Even a car that produces no emissions would still pollute.
How? by lifting dust on the floor, aka airborne dust or particulate matter.
In cities with no street cleaning, this amounts to a large amount of pollution.
Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
21–30 of 72 posts
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#22One issue is that in the United States, bicycle fatality for mile traveled is around 3-10x worse than for cars.
https://bicycleuniverse.info/bicycle-safety-almanac/
Given the prevalence of cars in the United States and the lack of protected bicycle lanes in many places, it is probably safer to go to where you want by car than by bike.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that’s a bicycle.
Let's call it a human assisted electric motorcycle then.
I am trying to make a distinction between fully powered vehicles and not.
You could also make a distinction between fully protected vehicles (two tons of steel around you in the form of a car) and not.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#24Though I would argue with some of the author's assumptions about carbon footprints and power grid challenges, he's right that fewer cars ultimately means a better environment and less carbon. No argument with that. However... As much as I'd love to just tell everyone to ride a bike to work, or the grocery store, or to drop off their kids, or whatever, the reality is that in most cities (especially US cities) a car is…
+1. It's not even inside our cities, getting between our cities is a complete mess. I'm ~15mi from the nearest big(2k pop+) city. There's zero buses that run these routes. Getting to the large metro area? I'd burn 7 hours on the train for the same drive that takes me ~2.5 hours to go 150mi. When I have to travel into the office I literally can't make a day trip of it(train arrives at 12:30pm, leaves at 1pm) if I didn…
You're already taking a huge step by not coming into the office everyday.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#25A typical article decrying EVs on the assumption that nothing will change. If every house ends up with a solar array and an equivalent of a Tesla Powerwall (other brands are available) then there won't be massive demand on the grid. You don't have to fast-charge a Leaf. You can charge it overnight. I pay for a "100% renewable" electricity tariff. Of course not all of the energy I draw is from renewables, but it is al…
Also, countries like Norway manage to generate most of their electricity from renewables. Just because most countries don't doesn't mean it's impossible.
It is, in fact, extremely hard, even in theory and more so in practice, for most countries to replace most energy use with energy from renewable sources, unless we go with nuclear energy. See e.g. [1].
With world wide effort, electrical connections spanning the globe, tropical countries selling solar power to colder regions, huge and cheap energy storage facilities, we could maybe achieve that, though I'm really rather rooting for fusion, which should be economically available in only a few decades.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#26Though I would argue with some of the author's assumptions about carbon footprints and power grid challenges, he's right that fewer cars ultimately means a better environment and less carbon. No argument with that. However... As much as I'd love to just tell everyone to ride a bike to work, or the grocery store, or to drop off their kids, or whatever, the reality is that in most cities (especially US cities) a car is…
I think the emphasis on US cities is key here. I've yet to live in a european city where a car is a requirment. Agree with you on the short term however.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#27Though I would argue with some of the author's assumptions about carbon footprints and power grid challenges, he's right that fewer cars ultimately means a better environment and less carbon. No argument with that. However... As much as I'd love to just tell everyone to ride a bike to work, or the grocery store, or to drop off their kids, or whatever, the reality is that in most cities (especially US cities) a car is…
> City planners assumed everyone would have one, engineers overbuilt roads for them to the detriment of walking or biking, and businesses and residential areas are often far apart from each other.
Close. More like "rich white people had cars, rich white people control local zoning and planning decisions, ergo cities and suburbs were planned to accommodate those rich white people's cars, and then we all had to get one just to survive because density and infrastructure support dollars dropped to a point where other modes became unviable."
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#28I don't know about others but the reasons why I bike to work have nothing to do with reducing carbon or being green or being healthy, it's simply that I find it a lot more fun to get to work by bike than drive. It actually takes 20 more minutes by bike (and that's without including the immediate shower and changing clothes afterwards) but I can get a nice workout, feel refreshed and full of energy and it feels nice to be fit (ex. taking stairs at work I don't gasp for air like my coworkers).
I don't think people will start biking unless they like the activity but lots of people simply like to drive. The problem is that even those that like to ride (or would like) aren't being encouraged to do so. I'd rather focus on improving the biking infrastructure (make separated lanes, over and/or underpass bridges for big intersections, better public transit that allows to carry bikes on board) and improve the tax situation so I don't have to pay for car-only infrastructure even if I don't use it (car-only infrastructure costs such as building and maintaining freeways is mostly payed out of property taxes, not gas taxes). That way more people will feel safer to ride, feel like they are saving money while doing it and maybe even discover that they like it.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#29No car is ever going to be as green as a bicycle. Forget cars. A motorcycle is probably the smallest powered vehicle that is street legal. Smallest one still will weigh at least 250lb. Moving just that mass alone, you’ve blown your energy budget vs a bicycle. Oh I suppose you could argue about the environmental cost of producing the extra calories consumed by the cyclist. Growing and transporting that grass fed steak…
> Oh I suppose you could argue about the environmental cost of producing the extra calories consumed by the cyclist. The human body is very efficient. I'd be extremely surprised if my 15 minute bicycle commute to work burned more than 100 calories on top of my BMR. There's just no comparison. > I guess all you valley dwellers should probably cycle to work to save the planet for us all. We will applaud you from our AW…
> The human body is very efficient.
Uhh, you are not using the right metric.
Yes, humans take calories, and convert it to energy at a rate of 25%. But you aren't eating coal and turning it into energy.
The ways that humans turn sunlight into energy is that the sunlight hits plants, which gets harvested by humans, which gets fed to cows, and then get harvested, prepared, and transported to stores, and THEN it is consumed by humans.
I sincerely doubt humans are more efficient than cars, on a per energy basis.
Re: Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
#30One issue is that in the United States, bicycle fatality for mile traveled is around 3-10x worse than for cars. https://bicycleuniverse.info/bicycle-safety-almanac/ Given the prevalence of cars in the United States and the lack of protected bicycle lanes in many places, it is probably safer to go to where you want by car than by bike.
Cycling is dangerous because of cars striking and killing cyclists. Choosing to drive the mile to the grocery store is probably statistically safer but increasing the number of bikes on the road will make drivers more conscious of vulnerable road users.