This regular column on tips to live more sustainably comes from the 52 Weeks Climate Action Challenge. The challenge was created by Laurel Hood and Sherri Jackson. Hood is a retired Collingwood Collegiate Institute teacher, and Jackson is a writer and speaker, and ran as the Green Party’s candidate for the area in the last federal election. Both are climate activists.
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You’re probably not jumping in the car and heading to Florida this year (at least we really hope you’re not), but, even so, your regular commute and incidental driving can really add up to disaster for our planet.
Compound that by the massive increase in online shopping, which explodes at-home deliveries, and we are managing to do plenty of damage, from the comfort of our living rooms.
You guessed it, folks. March is transportation month. What can we do to mitigate our transportation footprint? Stay tuned! We’ll tell you!
Our family was lucky enough to do a one-year exchange in Australia. They are very serious about their speed limits.
Here, we know that the posted speed is more or less what’s enforced. If you’re going less than 10 k/h over, you’re probably just fine.
Not so in the Land of Oz. The speed limit is literally that. The Limit. I have a friend who was heavily fined twice in the same spot (coming and going), for first being 5 km over, and then 1 km over the limit!
That’s not just for safety’s sake, or to fill a quota at the end of the month. That also makes good environmental sense. Driving the speed limit also limits your tailpipe emissions.
Challenge 46: Drive the speed limit and check tire pressure.
Estimates are that driving 20 km over the speed limit increases your fuel consumption by up to 20 per cent. So, instead of going 100 km on a tank of gas, you’re only going 80. You’re not only wasting fuel, you’re polluting more. And as gas prices creep up, it impacts your wallet too. Your 100 km trip is costing you 20 per cent more than it should.
Think about this. A gallon of gasoline weighs a bit more than six pounds, and is about 87 per cent carbon. So there’s about five pounds of carbon in every gallon of gas. If you get 12 km per litre of gas fuel mileage, then you’re driving about 45 km per gallon. So, for every 45 km you drive, you’re dumping five pounds of carbon into the atmosphere.
I know part of the challenge of climate change is that it’s mostly invisible. You can’t really see carbon in the air. If we could, maybe we would be more inclined to pay attention. After all, a load of garbage scattered on the roadside gets people’s blood boiling.
What if we could see carbon in the atmosphere? A big old bag of charcoal in the middle of the road every few kilometres? Nova made a very timely and disturbing visual showing exactly that. It shows what carbon emissions from your tailpipe look like as solid chunks, and how it accumulates. Instead of vapour, the car spits out carbon chunks to represent carbon emissions from your tailpipe.
But wait, there’s more! After you’ve slowed down your driving, make sure you’re also checking your tire pressure regularly. Tire pressure impacts fuel efficiency by as much as three per cent. It’s estimated that for every one psi drop in the average pressure of all tires you lower your gas mileage by 0.3 per cent. So keep them pumped up!
We have the power and the knowledge to make driving less impactful on our environment. While many of us are still driving fossil-fuel powered cars, we owe it to the planet to take it easy out there, and use our resources wisely. Until electric vehicles are the norm, finding ways to limit our transportation emissions is critical to the well-being of our planet. So slow down this week, and enjoy the scenery!
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