TheBanyanTree: lowering my emmissions

[Mike Pingleton]

Julie, it adds up. You can make a difference. A bunch of people can make a
big difference.

I've been bicycle commuting for 15 years. We've had one family car for ten
years - my bike is our second car. Ten years is a nice round number and I
can plug that number into some statistics without needing a calculator.

- the average car uses 600 gallons of gas each year. In ten years I've saved
6000 gallons.  That's $12,000 if I plug in a very middle of the road figure
of 2 bucks a gallon. 12 grand plus the price of an automobile, price of
insurance, price of repair and upkeep.  Sweet!

- the average car produces over 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year.
In ten years I've not produced 120,000 lbs of CO2. Sixty tons.

- it takes 240 trees to absorb the 12,0000 pounds of CO2 produced by the
average car in one year. Me and my bicycle have freed up 2,400 trees to do
the work of absorbing another car's carbon dioxide emissions for a decade.
Let me take that carbon credit and apply it to our family car - am I looking
green or what?

I get my statistics here:

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=6083

I also understand that an hour of exercise gains you around two extra hours
of life, statistically speaking. I generally get 45 minutes of bicycling in,
five days a week, gaining me an extra 7.5 hours of living every week. Over
the decade that's 3900 extra hours, or 162.5 more days on this lovely
planet. Of course, I could also get smushed by a beer truck riding home
today. I'll try to be careful.

Mike


On 5/15/07, Julie Anna Teague <jateague at indiana.edu> wrote:
>
>
> ...To that end, I've been catching a ride in to work with my partner Lee,
> who has to take a van full of tools, else he'd be on our little scooter
> that gets 80 MPG. (This has become our vehicle of choice for going out
> on date nights, and we've had more fun than a barrel of monkeys.)  Then
> I walk the five miles home, an arduous walk to be sure, especially
> after a long day at work.  I have a decent mountain bike which I've
> ridden to work in previous summers, but it has needed some repairs and
> new tires, and I needed a better way of carrying stuff, like a change
> of clothes for the office (I am required, at the very least, not to
> smell bad), lunch, groceries I pick up on the way home, etc.  And then
> there was the bad bike wreck last summer that left me anxious for a
> time, but I'm pretty much over that fear and have a new un-cracked
> helmet.  And as of today, a new lock, since I lost the key to my good
> bike lock. (I lost my entire key chain full of keys somewhere inside my
> own home.  It has never resurfaced.)  And a basket.  And I'm having new
> street slicks put on on Friday so I don't have to slug along on the
> nubby mountain bike tires I currently have.
>
> I'll have my new commuter vehicle all ready to go. I'll save a lot of
> wear on the treads of my shoes and even more wear on my conscience.  I
> will give /them/ as little of my money as possible, and spend it on
> something I believe in.
>
> Julie
>
>