Paradoxically there are actually some indications that the calories burned while bicycling, especially from a meat-heavy diet, lead to more carbon emissions per mile than powering an electric car with anything other than coal.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108357_electric-cars-vs-bicycles-which-has-a-higher-carbon-footprint
There are still a wide variety of societal benefits to more bicycling but it’s not quite accurate say “zero” impact I think.
That completely ignores the fact that a human being needs at least half an hour to one hour of light exvercise / physical movement daily to stay healthy at all. If you do not cycle or run, you’d need to go to a gym / fitness studio.
Also, if you care at all about CO2 emissions, eating vegan or vegetarian food is the way.
Also, driving 3 or 4 kilometers to a supermarket to get a veggie pizza needs way more energy and CO2 for the drive, thsn for the food itself. You can compute that from the fuel consumption of a car - about 180 Grams of CO2 per person per kilometer, so 1.4 kilograms for 4 kilometers each way.
Also, often the danger of cycling is stressed. That’s rubbish because of the health effect of physical exercise - the most dangerous aspect of modern life is lack of exercise, and if you use a bike instead a car you are wayyy less likely to die of cardiovascular problems, which are the real killer, not accidents.
It’s feels very absurd to see that electric car could be almost twice as efficient with co^2 emissions than vegan riding bicycle, especially considering moving the vehicle 18 times as heavy (driver included).
Would be interesting to see the data used, but looks like the source sheets have been deleted:(
I’d imagine optimizing the bike and rider’s physique and diet would likely affect the results dramatically. Dutch style grandma bike is hella lot less efficient than a commuter built for higher speeds, and a rider with more time in the saddle in long term is going to be more efficient on it than a (irr/)regular commuter
That’s why ebikes are considered better than analog bikes by some metrics. Outside of electrified trains, there’s pretty much nothing as efficient as an ebike for distance /calories burned + electricity usage (minimal, compared to EVs)
There’s tire particles that are released and occasional grease and repairs. So it’ll never be 0 climate impact after manufacturing. Just a little nitpick.
When you power your bike with your legs, you burn energy. That energy comes from food. Producing and transporting the food to you has a climate impact. Cycling has a climate impact.
only 10x? cycling has 0 climate impact besides the manufacturing of said bycicle itsself.
electric cars not only require 100x crazier manufacturing but also run on electricity which is made in power plants.
frankly you couldve said a million times more important and it would still be a low ball.
Paradoxically there are actually some indications that the calories burned while bicycling, especially from a meat-heavy diet, lead to more carbon emissions per mile than powering an electric car with anything other than coal. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108357_electric-cars-vs-bicycles-which-has-a-higher-carbon-footprint There are still a wide variety of societal benefits to more bicycling but it’s not quite accurate say “zero” impact I think.
We’ve made fun of that weird propaganda piece when it came out though.
That completely ignores the fact that a human being needs at least half an hour to one hour of light exvercise / physical movement daily to stay healthy at all. If you do not cycle or run, you’d need to go to a gym / fitness studio.
Also, if you care at all about CO2 emissions, eating vegan or vegetarian food is the way.
Also, driving 3 or 4 kilometers to a supermarket to get a veggie pizza needs way more energy and CO2 for the drive, thsn for the food itself. You can compute that from the fuel consumption of a car - about 180 Grams of CO2 per person per kilometer, so 1.4 kilograms for 4 kilometers each way.
Also, often the danger of cycling is stressed. That’s rubbish because of the health effect of physical exercise - the most dangerous aspect of modern life is lack of exercise, and if you use a bike instead a car you are wayyy less likely to die of cardiovascular problems, which are the real killer, not accidents.
It’s feels very absurd to see that electric car could be almost twice as efficient with co^2 emissions than vegan riding bicycle, especially considering moving the vehicle 18 times as heavy (driver included).
Would be interesting to see the data used, but looks like the source sheets have been deleted:(
I’d imagine optimizing the bike and rider’s physique and diet would likely affect the results dramatically. Dutch style grandma bike is hella lot less efficient than a commuter built for higher speeds, and a rider with more time in the saddle in long term is going to be more efficient on it than a (irr/)regular commuter
It’s like these people are eating minimum amount of food in the first place.
That’s why ebikes are considered better than analog bikes by some metrics. Outside of electrified trains, there’s pretty much nothing as efficient as an ebike for distance /calories burned + electricity usage (minimal, compared to EVs)
https://youtu.be/HW5b8_KBtT8
I think the takeaway here should be that meat heavy diets are worse for the environment than you might realize.
The takeaway should not be that cars are only barely worse than bikes.
There’s tire particles that are released and occasional grease and repairs. So it’ll never be 0 climate impact after manufacturing. Just a little nitpick.
But it’s still the best choice.
When you power your bike with your legs, you burn energy. That energy comes from food. Producing and transporting the food to you has a climate impact. Cycling has a climate impact.