March 15, 2011

As I stood and waited for my bus this morning, watching the cars go by on the street, I was curious to see who was in them. Where were they going? Were they bringing their children to school or perhaps off to work? However, while this started off as mere curiosity and a bit of snooping, I began to notice how many cars held only one person.

Isn't it supposed to be one of the most basic facts, that if you carpool it saves not only gas but money and emissions? Yet, so many people ignore this or forget this, it seems. Now, I don't know how environmentally conscious these drivers are, but my guess is that everyone by now knows something about global warming and probably recycles or has bought a compact flourescent lightbulb in the hopes of feeling good about their actions. But what about your driving habits? 

This got me thinking - every time I visit my grandparents in Kingston I am struck by the amount of cars on the street. It is a typical suburb, and with no exaggeration, almost every house on the block has 3 cars. Seriously. Not only is this asthetically very unpleasing, but does one family really need 3 cars? Combine this with the very likely probability that each of these cars is driven by one person and you have a lot of emissions on your hands.

Clearly we are a car culture. 

A study in 2006 done on the US says that: "the exhaust coming out of our car has actual weight—an average household with two mid-sized vehicles emits more than 20,000 pounds of CO₂ a year. That's 10 tons of pollution adding to the layer of greenhouse gases that heat the Earth. Excessive amounts of these gases—especially CO₂—are forming too thick a heat blanket around the Earth and leading to climate change."

Source

Yes, there are other factors out there which contribute to global warming, but driving is such an easy habit to alter and change. Be it the type of car you drive, how much you drive, carpooling or using more public transit or even bikes, its easy to cut down the amount you drive and your emissions.

If you are curious about how much CO2 you are emitting when you drive, check out this website CO2 Emissions Calculator. Just for fun, I entered: 2007 Ford Focus 2L 4 cyl E4E and it came out to be that for every 100 km you drive per week, you emit 1 ton of carbon per year. Now, I'm not sure how good or bad this is, obviously you'd have to go through and compare it to other models of Ford and other cars of different makers but similar size - but still, an interesting thing to play around with (especially if you know cars, which I don't).

Finally, two points to leave you thinking: (1) which is better, a vegan driving a hummer or a meat eater driving a hybrid (not sure I've posed this question in an earlier post, but an interesting point nonetheless) (2) Since the 1950s the only measurable and significant drop in emissions was in 2008 during the economic crisis.