Carbon footprint is a term that was made up by oil companies to shift blame from them to us.
Doesn’t change the fact that some forms of travel are objectively worse for the environment than others. If you can reasonably take a train or a bus instead of a plane or car, you should do so.
So bicycles are not a major form of transport?
You’re breathing more intensely than usual, so there is some overhead. But then again walking would take longer and may produce more carbon overall for the same distance
I did some random calculations and with the assumption that cycling uses 300kcal/h @15km/h that makes it use about 20 kcal/km. Assuming it is burned by consuming carbohydrates(glucose)(4.5Kcal/g) and it converts 1:1 into CO2 that makes cycling emit about 5g CO2/km making it about as climate friendly as using eurostar trains.(assuming you dont want to exercise ever)
Interestingly research actually shows electric bikes to have less of a carbon footprint than manual bikes even when accounting for the electricity, battery, motor, etc. due to the rider needing to consume fewer calories to provide the muscle power. But we’re talking numbers so small that it’s really not worth worrying about in the grander scheme of things. So if you’re feeling some guilt about the extra components in your ebike you don’t need to, but if you’re looking at an ebike to replace your regular one don’t make the decision purely based on carbon footprint, but instead focus on if you need/want it.
Yes, and food consumed from exertion. Simon Clarke actually did a really interesting video on bikes and ebikes and how good/bad they are for the environment, now and looking towards the future.
Tldw; a vegan on an ebike is one of the most energy efficient modes of transportation on the planet, haha.
I get what you meant but just to avoid any confusion, it’s not the most energy efficient but the one with the smallest carbon footprint.
I assume that’s the case but I’ll watch the video and get back in case I’m wrong (I might not have left this comment if I wasn’t wont to forget about leaving a comment at all but people can reply and get me notified to update this in a day or two)
I wish riding a bike in my city was easier, it’s basically suicide with more steps, my municipal policy forces bikes to share the road with motorist and it’s 90% stroads.
Where can I purchase one of these fancy Eurostar trains ?
I assume the author says Eurostar because it’s essentially a French TGV service that extends to London. The rest of our rail network is made up of constantly overwhelmed, Victorian-era infrastructure and is perpetually on the verge of shutting down, especially in the North of England and in the South East. So unlike France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc we only have a single, modern, high-speed railway, and it’s called Eurostar.
Ferry kinda sus.
Ferry super sus. Like a cruise ship, but starts and stops more? Doesn’t make sense.
A ferry is dense. It packs a lot of people into a small space on boats that were made to effectively haul people between two docks at a relatively short distance.
A cruise ship is huge, and given the amount of amenities they host, the density of PASSENGERS on board is vastly lower, yet has a lot of added weight from service crew, pools, dining halls, water slides, slot machines and what not.
Ferries can be electric too. Never heard of an electric cruise ship before.
There is many small ferries in the UK which are basically a floating platform that get’s dragged through the water on a cable. If you run that off an electric motor those can be quite efficent.
Maybe they are thinking about those.
What is producing the electricity? If it’s clean energy, maybe. It shouldn’t be “thinking about those,” but rather trying to compare similar load to energy cost per person. If the underground, rail, etc can’t beat something that has to push through water that doesn’t really make sense.
