8 ms·

Climate Impacts of Biking vs. Driving

• d--b 10y ago
  It doesn't count what the impact of extracting gasoline is, or the effect of transporting it on a supertanker. And what about feeding all those people working in the oil industry? and the energy used by lobbyists to convince people to drill in Alaska. And aren't they eating meat themselves? And the BP leak? How much km of cycling did that cost? This kind of study is completely bogus.
  • gbrown 10y ago
    Not to mention whether exercise is substituted. What about a driver who runs on a treadmill, or does some equivalent amount of exercise without getting transportation in return? Plus, did I miss something, or was food not counted as a renewable resource? While agriculture is not carbon neutral, it's also not a 100% carbon source.
    • jogjayr 10y ago
      Not to mention that all the additional biking will improve people's health, thereby reducing the costs (and emissions) of healthcare and medication.
      • InitialLastName 10y ago
        Last I heard, the jury was still out on costs of obesity care vs old age care. Anyone have an update?
        • jogjayr 10y ago
          There's an argument to be made that people who are healthier throughout their lives will be able to have a higher quality of life, and need less care, well into old age. So even if they live longer it might not cost as much in old age care. But you're right that that's more of a gut-feeling/heuristic kind of thing. We'd need actual numbers to know for sure.
• techman9 10y ago
  Can't I just bike to school and feel good about it? Is nothing sacred?
  • d--b 10y ago
    Oh it's not about you feeling bad. It's for the drivers to feel good too!!
  • heydenberk 10y ago
    You can and you should! Carpooling in a very gas efficient car compares favorably to biking with the most CO2 intensive diet. Biking wins in all other cases. Also, if you don't eat an additional calorie for every one you burn while biking — I know I tend to burn off winter weight when biking around in the summer — these calculations are less applicable.
    • wapz 10y ago
      The article didn't mention a lot of other factors. If you drive to work you might go to the gym after work to burn the same calories the cyclist burned. Then you'd consume the same extra calories he did. Not only that, but the cyclist wouldn't have to go to the gym so they wouldn't even put in those miles.
  • handedness 10y ago
    Feeling good about feeling bad is the current state of public discourse.
  • synicalx 10y ago
    Hang your head in shame you filthy school biker you.
• Animats 10y ago
  An electric scooter should beat all of those.
• alephnil 10y ago
  You can't turn off the body, and you need exercise to stay healthy. Thus it does not really make sense to compare cycling to driving like the article does. If you are driving to the gym, and then using the energy you would have used biking at the gym, you will cause the combined emissions of both cycling and driving. The only way to get away from that is to be more passive, so that you would require less food, and thus cause less emissions. That is hardly an attractive option. It is better to start with the most avoidable emissions first. Driving is obviously more avoidable than respiration, and coal fired electricity generation is likely even more avoidable. After that the next step will be to reduce the CO2 footprint of food production as well as changing to a diet with lower CO2 footprint. Comparisons like the one in the article only give the message that it is really nothing you can effectively do about climate change, so why not continue as usual.
  • ysea 10y ago
    Precisely, I either bike or bus to work every day. If I take the bus I do some other form of exercise instead. And I certainly don't eat less on the days I ride the bus. I would imagine most people that get around by bike maintain a steady level of exercise during times when they are biking less. Whether or not the author's intent was to discourage biking and encourage driving they have done exactly that.
    • sonthonax 10y ago
      I run 8 miles to work a few times a week. I still shock my colleagues with how much I eat those days.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • andylei 10y ago
    if you read the article as an argument about eating meat, its a lot more compelling than it is as an argument about biking.
    • 10y ago
• squidfood 10y ago
  In my city, they've just taken some two lane roads down to one lane and eliminated car turning lanes, to add bike lanes. Those bike lanes see maybe 1 bike every 15 minutes, while the cars are now significantly more backed up (I've noted an extra 5-10 minutes of idling to travel a mile during busy times, no idea how many cars total in a day). Without denigrating the need for bike safety and separated lanes, I really wonder about the numbers on the carbon trade-off there!
  • Analemma_ 10y ago
    To some extent, that's working as intended. If bike lanes reduce throughput for cars and decrease their utility, that pushes people towards using means other than cars, even if that doesn't mean biking.
    • squidfood 10y ago
      Except: I don't see any evidence that it has worked at all - at least not in the 2 years the lanes have been there. Nice idea, but data would be nicer. (aside: always nice to see downvotes for wanting observations and data - if the data belies my observations, I'm all for that).
      • timthelion 10y ago
        This really comes down to a "moral health of the citizenry". In Germany and the Netherlands these programs work. In the US, less so. If you were to take a %100 data based approach, and not take into account the choices of people, you would no longer be studying sociology but rather mind control. If you have a way, that actually is effective at changing peoples behavior, regardless of what the people want then that is mind control. Do you think that mind control is what we need in order to fight global warming, or do we just need to become better people?
        • squidfood 10y ago
          In this city's case, they've dragged their heels on public transport - nothing near what I found in Amsterdam, for example. Slowing down car drivers by 5 minutes will not get them to switch to the public transport that would add 30+ minutes. Include better public transport, and more people would switch. But throwing up obstacles without providing alternatives doesn't do the job (and based on my city, there would have to be some mind-control to get more public transport funded, unfortunately).
• millettjon 10y ago
  This completely ignores the fact that grain fed factory cows are a problem but pastured cows actually store carbon in the grass roots and also reduce emissions by not tilling, and using less fossil fuels, fertilizers, and herbicides. Protein doesn't directly fuel exercise. Most people on paleo type diets target a specific number of grams of protein for muscle maintenance and use carbs or fat to fuel the exercise. So biking more distance would mean eating more rice or potatoes or coconut oil for fuel. So the CO2 impact of the biking calories would be similar to the vegan levels.
  • thinkmilitant 10y ago
    As someone who has been shifting their diet over to vegetarian for environmental reasons, I am interested in this. Can you provide any support for your claim that pasture cattle are less damaging then factory cattle? I know that pasture raised cattle are not sustainable to feed the masses, but at this point I would just be glad to enjoy a guilt free steak every now and again. ;-)
    • dakrootie 10y ago
      I don't know if this answers your question, but do read The Vegetarian Myth when you get a chance. It is one of the most profound and wonderful books I've ever read about the subject of sustainability/ethics for vegetarianism vs. omivoreism. Lierre Keith, while rather radical, makes a beautiful argument as to why meat (in moderation and humanely raised) is preferable to a veg-only diet. This is one of the top five books that's changed the way I see the world. Cheers!
    • millettjon 10y ago
      http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss574 http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss574 Also Google Soil Carbon Cowboys. There used to be many tens of millions of bison living on North American grasslands.
• timthelion 10y ago
  Things the author failed to include in the study: 1) Road land use, a bike lane is narrower than a car lane. 2) The energy invested in building the car. Aluminium parts, which cars are made of, have very significant energy investments. 3) CO2 emissions of asphalt used to pave the roads that cars drive on. 4) CO2 emissions of the cars tires vs the bikes tires 5) Calorie consumption of the person driving/riding in the car!!!!!!! 6) Parking land use. 7) Land use associated with mining the materials used to build a car vs bike. 8) Land use of pollution barriers to protect residential areas from car intensive ones. 9) CO2 emissions associated with heavy raised roadways made of concrete and steel, such as highway overpasses. Basically, this analysis is laughably absurd and is an insult to the Harvard name.
  • timthelion 10y ago
    That's not to say that this kind of analysis is always useless. I have a whole bunch of old junk in the attic, and I feel it would be a pitty to throw it out, but if I were to spend hours sorting through all it and finding uses for the things, the callories burned would probably outweigh any benefits from reusing the items which probably aren't needed by anyone anyways. So my instinctive reaction to "not throw things out" might actually be bad for the environment when taken to the extreme. I'm just saying that this analysis in particular is simplistic, wrong, and harmful.
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    The recent Ford F-150s with aluminum bodies were huge news. The frame is still steel. Personal vehicles are mostly made of steel.
    • timthelion 10y ago
      And steel actually produces even more CO2 to cast. Carbon steel, melting point 1500C vs aluminium, just 600C. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-temperature-metals-d_860.html http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-temperature-metals...
      • maxerickson 10y ago
• VLM 10y ago
  I think the author is interpreting paleo as "high protein" whereas most people doing paleo are "low/no grain". Some people focused primarily on trendiness seem to insist their low carb diet is paleo no matter how heavily processed and weird it is (like those weird soy bar things) I pretty much don't eat grains but almost certainly vegetables are more energy intensive than grains so maybe my paleo salads are killing the planet almost as well as the vegans eating processed soy products and baked wheat products all day. Then again no matter how thinly you slice it theres not a lot of calories in a carrot so even if volumetric intake looks near vegan most of my calories might be coming from meat/fish/oil sources.
• ABCLAW 10y ago
  The Keith Group, responsible for the article, are an academic group advocating the use of solar geoengineering (aka, putting aerosols and solar shades up to stop global warming, rather than focus on carbon sequestration). This weak attempt to indicate that transport choices do not substantially change carbon emissions is in line with their pre-existing position.
• antisthenes 10y ago
  As always, the practical, dirty, coal-using, environment neglecting China is way ahead in practice than the Boston PhD theorists funded by billions of old US money. This is a solved problem: you generate electricity via Solar and commute via electric bike, lowering kcal consumption and increasing average speed and range at the same time. The problems are cultural and infrastructural - it needs a critical mass of cyclists to become safe to ride electric bikes in the US, otherwise you risk being run off the road by the majority of drivers who are distracted using their phone.
  • sonthonax 10y ago
    Phone use while driving needs to be cracked down on though draconian measures like roadside flogging.
    • InitialLastName 10y ago
      I'm almost convinced that if I see a driver looking at their phone while moving (the absolute lowest standard of "don't use your phone and drive"), I should be able to put my U-lock through their window. It's only fair to add to their cost enough to offset the extra risk they cause me.
      • sonthonax 10y ago
        If you enjoy occasionally bullying idiots who drive with their phones, do it. The police won't care, and there would not be enough evidence to prosecute you anyway if you obscure your face with. The person in the car won't understand why you've done it, and will get all uppity and defensive, but will probably be jarred enough by the assault on his or her personal space to make stupid mistakes throughout the day.
• sixstringtheory 10y ago
  I'd bet that most people eating fast food meat probably aren't commuting by bike. You can do both at the same time with a car, though, and burn fuel waiting in line at the drive thru to boot!
• anon_d 10y ago
  While the article is clearly setting up the calculation in a very slanted way, I think the point they are making is still interesting. I definitely don't think this is (or even an attempt to be) an effective criticism of the environmental value of biking. However, even with a biased setup like this, the fact that the numbers can be massaged into the same ballpark really shatters my intuition here. I think my take-away is that I've clearly been underestimating the climate impact of meat consumption, and that's interesting.
• lyle_nel 10y ago
  Emissions of CO2 on its own does not necessarily imply that there is a carbon footprint. Besides the carbon footprint of transporting food, the food we consume is carbon neutral since the carbon in the food comes from the atmosphere. Therefore the CO2 gas we expel is mostly carbon neutral. Cars are a different story since their carbon originates from ancient reserves(oil and coal) that has long since been removed from the carbon cycle. This carbon is now reintroduced to the carbon cycle, thus leading to a positive carbon footprint. Put differently, if our food we eat consisted of carbon extracted from oil or coal, then we would be adding CO2 to the current carbon cycle, thus leading to a positive carbon footprint. However this is not true.
  • wlesieutre 10y ago
    Oh but there's so much more energy in your food. There's the energy that went into producing fertilizer, energy to make pesticides, energy burned to run tractors, energy to process the harvest into what you get in the grocery store, potentially more energy involved in packaging. For plastic packaging, there's the oil used to make the carbon-rich polymers. Etc. Just like cars, all of that energy comes from burning fossil fuels. The only way you'll find carbon neutral foods is if you walk out in the woods, pick it off a wild plant, and eat it right there. Generally, the total energy that goes into producing and transporting something is called "embodied energy." It's not necessarily 1:1 related with carbon footprint since it can hypothetically come from renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, but it's a very related concept. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy
    • jbmorgado 10y ago
      Most of what you just said would actually reflect pretty badly on vegan diet values and improve paleo diet values. Vegan diets are the product of intensive agriculture basically anywhere in the world. Paleo, depending on country, can be pretty low intensity, for instance, in Argentina where cattle roams free in the grassland. While I easily concede that in places like most of the USA - where cattle is a product of intensive livestock exploitation - a paleo diet will produce a lot of CO2 compared to a vegan diet, that is actually not true in places like Argentina, or, to a lesser degree, in places like southern Europe.
• laughfactory 10y ago
  Actually, recent research shows that a vegetarian diet has higher impact on the environment than eating meat. It's obvious too when you think about it. Consider how much lettuce you'd have to eat to replace the caloric content of one pound of beef. And there's a lot of resources which go into farming vegetables. On the whole it's clear to me that of we could get the vast majority of commuting traffic to turn into cycling traffic, or non-traffic (get more people working remotely) then we'd vastly lower our environmental footprint and increase air quality. Plus we'd all get more exercise. But, of course, the automakers are hugely invested in keeping us buying new cars and driving them.
  • wapz 10y ago
    You can't compare caloric content of lettuce to that of beef. Vegetarians don't stock up on lettuce to get calories. That being said, if every single person was vegetarian, I would bet we could get the efficiency of vegetable farming to beat the current efficiency of cattle through indoor farming.