % certain that CO2 from fossil fuels would someday devastate our climate. Now it's know as climate change and scientists are 99% certain that it is already devastating our climate.

The only people who don't believe in the evidence for climate change are a few people with fundamentalist political and religious dogmas. They are led by self-serving billionaires who know climate change is a reality, but don't care because they are making big profits on it. Ordinary people who follow or vote for the self-serving billionaires are nothing but idiots and sheep.

Being carfree won't cure climate change, and even carfree people typically engage in other behaviors that are bad for the atmosphere. But carfree living does help a bit, along with many other things that we can do to help. So yes, riding a bike in place of all or part of your car use is a very good thing to do.

Besides riding bikes and otherwise reducing personal carbon emissions, we can all help by supporting business and political leaders who are committed to finding systemic solutions to the problem of global climate change. Support programs and policies that reduce carbon emissions on every level from your own home and community to the global level. And let the idiots know that they are idiots, and we're not going to just stand by and let them ruin everything.

Dave Cutter

That isn't true at all. Every scientist I know believes that climate change is constant and NOT just human related. The fact is.... the oceans have been rising (with periods of cooling) for about 250,000 years. It was warmer on Earth 2-3K years ago than today. This warming trend continues as the Pleistocene period ends. And is expected to last several thousand more years. But you refuse to address that.

Not by anyone I know. It is however... popular now in the information age (that is currently... by the way) to stand up to mistruth... with truth.

So.... YOU are the guardian of truth and facts. And although you admit that "fudgery" is rampant in the pursuit of grant and research dollars... you can detect the real dangers... with some special sense?

I think maybe... you forgot some of your Spanish inquisition history. I always thought peer reviews to be pretty civil.


I am also a veteran.

So.... I am confused.... are you suggesting that the Pleistocene period is over? Do you believe than that we are in a interglacial period? Is this based on your observations? And do you have a plan to reverse this process?

I understand you have DEEP emotional feeling about this.... I can tell by the many words in your post. But with all your preaching about greed, dishonesty, and the stupidity of those who don't feel like you do...... my question went unanswered..... Do you really believe the Pleistocene period is over?

Dave Cutter

WOW! I am shocked! I have read of people like yourself who have such a low opinion of humans. But it is RARE to see someone actually publish their feeling as it reflects negatively about the poster's own emotional state. It would be difficult to hold such distain for the feelings of other humans without also sharing such negative thoughts.

Of course the climate changes!!!!! It always has... and will continue to change. The climate... could do nothing else. The planet we live on is not a permanent fixture. It doesn't matter if you have religious beliefs or not... everyone with a functioning brain realizes the Earth will have a catastrophic end. Of course... no one really knows what end... or when.

Although.... many superstitious humans convince themselves that performing magic rituals will somehow change the normal course of events. Some even call these superstitions environmentalism and pretend that it has a basis in science (instead of a religion). But ... in the end, reusing shopping bags, turning off lights, and conserving fuel.... changes nothing.

Machka 

+1

Ekdog

Quote:

Originally Posted by B. Carfree

This part really should be expanded on. Particulate pollution, primarily from motor vehicles, causes many thousands of deaths from stroke and heart attacks annually. In addition, it damages the intelligence of children in a way that is comparable to feeding them lead paint chips. This isn't just sore-throat kind of stuff, it's a serious public health disaster.

Many cars here in Spain are powered by diesel engines, whose exhaust is particularly noxious:

Particulate matter or soot is created during the incomplete combustion of diesel fuel. Its composition often includes hundreds of chemical elements, including sulfates, ammonium, nitrates, elemental carbon, condensed organic compounds, and even carcinogenic compounds and heavy metals such as arsenic, selenium, cadmium and zinc.¹ Though just a fraction of the width of a human hair, particulate matter varies in size from coarse particulates (less than 10 microns in diameter) to fine particulates (less than 2.5 microns) to ultrafine particulates (less than 0.1 microns). Ultrafine particulates, which are small enough to penetrate the cells of the lungs, make up 80-95% of diesel soot pollution.

Diesel Engines and Public Health | Union of Concerned Scientists

Ekdog

Thanks for that fine post. The more I hear from scientists like you, the surer I am that those of us who are making an effort to cut down on our CO2 production by driving less or not at all are on the right track.

Here's an interesting article from Slate about how far you need to ride your bike to pay off its initial carbon footprint:

How soon does a bike pay back its initial carbon footprint?*

Ekdog

Welcome to the Smug Club.

Dave Cutter

SMUG ALERT!!!

jwarner

First, the pleistocene ended about 11,700 years BP (Before Present), apparently for everyone except you. During that time, Wooly Mammoths still roamed Spain. Maybe @Ekdog can chime in on how many of these he sees running around.

We are currently in the holocene. This will likely be replaced by the anthropocene (which we would already be in -- these names like all science, are based on repeatable observation -- which, despite what "all the scientists you know" have told you, is how real science is done). This issue is being studied by Geologic Societies of London and America, but is likely to be accepted (and in-fact is in common use -- go here for example --> 2011 GSA Annual Meeting - 9-12 October, Minneapolis, MN) due to the human-caused changes to our environment that have occurred since the rise of the industrial revolution. Of course this is far away from the my field of study, which is complex biological and chemical systems, so they may have reverted back in time and not told me.

Second, "every scientist you know blah... blah... blah." Are these researches still in the Pleistocene too? Do they work out their mom's basement? Does she slide a plate of mammoth through the saber-tooth tiger cat door to them because they are too busy dreaming up unsupported and unpublishable work to come to the supper table? If they are accredited researchers, they are certainly a huge draw at society conferences, if for no other reason than the tragic comedy they provide.

I pretty much quit reading and skimmed at this point because this is a complete waste of my time, and off the OP's topic. I'm not going to be able to give you a basic education in the scientific method here, or summarize the millions of peer-reviewed scholarly works published on this subject. I doubt you are a willing audience anyway as you seem to have some firmly set, unsupported, misinformed, and incorrect notions on this and many topics. It is unfortunate that a such a small (and incorrect) minority driven by greed, ignorance, or pig-headed ideology manages to yell so loudly, that we are still debating the existence of things like human-driven climate change, evolution, etc... despite overwhelming evidence gathered by people who have devoted their lives trying to gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and how it works. These are not opinions. These are things supported by substantial and significant repeatable observations, experiments, and evidence, as well as agreement by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community across many disciplines.

As for how to "fix" things, as you seem to think I should have some kind of answer to "fixing" the climate. Your questions really does nothing more than highlight your ignorance on this matter. The climate and the interrelated ecosystems it supports aren't a 1964 Buick. You don't go out and replace the thermostat and flush the radiator when "she starts running a little warm." In short, we aren't "fixing," anything as there is no going back. This an extremely complex system with evolutionary properties. Any given state at any point of time is the result of multiple inputs that developed throughout geologic time. It exists with multiple potential set-points. It is also a non-linear system, meaning that it doesn't plot as a nice straight line.

Now before you run off saying "we don't know what happened or will happen and this is just normal," I'm going to stop you. We do have a good record of what has happened, can see trends in many, many, many (times a big number) indicators such as ice cores, sea temperatures, species composition and range, the fossil record, bore hole samples, tree cores, this list is pretty huge. We can also draw significant correlations between events such as the well recorded rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other pollutants, and changing global temperatures. Rates of change are also very important, but I think it might take awhile to get you to that concept.

Sticking with the simple, we can measure how carbon dioxide behaves under different conditions (i.e., what happens when you add heat, or increase the level in seawater -- this really should be middle school chemistry), and how this affects long-term global weather patterns and climactic conditions (a bit more advanced than middle school, but should not be beyond the grasp of an advanced high school student with a little work and competent instruction). We can also use the basic physiochemical properties of the atmospheric and environmental constituents to to model how they react, and extrapolate how these interrelated systems will react and respond in the future (need some math for this one, might need some advanced study). I agree, we don't know exactly what will happen, as no-one can see the future, but we can make some pretty realistic predictions about some of the effects based on past events and current knowledge.

As for "catastrophic destruction of the earth" or however you turned the phrase to suit your silly arguments. No, the earth isn't likely to burst into a ball of flame. Pretty sure I've never said or written that. What will happen is that it will be less able to support life, and we will see multiple ecosystem service failures. This isn't a term you are likely to find familiar. Please feel free to look it up in a basic ecology textbook.

With this, I am done with you. Normally I will agree to disagree on many things. This is not one of them. Quite simply, you are wrong, and your dogged adherence to unsupported ideas that fly in the face of widely accepted empirical knowledge is harming the rest of the human race, not to mention every other species on the planet as they exist now. Your arguments string together concepts and ideas you obviously have very little understanding of, in order to prop up and present unsupportable theories as facts or reasonable possibilities. They are not facts or reasonable possibilities. You are presenting thinly-veiled dogma masquerading as tenable ideas to convince poorly informed or educated people that unsustainable behavior providing short-term benefit to very few people is a reasonable course of action.

As for me being "emotional." Yes, pissed is an emotion. In addition to being someone who uses well-established critical and analytical methods to better understand complex systems, I am also a human being, one is quite tired of this incredibly stupid argument, and the small vocal minority of people that are keep the human race from developing a reasonable course of action to mitigate the affects of a problem we have caused as much as possible. Please look up the word mitigate. Looking at the above exchange, you have had problems with that word in the past.


I've now wasted far more time than I wanted to on this utter stupidity. Good day.

Edit to add: as I think visuals are important, I'm going to add this (warning for the thin skinned -- there are a few F* and S* words):

Dave Cutter

Then doesn't that recent end also explain your present time observations.... as ice sheet melt continues till this day. The ocean's have been rising for 250,000 years. I guess you expected them to stop... 11,700 years... and one minute ago. I'd guess not.

You type very well. But an abundance of words does not carry with them an abundance of knowledge. It isn't that we disagree on any facts!!! I am sure we don't. You do seem to be emotionally married to the idea of a planet at risk. I guess I sort of understand that... sort of.

But... we do disagree about the Earth coming to a end. It will, as will all life forms on Earth. All things change and all things have both a beginning and an end. You are powerless to change the future... and I'd guess that is really what pisses you off. Your data collections and energy conservation will all be lost in the void of a unimaginably vast space. Too bad.

The video was cute! He makes fun of polls? By presenting a poll dramatization. Polls don't count... and here is my poll to prove it. Very funny!

Smallwheels

If you wanted to walk from Maine to San Diego how much food would you need to eat during that trip? How many pairs of shoes would you need? How many loads of laundry would you need to do?

jwarner

OK first, I would skip, because it is physiologically impossible to frown while skipping long distances around people you don't know -- really, try it some times... and nothing, I don't care who you are, says success like a smile -- so remember to Turn that Frown Upside Down Mister!

Second, I would limit myself to eating nothing but healthy renewable roadside vegetation and Quorn, an engineered mycoprotein product. I took microbiology... a couple of times. I'm sure I could grow mushrooms in my sneakers...

Which I wouldn't be wearing of course, because I am going to make all of my skipping footwear out of the blown tires and other random debris littering our roadways from sea to shining sea (breaks out into song: "This Land Is your Land, This Land is my Land").

Laundry? If you are going to do something, you really need to do it right. I'll be wearing nothing but the urine and brain tanned hides of roadkill laced together with the wires from steel-belted radials pulled from the soles of my homemade shoes (see above for reference). By the way, anyone seen my cat?

So... unless you are joking... you are telling me that the internal combustion engine, when used to propel an approximately 2 ton vehicle over hill and dale, sucking down prehistoric plant matter that has been explored for, located, drilled for, piped, processed, trucked, and shipped to your local Big Al's Quick-E Mart and Vintage Rotated Hotdog Emporium for you to purchase... not to mention all the mining and petroleum-based products that go into your preferred hooptie, the roadway, the subgrade, the bridges, the stop signs, roadside memorials, worlds biggest gopher hole, spoon (etc) signs, and other general roadside signage and attractions...

--- let me get this straight now.... you are telling me this is energetically more efficient than falling forward and catching oneself in a generally consistent direction resulting in forward motion? Why yes, I can definitely see the logic in that.

Roody

What is your point?

Smallwheels

If you could comfortably walk thirty-five miles per day for one-hundred days how much food would you need to eat, which needs to be harvested and transported to the stores you'll come across? If you're walking then you probably won't be carrying a kitchen, fuel, and the water needed to prepare your foods. Thus you'll most likely eat at restaurants. If you can do that cheaply for $20 per day then that will cost you $2000. Will you be sleeping on the side of the roads or will you be staying in low priced motels? If you stay at Motel 6s for $50 per night at the cheapest rate (not available everywhere) you'll spend an additional $5000 on your trip. So you can buy a decent used car, insurance, and fuel for less than $7000 and get across the country in a week.

I've met people and read stories of people who bought really cheap cars for under $2000 and kept them for several thousand miles without doing any maintenance. There are instances when using a car is cheaper than walking. The same goes for bicycling.

If time is factored into the equation that could mean a big loss in income by staying away from working. If you weren't missing any income by not arriving ninety-three days earlier, then that wouldn't matter. As a tourist the trip would have value on its own. As a person needing to travel quickly for a specific purpose, like starting a new job, then time would be a factor in the cost of using a bicycle or walking a long distance.

You could even apply that to daily commuting. How much of your life can you let go of each day while pedaling twenty-five miles to work and then home? That takes time away from doing other things. Such long commutes don't matter to somebody who absolutely loves bicycling. Somebody using a bicycle as transportation who is not in love with every minute of riding would not get the same pleasure spending so much time on a bicycle.

Smallwheels

The amount of resources used is the point.

Roody

OK. What is the amount of resources used by driving versus walking versus cycling?