How do you think about cycling and climate change? Share your thoughts. And for those asking for sources (you're my kind of people), here's a list of the main sources used in this piece: docs.google.com/document/d/1o-LUd9LLco0zKPBXow--eW1uffD3wLdpip0LhDnQmWY/edit?usp=sharing
It's important to acknowledge that cycling as a solution to climate change might not be feasible for all contexts. Factors such as weather, urban design, infrastructure, and accessibility can impact the ability of individuals to use bicycles as a primary mode of transportation. To fully harness the benefits of cycling for climate change mitigation, a comprehensive approach is needed, including investments in cycling infrastructure, public awareness campaigns, and policy support for sustainable transportation options. By reducing the demand for fossil fuels and promoting eco-friendly lifestyles, cycling can play a significant role in mitigating climate change and creating more sustainable communities. Keep using your channel to promote the change. Thanks.
I've seen a couple studies that find bikes are less efficient than ebikes given typical developed country food systems. I was surprised the studies here found ebikes used more energy. I wonder if that's because they were mostly European, which were all pedal assist and not throttle? Anyway, maybe something to explore in a future video?
Over five years now since I stopped using a car. 25 years since I last traveled by air. All my local travel is by bicycle, and each year I pick up several old bicycles at yard sales for near zero cost and then rehab them for other people to ride. .
There's also the question of induced demand. One person switching to a bike commute doesn't mean exactly one less car on the road. If there's less congestion, driving becomes more appealing and there will be more trips by car up to a certain point. That's why removing road capacity for cars including converting lanes from car lanes to bus-only, bike-only, and electric moped-only, and zoning car-free neighborhoods ought to be part of the solution, as well as other policy changes. As a bonus those bike-only lanes require a lot less road construction as bikes are much less heavy and wear much less on the pavement! Electric cars actually wear the pavement down faster because those battery packs are incredibly heavy, but it's not an issue with bikes and e-bikes.
Soooo like.. where did Calgary's emissions from food consumption go? Into thin air? I doubt it. Animal agriculture makes up about a third of worldwide emissions, do cities think it doesn't exist? I think we are truly lost in the wilderness of bad climate maths, having these conversations without ever discussing the difficult questions. Absolutely no chart showing analysis of any population's emissions should lack this information, in this day and age. How is it that we only show certain types of household consumption, but not others which have a far greater impact? Get out of your organisational silos and stop thinking purely in terms of infrastructure and how it's used inside of the city. Our consumption also begins outside of the city, where our food is grown, fed and killed.
One thing missing from this calculation for cycling is the cost of infrastructure. Even a 2-lane roadway is significantly more expensive to build and maintain than a typical bike path occupying as little as 1/4 of the land area, requiring less robust construction to support it.
Not just construction cost. Maintenance is ORDERS of magnitude lower for bike paths. There are dedicated bike paths in my city built in the late 90's, built with brick pavers, that to this day are as good to bike on as the day they were built. And these aren't recreational trails. These are paths that handle thousands of bikes every day. One path handled between 4000 and 5000 bikes per day, over 1 million per year, and was changed to a bicycle street a few years back because the path had become to narrow for that much two way bike traffic. So now bikes ride on the traffic calmed street and the bike path is now used as a pedestrian path. And the path is fine and didn't require any maintenance or construction at all, even after 25 years of use. The only points that create problems for bicycle paths are the points where motor traffic crosses them, and there they require as much maintenance as roads do. But it's not due to the bikes, but due to motor traffic... And there are many other factors that can be calculated into the low low cost of cycling infrastructure, and gains a city can make by building it. Just a few: More cyclists means less cars, this means less air and noise pollution, which means healthier cities. This reduces health care costs for the majority of citizens, and the city or government. More cyclists means less cars, which means more space available for public spaces and places to relax. This means less stress and this feeds back into the health benefits. But this also means more space for greenery which further reduces pollution, but which also reduces the heat island effect of cities. More greenery means cities heat up less in hot weather making them far more pleasant environments. This then also reduces AC usage during hot weather. And on top of that more greenery and green space allows for more water to infiltrate into the soil where it falls, leading to less water needing to be taken in by sewage and drainage systems, leading to less flooding during extreme rainfall. And it benefits the groundwater level too, allowing for more water to infiltrate. This in turn means less watering is needed during dry months to keep plants alive. Less cars and more cycling means more kids cycling. This gives kids an enormous freedom. Kids can then safely cycle to friends, family, school etc. And it is immensely empowering, and let's kids build independence. Otherwise they are stuck at home and rely on their parents to be able to go anywhere. As a kid I cycled everywhere as soon as I was in primary school, including school. And it gave me a huge level of independence and freedom from an early age on. I could go play with friends even if my parents were busy, I could go to school on my own, and so on. It is often forgotten, but what it does for kids is such a huge part of making cities and suburbs more bike and pedestrian friendly. And all this is not even taking into account cities with less cars in them are just generally much more pleasant environments to be in, to live in, to work in, to shop in, etc. And I could go on. Making cities more pedestrian and bike friendly has huge knock-on effects. The construction cost is just one factor, and not even a major one considering all the others... One study from the Netherlands I once read calculated that every euro invested in bike infrastructure actually creates a return for society of up to 8 euro, exactly because all these knock on effects are diverse, but when you add them up they really.... Add up...
@@johanwittens7712, 100%. Less cement (repair and initial pouring) is huge--it releases so much CO2. Things I didn't see you mention are run-off (less flash flooding) and head island from lower parking needs, too. And also from air quality from brake/tire dust.
This would probably be a difficult calculation, but the increased physical health of cycling versus a sedentary car-dependent life-style almost certainly has a calculable carbon impact. Or would living longer negate that?
What I enjoy the most about bikes is how silent they are in comparison to cars. Cars can turn a lovely street into a noise and heath hell, whereas bikes just adds to the charm of the community.
Yes, I was gonna say ! Noise pollution and unsafe streets are way more important than we think. If kids can bike by themselves it means less parents by car to drive them therefore less cars on the road for example. Noise and air pollution are a stress for the body which will make people sicker.
I live off an arterial boulevard and you're absolutely right, during the peak of business hours the road is louder than a highway with all of the semi truck and industrial vehicle sounds. You can also smell the diesel if the wind is coming from the south. On the other hand, during the weekend or evenings it's a very very quiet roadway with only the occasional car passing by. It's almost a different living experience all together, and typically fresh air from the north blows the acrid smells away during the evening.
I was in Amersfoort, Netherlands one day and watched, fascinated, as moms went to pick up their kids from school. Everyone was on a bike. So quiet. No fumes from running cars. And the moms could catch up with one mother. It was magical.
Most big cities are on the coast. Unless we adapt they are going to be sea before too long. Its ironic how short term many are when protesting against cycling.
Not to mention the land destroyed by oil drilling, or by mining for cobalt and other minerals for electric car batteries (which require hundreds more in terms of capacity than an e-bike). The land's ability to be a carbon sink is completely destroyed.
I will add in the land "use" for cars increasing the SPACING of housing / businesses and everything else causing MORE LAND use to "support" the same number of people a STROAD goes back to a road and 2 tower blocks PER block is built housing 200 people each AND having "local" stores at street level and toss in office towers and we have turned a linier slowly moving"car park" into a village
This! Shifter was bellow average even while driving and flying internationally several times - because he lives in a dense area only possible if some people give up their cars. So biking not only reduce your CO2, it also reduce the CO2 of everyone around you (even drivers). Driving does the exact opposite, causing everyone to exert more energy due to multiplying distances between destinations. Enabling denser cities is a top benefit of cycling.
It’s worth noting that during the time of COVID, citizens in India were able to see the Himalayas for the first time in 'decades,' as the lockdown eased air pollution
Cailynn mentions that in order to make its goals, Vancouver needs to have 2/3 or daily trips by active transportation and transit by 2030. It’s currently one of the best cities in North America with almost 1/3 of daily trips by AT and transit, but that means it needs to double that in less than 7 years. The transit is already bursting at the seams, and the city council is actively removing bike lanes. We desperately need a ton of funding and need to start building bus and bike lanes on a huge scale yesterday
I find it hard to believe that they are removing them. Surrey, for example, has abandoned painting any new lanes, which means that new lanes will separated/protected. This could mean that some lanes might be quieted with painted lines removed. This doesn't sound like reduced bike infrastructure, so maybe Vancouver is doing the same. @@josiahclagett7369
As a sovereign country, Canada has a sovereign currency it can create and destroy at will. At present, like NZ, Australia, USA, UK, Japan, they all use currency creation - fiat currency as a method of social and economic control. It's all a part of the rules based system of the USUK. It's worked well since the close of WW2 and for Britain since the East India Company. Why change it? Well it happens to be the cause of imperial empire and destruction of the biosphere on the living earth. We can't have it both ways. Anyway, looks like it's all coming to an end for the USUK EU in the next 10 years as BRICS takes off. Africa's told us to leave, South America is on the same track and things are stirring in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and both Russia and China are well underway. I know it's a long way from bike lanes, but it's all part of the same thing. We just have to ask what shape planet will we be handing over to our kids this decade and the next two or three. Good luck Skip, we're all going to need it.
They're also making some bus lanes less frequent. For bus 17, there's now 25 min waits sometimes during the day. It's bad. The more they invest in transit, the more people will use it. Same principle as why adding lanes on roads creates more traffic: the infrastructure is there, so people use it.
me during the intro: “is he hauling a folding bike in a bakfiets?” tom: “…and yes, i am currently transporting a folding bike in a cargo bike, but that’s not the point of this video” me: “oh, ok”
The positive impact of cycling over driving goes beyond carbon emissions though. Cars produce particulate matter from tyres grinding down. They produce general air pollution. They're far more likely to cause pedestrian injury and death. Parking lots for cars makes huge hot spots within a town or city, which are ecologically dead and can exacerbate flooding. A car uses much more energy and resources to produce in the first place, and the fuel for cars has to be extracted, refined, and delivered by tanker.
Yeah it takes about 5-10 tons of CO2 to produce and ship a car to a customer. You can produce about 50-100 bicycles for that. A typical car has a weight of 1000-2000 kg and more complex components, while most bicycles are like 10-15 kg.
@T33K3SS3LCH3N yep and a regular bike is almost infinitely repairable, ship of Theseus style, whereas a cars will almost eventually always fail in some way that can't be fixed. I know people who are still using 1970s bike frames
I feel like the claimed environmental benefits have already dominated the mainstream narrative of why biking is beneficial. Definitely important but I don't think it is as strong a motivator as the benefits to an individuals health. Also I feel like the 'war on cars' people will never be swayed by an environmental argument, whereas they might become more moderate from points about reducing diseases of lifestyle, reducing car accident deaths, reducing noise pollution or if they could be convinced that alternatives to cars can actually reduce traffic.
Like I said late in the video, I don’t often hear people who cite climate change as a motivator for cycling, but it’s often a second or third factor so I think it should be in the conversation
@@rangersmith4652 I'd have to disagree with that. A lot of people have start biking more because it's both enjoyable while being a sustainable alternative. Sure, every person's different, but I hardly see it as "at the bottom".
@@Ryan_hey My point is this: There are a lot of people who think the entire climate change push is a money grab for a relative handful of companies, a disingenuous virtue signal for others, and an excuse for massive overreach of their governments. For these folks, citing "man-made" climate change as a reason to ride a bike instead of driving a car is political; it comes across as very progressive and immediately brands all cyclists as Leftist environmentalist wackos. As soon as you cite climate change as a reason for doing anything, people who think this way -- and they're not wrong -- are on the defensive.
I think any calculation like this massively underestimates long-term savings if changes in land-use are allowed to play out. The type of city that is conducive to cycling performs better along a lot of other dimensions too :)
You have also all the land and material saved abroad. Most vehicles, even those "made in America" often source parts abroad, so we're relying on draining other countries to support our lifestyles, as well as offload some of our carbon footprint to other countries.
.. But bike wastes 1 hour more of time than car a day, out of 16 awake hours.. This is 7% less time for family and work, so only for those who hate their children and want to risk divorce and not be promoted. Non car life increases risk of sucky life, it's why the rich tell poor to bike why they drive and fly. It's pretty evil to tell person to waste 7% of life.... Please skip the denials that cars are faster than bikes, walking, and transit... Cars are great for good life, they do suck for encironment...
@@mostlyguesses8385 That's not my experience on the door-to-door round trip. I am working in Amsterdam and living some 35 Km away. Just looking at time and cost of commuting: - Car. 90 to 120 minutes (depending on traffic). Add two hours of work to pay for ~10 EUR fuel , ~50 EUR parking (for eight hours), car costs per trip, forgetting about insurance and car maintenance. And forget about joining the weekly office drinks. - Bike. 150 to 200 minutes (mostly depending on wind). Add some 100 EUR bike maintenance per year. Should still avoid the weekly office drinks - Public transportation. 120 to 180 minutes (depending on transportation coincidences), about 25 EUR round trip. The organization is quite good, and companies are required to pay transport costs when further than 10 Km). Great when joining the weekly office drinks, even if you may have to wait 45 minutes for the bus (in the evening). As a plus, I can read in the train and bus, some 80 minutes gained for myself - Weapon of choice (for me): bike to and from the stations. 100 to 120 minutes round trip, with no dependence on public transportation on the short trips. I still have time to read on the train, can join office drinks, have a bike for the short trip...
One thing that's also not covered in this video is that cars also generate heat. The heat generated is surely a lot more than the metabolic heat by cyclists or the GHG's involved in growing the food.
Apart from contributing to the urban heat island effect, then actually no - the sum total of all man-made heat directly pales by comparison to the energy imbalance caused by CO2 emissions. (Like, 500x more). To put it in perspective, the energy imbalance caused by the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is the equivalent to 5-7 Hiroshima sized bombs being detonated *every second*.
@@thepandaman It will eventually become a problem if economic growth continues though, Process waste heat is expected to boil the oceans in about 400 years at current growth rates.
2 tons is a MASSIVE difference.... keep in mind that that the global average is 4.79 ton per person and not 15.5tons like the Canadian average. In 2030 we need to go down to a global average of 3.5tons/person.... so really, 2 tons does help out A LOT in terms of climate change!
This isn't related to the video. I just wanted to post a wild biking experience (for me). I live in a town with no biking infrastructure, and it's just sharing the raod with cars. But I recently spent a month in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and holy balls is their whole biking thing different. I've never seen a protected bike lane before then. It was wild!
Glad you enjoyed it! The current city government is quickly building new bike infrastructure and the community is (slowly) getting used to it. The protected bike lanes downtown have been great and have made cycling to work a much more pleasant experience. Here's to hoping that they keep up with the pace and keep making cycling more viable.
I live in Victoria, and if anywhere in Canada is to pull off this modal shift, it will be here. Mildest year round climate in the country; expansive cycling network; robust cycling culture - come this Saturday, some 2300 cyclist will take to the streets, MUPs of Southern V.I., as competitors in the Ryder Hesjedal's Tour de Victoria. In fact, I will be cycling against this mob on the trail at some point that morning on my commute to work; wish me luck!
Changing the car for a (e)bike is a step, but in all the steps that needs addressing (like house, food, travel) this one surely gives instant gratification/fun.
It's also a very visible and public thing which means it's more likely to impact others towards seeing it as normal and eventually considering it themselves. The same is less true for home upgrades, so it stands to reason that things like bicycle commuting are more apt for grassroots cultural change leading to mass adoption. Perhaps home upgrades is something where we will depend more on incentives from the government to get it done, but with transportation we can achieve a lot simply by spreading bike culture.
Biking and walking are one of the rare win-wins out there where doing the "good" thing can also be more enjoyable. So many times doing the "good" thing requires some sacrifice, but in this case it's enjoyable and enriching :-) Loved the video and all the interesting research, thanks Tom and Cailynn!
Happy to see that my electric bike is only a little bit worse than a non-electric bicycle. Pedal assist was a life changing thing for me. I have really bad knees, and a normal bicycle wasn't very usable to me, no matter how much I wanted to make it work. Realistically though? I'm not cycling because of climate change. I cycle because I love riding my bike, I hated driving, and cycling is SO much less expensive. Cars are expensive to buy, expensive to run, expensive to ensure. They guzzle up money like they do gasoline. Benefiting the planet is just a nice extra :)
Looking at 6:25 , e-bikes are 2 to 3 times worse than a regular bicycle... Still a lot better than cars of course. Anyway, doesn't really matter, I'm happy you're happy to be cycling! ;)
They're not. They excluded the incredibly harmful effects on mining rare heavy metals by slave labor in third-world nations AND the ticking time bomb that in fast approaching in that we are going to have to spend massive amounts on carbon to decommission these incredibly toxic batteries. That'll be a fun wake up call!
It seems a little weird to me to factor in the carbon footprint of the food you had to eat to power your bike. Like yes, it does technically factor in, but that's also probably replacing a cardio workout for most people. When I drive more often, I'm more likely to want to find time to go on a jog to stay in shape, so I'm burning those calories either way.
that's very true... I have definitely commited to "the gym of life" rather than actually going to a gym and waste energy... I combine it with transportation, activities with friends etc instead.
Indeed. There is a limit to the level of scrutiny of each little things. There was a great tv show called "The Good Place" and in some point they discover that no one reached heaven in years and after investigation they find out the reason. There is a point system to decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and in the past when someone did a good thing, like getting flowers to his mother he got points for that and today if someone brings flowers to his mother he still gets the same point but they deduct from that the fact that he drove a car, the flowers were wrapped in non recyclable plastic, were picked up by poorly paid workers and pesticides and access of water were used to grow them so he ends up with negative points so in the end, no one, no matter how hard he tries, gets the points to get to heaven.
I've always found that weird in these comparisons as well. For me personally, I don't notice any difference at all in eating habits from what I would have just eaten anyway 🤷♂️ It seems to be reaching to factor that in, unless you're riding an exceptionally long way all the time.
The bikeshare I use in Boston, called BlueBikes, lets you know via their app how many trips and miles you've done, so you can calculate how you're doing. I do drive a rental car occasionally, but not owning a car apparently makes a huge huge difference. Also, I'm a lot less stressed just dealing with regular bike maintenance rather than adding a car onto what I do.
City living increases your carbon footprint dispite "research" stating the contary. They exclude buses, transports, etc., lights, HVAC, etc. that all run even when not used. That is also part of your footprint. But they don't include that.
Hey Tom, 2 tonnes less co2 is a lot! I’m somewhere down at 3 tonnes looking for ways to get to 1 (which has been said to be globally sustainable). Last time I calculated my footprint I was commuting to work by bus, but now I’m biking. Seeing this video I realize I need to recalculate! 🤓
Thanks! This may have been said already, but I feel the best thing to emphasize to the public is the pollution aspect. It's already known that vehicle occupants get a bigger dose of air pollution than those outside of them (due to how the vehicles intake 'fresh' air). Pollution directly affects people in their immediate surroundings. Yes, pollution over large areas affect people, but I'm only thinking of the "selling point" to get people to think more about biking or walking instead of driving. The more people you have biking, the less traffic, and the less immediate area pollution, especially for those using the bike lanes or the sidewalks.
This is an interesting point. Climate change has, for a long time, been pretty intangible, which made it difficult to galvanize people. Maybe a focus on pollution is a better approach. Thank you for the support!
Great episode Tom and Cailynn. There are also health benefits by reduction in cardio-vascular and emission poisoning, and straight out fitness. Many strokes and heart attacks are caused by emissions poisoning, but most hospital staff put causes down to heart failure and inflammation as the usual suspects. Infact the inflammation is caused in no small part by emissions. There's also the economic system to consider, which in most western democracies is driven by GDP and endless growth and profit. As we all know, we live in a finite space called the biosphere and take earth's services for free with no or little penalty for suppliers causing ecosystem damage, ecocide and in the global south mass murder. It's our governments and corporations, the IMF and IBRD plus military industrial complex and City of London, Wall street who make these decisions. So there's plenty of major factors outside the individuals' personal control at play. Flying regularly is extremely damaging, as is cruise liner travel. The term Individual carbon footprint was of course introduced by the fossil fuel corporations as a diversion to their role in supplying the stuff. Systemwide change is the only real way to reduce carbon, methane, and nitrous emissions. But individuals can feel personally better about themselves by reducing their own footprint. BTW food and industrial ag is a major contributer to greenhouse gas emissions. International trading in foodstuffs and consumables is a big contributor to climate breakdown. NZ could be self sufficient for instance, but a few can profit greatly by exporting dairy and importing everything consumable. I know I live in NZ the biggest dairy exporter in the world, which per capital joins the 5 eyes countries plus Japan and a few others like Saudi Arabia as one of the top per capita emitters on the planet. Another measure is how many planet earths worth of stuff countries consume per year. NZ reaches its limit of one earth by mid April, Australia by mid March, and so on. The poorest countries usually in Africa last most of the year. They have indivial carbon footprints of around a single ton. We see where the real problem lies. The top 10 percent by fiat wealth which is me and you Tom and and the people we know. It's us, our friends and families and work colleagues. It isn't the global south where most of the world population lives at the present time. Thanks again Tom and Cailynn, great video. Long live cycling! One of the stats I like is "if the top 10 percent reduced their emissions to the level of the average european, we'd reduce planetary emissions by one third" (Prof. Kevin Anderson Tyndall Centre and University of Manchester, University of Uppsala and University of Bergen - who's a cyclist too!)
Carbon footprint is primarily a tactic to shift blame from corporations and governments who emit carbon/protect carbon emitting corporations respectively. The carbon footprint does exist in the sense that one person emits x number of tonnes per year, but ultimately most people arent able to change that number enough to matter. A systemic issue is basically impossible to solve with unorganized individual actions
I totally agree. Each of our own contributions to the climate is negligible compared to the biggest polluting companies on the planet. That's almost a completely different topic that I'm not versed enough in to even know how to begin talking about and knowing how to solve. But I still think it's worth talking about. The more you talk about social issues, the more they can spread to people who weren't even aware of it. Me suddenly riding my bike, walking, or taking the bus to work instead of driving won't make even a fraction's fraction's fraction's worth of a dent to climate change. But if enough people can be convinced, and make that decision together, it can. Look at what happened during COVID when everybody stayed home. And when enough people begin to demand better infrastructure, cities will be required to listen. People always use the excuse that their city has shit bike infrastructure and awful transit solutions so they never use it. But if we all tried to use it and crippled the system, it would give them evidence that they need to improve. Look at all the European cities with thousands of kilometers of dedicated bike lanes and 20-minute-interval train and bus systems. It didn't happen overnight. Fortunately for them, their leaders aren't as car-brained as North American ones so that did help, but the informed people also demanded it. Don't just ask for change. Demand it, and do your best to BE the change you want to see.
totally, individuals should minimize their "carbon footprint" and also be aware that includes prejudice towards bad companies. You can't just go vegan but still use big oil!
definitely need to be fighting on both fronts - personally living lives more environmentally friendly, and doing whatever we can to tear down oil companies and keep politicians accountable for enforcing climate friendly legislation. if only governments were truly of the people and not just plutocrats who are so far removed from the struggles and harms to the average person… they can afford to get away from the effects of climate change, we cannot
I agree to a certain extent but it can become a copout, nihilistic thing to act like nothing you do matters. Doing small things like trying to compost food scraps or using less paper to more life style changes like biking to work or mostly buying local food could influence people around you to do the same and would cascade over time and more people doing it. Throwing your hands up about corporations is on par with saying "well it doesn't matter what the US does because China/India/etc. are worse".
For the first time in my life starting next week I will be able to consistently bike ride to and from work because of getting a new job. Now I will work in the city I live! I cannot begin to describe how excited I am to be part of the change for a stronger, and healthier community.
A few weeks ago, I bought an electric bicycle that goes 50kmh (32mph), which keeps up with cars in downtown traffic! It's a gamechanger, that challenges how people get around the streets, especially where there isn't sufficient bicycle infrastructure. The more that we push the envelope to show healthier alternatives, the more that people will be consciously aware.
It’s also wild how much variation there is across Canada. Someone riding their bike around Montreal, in a province where electricity is 99% carbon free,as a carbon footprint orders of magnitude lower than an Alberta suburbanite.
also having "milder" winter lows reducing heating costs AND emissions and CHEAP electricity creating a "incentive" to drop GAS heating for electric heating
Please, dawg, for the love of god why are you using terminology invented and popularised by multinational corporations in order to shift the blame on the little man?
The more people are riding bikes, as long as the city is tacking metrics on that, the more pressure there is to improve the situation for bikes. Having read a few of my city's DoT reports & proposals, having proven traffic is unfortunately super helpful for justifying new infrastructure. Yes, it is a backwards system (if you build bad infrastructure that no one uses, this system will then just say utilization is too low to justify an improvement), but for a city with forward momentum just riding has a great externality of getting the city to put more money into biking (and making it more visible, so safer for others).
Systemic change is Really the point. HAVING AFFORDABLE housing near places of work, reduce the driving and making a 50+km commutes into a thing of the past and make them into something more reasonable to bike. Additionally selling those newly made houses to people whom actually work in the AREA not to the people with the most money. SYSTEMIC change not pure unadulterated real-estate profit investing.
The extra calories you use to ride a bike are kinda irrelevant because if you weren’t riding the bike you would probably go run on a treadmill or something. So instead of uselessly burning calories you get to combine it with your commute. Of course the numbers are negligible but it’s basically free.
I think one of this most undervalued aspects of getting more people out of cars and biking is the impact on health care systems. Covid allowed us to see that health care systems all over the world have very little real margin to cope with large impacts over and above the norm. The improvements in the health of people taking more trips by bike would make an immense difference in reducing the strains currently on health care systems. Taking this to it's logical conclusion would be that the cost's of bike infrastructure would likely be made up, at least in part, in savings to the cost of health care. Thanks for another great video Tom.
One of the things I always find crazy about my employer's carbon report is that one of the big adjustments that could reduce our footprint would be to move our shared computer resources from Calgary to Vancouver. Sources of generation make such a difference. (And gotta love that Dani's latest pronouncement is that we shall not further green the grid.)
the carbon of the power grid and servers take a LOT OF power Manitoba has "sold" the idea that we are a clean and cheap place for servers to operate and being very COLD for 10 months helps greatly as you can "passively" cool the servers for a LOT Longer then in "milder" climates where ACTIVE cooling is required
Really excellent report on a very complex topic, Tom. The observation about needing system changes in addition to individual actions is very important one! The way I see it - When we go before city council or any government entity petitioning for systemic changes, We'll have more credibility if we have taken at least some individual actions (such as bike commuting) to mitigate my climate impact. We have "skin in the game." Even better if we encourage others to do likewise. Then, we can frame requests from the context of, "We have made these X individual changes to improve the climate situation. So now it's your turn to do something."
For many years i was a commission salesman, didn't earn a dollar unless i sold. On days where I i biked to work and didn't have a good day, I still felt better than on days when I drove and didn't sell anything.
Tom, I loved this one. Cailynn's analysis is great. But I wonder if there's room for a follow-on video that analyzes time-weighted cost-efficiency of bikes and other emissions-reduction strategies. I mean, it's one thing to know where current emissions are coming from but another to know where we get the most bang for our emissions reduction buck. I'd think that bikes would really shine when viewed through this lens given that cars are so expensive to own and operate. And I think it's important to time-weight the analysis because more modest emissions reductions that can start today (such as commuting by bike instead of car) might be better than more cost-efficient emissions reduction strategies that would take longer to deploy. Also, I'd love to see an analysis of the emissions reductions of bike compared to internal combustion engine vehicle for short trips on a cold engine. Most of the analyses that I've seen on comparative emissions assume some average vehicular fuel efficiency that is much, much higher than actual fuel efficiency of a vehicle with a cold engine. For short trips (where an engine would not have time to warm up completely), bikes are likely even better for the environment than car and, likely, much, much easier on the pocketbook. I know this to be true from personal experience but it'd be great to see real data. My personal experience was blowing through an entire tank of gas (in a 2017 Subaru Outback) in a couple of weeks when commuting by car about .5 miles each way every day. That comes about to about USD $3.60 per mile, which is, of course, insanely expensive. I bet a lot more people would opt to bike for short trips if they realized that driving on a cold engine is so ridiculously expensive and carbon inefficient. Rollie Williams might even collaborate on these videos given the connection with climate change.
Perhaps a typo: “.5 miles”, as in “a half mile”. Were you really driving a half mile, a walk of less than 10 minutes? Or did you mean “5 miles”?… which is still a short bike ride but a longish walk.
@@CarFreeSegnitz Alas, not a typo. And it seems that most trips by most people are so short that an engine could not warm. Hence my concern that the comparative value of bikes is often grossly understated.
I’ve greatly enjoyed the video thank you. I’m watching from the UK. There is something I’d like people to consider with regard to action on climate change. I think a good idea is if there is an election in your area then write to all the candidates asking them what they plan to do to combat climate change. I like old fashioned letters personally, but an email will also be good to do. If you like you can deliver the letters by bicycle of course. Reminding politicians of how important this issue is to the public is always a good thing to do.
Awesome video; want so many people to see this. Nothing is a silver bullet, but cycling is so good for so many things and I want it to be accessible for everyone!
I think the number for Utrecht sounds kind of low because of how it was expressed. Because in cities like Montreal if bicycle usage is 18.2%, that means there is 81.7% car usage. In the Netherlands there is 51% bicycle usage and also significant percentages for walking and public transportation and even the car usage is less impactful due to the on-average smaller cars.
Anyone who has tried to drive downtown Montréal in the past decade would point out that there’s a lot of public transport there, it’s definitely not 81% cars. Downtown is always a gridlock, driving there really sucks.
@@vincentlemire8435 There was an ounce of hyperbole in my comment. The overall point is that the not-bicycle portion is going to be cars by a greater percentage in Canada.
To put your number into context, the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C by 2050 requires global average per capita carbon emissions to be around 2 tons per year. We can't get there with bikes alone, but we certainly can't get there without them!
Would also love to see comparisons on miles travelled for cyclists - I've noticed it keeps me closer to home, more locally focused. Not just delta in cost per km but also in total usage. Biking makes me like a smaller life in general too, no more suburban big box stores. So many beautiful knock on effects.
@@Shifter_Cycling swapping from the "lowest priced" to the best local likely is a big change from NOT being able to DRIVE to a far off box store to "save" a few bucks
Good to learn about this. Unfortunately many of the things mentioned are not financially attainable for a very large percentage of the US population. It’s very expensive to improve a home’s insulation, get a new vehicle, or add solar (not all homes are located in a place and/or orientation that makes solar “pay for itself”). Getting a bicycle is usually affordable. Wages don’t keep up with inflation and most people are poorly educated, or not educated at all, regarding how to manage their finances for their benefit.
Big hit for wage earners when your bike/wheel/seat is stolen. I volunteered at UCalgary community bike shop, every week some poor soul barely scraping by came in looking to replace stolen parts or rides to make it to work.
@@phenej that’s too bad & that kind of thing happened where I lived too. I actually kept my bike seat chained to my frame, and had chains for the wheels too. It helped to not be the easiest target, so no one ever tried cutting my locks or chains.
One of your best ! Good hard facts and I love the drawings/graphs ! This channels about bikes .. and their impact .. not trains or air. Keep the facts coming .. great ammo against the deniers !
For me personally the whole climate part or carbon footprint doesn't even factor in. Biking allows me to live in a city without needing to own a car. It allows me to move around when I want without ever worrying about traffic delays. (almost) Never need to look for a parking spot when biking. It's cheap as dirt (no payments, no insurance, no taxes, no parking fees, no tolls, etc) even with yearly maintenance of my bike by a professional, allowing me to save tons of money. Biking is enjoyable and allows me to unwind after a day of work, even when biking at a completely relaxed pace. Biking gets me daily exercise while not doing anything special except move around. It allows me to enjoy my environment and see what's going on in my community. It allows me to live in a place without parking needed, right in the city center. And biking is just convenient and fun. Never owned a car in my life and never regretted it at all.
For me, climate change is pretty low on my list of reasons for riding, but it's still on the list. There are so many other benefits that are also important.
I was out shopping early one morning recently and the rain was intense. Because my gear is pretty good now I didn’t get wet and I was just buzzing because I enjoy cycling so much. Cycling is always a great experience.
While I think this discussion is valuable, I think we really need to be aware of how Jevons paradox will make most of this discussion moot. While I personally don't burn the fuel, so my personal footprint is lower, that fuel is still going to be extracted and burnt (because the reduced demand makes it cheaper and thus others will buy more). This is why the takeaway at the end of the video is so important. This issue is not personal but systemic. And it goes deeper than just changing the way we move and live and consume. We need to also demand that governments phase out fossil fuels and stop subsidizing them.
It makes a huge difference in solving space issues in cities, air quality, safety, and definetely affects the micro climate in the city itself, that you could feel and smell in my hometown during lockdown.
I tried out WWFs climate calculator, and I ended up with 0.6tons personally. However, 3tons being Swedish society and the city I live in, so I ended up with 3.6tons... 0.1 tons away from the global 2030 goal. I think people would consider me to have a pretty extreme lifestyle according to western standards. this is approximately what my last couple of years have been - Work from home - Cycle everywhere (even during vacation, bike packing) - Train rides 20km/week - 20sqm apartment - Household electricity 60kWh/month + heating - Heating: geothermal (I don't know if this is what is called, we use a compressor to extract heat using pipes dug deep into the ground. 80% more efficient than direct electricity heating) - No AC. - Buys practically nothing - Buys very little clothes (10EUR/Week), sanitary products (6EUR/week), - Vegan diet - Eats seasonal food primarily local - Monthly food budget: 160EUR - Don't waste any food at all, everything gets eaten - Don't eat out - No flights - No bus rides - this year I bought one new electronic gadget. A video upscaler to use my old tech on my modern display -_- (I need it to be able to re-use my old hardware and not buy new hardware unnecessarily) EDITED: I have to mention, I still feel like I live a very fulfilling life, I spend a lot of time with friends, family and loved ones. It's actually quite amazing how very little you actually need to feel content and happy with life.
@@johnfowler4820 Thank you john! I hope people don't look at my comment like some kind of "humble brag". I am only trying to spotlight what one could do to reach very low levels... Society and our financial system doesn't appreciate it though. It's built on constant growth, and I am DEFINITELY not helping the economy 😅... This is my biggest gripe, our societies are built on exploitative systems which are extremely hard to circumvent... But at least I do what I can for the planet and hopefully I can inspire others to make similar choices. 🙃Even though they can seem like "extreme" in the eyes of some people.
Beyond all the possible cycling comments I could make (endorphins would come top), what this episode makes clear is the *context* of where that clamour for endorphins gets us all collectively. And it's Reward Squared.
Really really smart to use the visual illustrations during this talk. If I recall this hasn’t been used before and it makes the presentation so so so so so so much more compelling! Nice job Tom or whoever thought to do this! Also super informative video. So much props to the researcher.
Oh yea, the "hauling a folding bike in a cargo bike"-situation when you're about to collect 2 or 3 friends from the train station, they have an argument on who gets to sit where and after all they end up switching half ride because it's easy😍
About 20 years ago I did some math. I added the personal financial costs to me for buying a car and owning it for 10 years, vs buying two bicycles and owning them for two years. At the time the car costs would have been about $45,000 and the bikes would have been about $5000. The car would have saved me about 40 minutes a day in commute time. Anyway, my calculations at the time indicated that by biking I would be paying myself about $7 an hour to get exercise.
I got a 4.18 metric ton on the website you two recommended, and a 3.9 on the EPA calculators. It's a little tricky because we generate most of our own electricity, and the power authority here is getting greener but it's hard to find an exact report. They say 60% non-carbon mix sometime next year. Also we charge our cars/escooters off our own solar...which the calculators aren't super good at factoring in. That makes sense though, we barely use grid energy and flew one international flight...oopsie!
Thanks for airing this analysis. I’m an everyday cyclist who’s thought the same way. By itself, bicycling isn’t going to mitigate climate change. And it’s not for everybody. But it can be a simple, affordable, and enjoyable part of the larger approach.
That's awesome! I live in Malmö, 6th place. It feels like Malmö tries to catch up with Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Antwerp, while they are all fighting for the 3rd place right now with a score of ~60points :)
Nice, I was just looking at Malmö on the map. I was just wondering, is it possible to bike the bridge to Copenhagen or is it just for cars? @@PixelShade
Bikes are important for 2 key reasons. Yes, the reduction in carbon is clear, BUT the cost is a critical consideration as well. Toward 2050, food supply is projected to be halved per-capita, which means the cost of food will increase significantly, increasing the cost of living substantially. Transportation remains the second largest expense to individuals next to residence. To avoid civil unrest (possibly leading to war) and societal collapse, I think three things need to happen: 1) We need to lower cost of transportation (ie. Bicycles/busses/trains/trams) 2) We need to give up meat 3) We need to largely drop landlords and private ownership of housing (ie. single-family homes), opting instead for socially collective solutions (eg. co-op low-rise apartment complexes -- look at Austria as a guide) Not so ironically, these changes would also benefit environmental efforts to lower emissions.
Love the magic-marker graphics and the sunset, also the hosts and the content. Carbon aside, have you done an analysis of what happens to all the spent batteries from all the electric cars and e-bikes. (I avoid car travel and question marks).
Honestly, I know my bike commuting in a largely car-centric city has a negligible impact on climate change. However, a big motivator for me is fitness. The exercise I get riding to work every day has had a big impact on my physical and mental health. Plus, not having to deal with the anxiety of commanding a one-tonne death machine helps.
People like to say that personal carbon footprint doesn’t matter and is a way to shift blame from corporations to people but I don’t agree fully. Big corporations are just giving into supply and demand of the people. It is largely a systemic issue too but I’m not a fan of people using that as an excuse to absolve themselves of all personal responsibility.
Yes, the carboon foot print was made by oil companies to shift responsibilities from their profits to the consumer. You're also right that people should make different choices, but people (especially with the lack of time and funds available to most working class people) will tend to pick the most convenient options and those comes from systemic realities, it's not their fault directly. Even looking at the owning class, these people choose to fly on private airplanes because it is convenient for them even though in terms of fighting climate change, private planes shouldn't be allowed to fly anymore (looking at how much pollution private planes generate to transport a dozen people). Those options people have available are a result of the systems people live in which has been shaped by companies and politicians) You're ignoring the fact that big corporations greatly and are responsible for the systems in our lives. The reason why so many cities are car-dependent are not supply and demand, it's because the auto mobile industry as climate town explains here: th-cam.com/video/oOttvpjJvAo/w-d-xo.html Even the shift to EV's and electric cars. That's being pushed because yes roads for cars exist now but also because that's the way the auto industry will continue to exist. As this video points out, in terms of transit - the answer is buses, trains, metros and bikes - the ideal thing to do is to get rid of cars but then the whole auto industry falls. We also have to look at the lobbying and financial gifts that oil and car companies give to politicians to keep things going the way they have been for the last 60 years (and why there has not been significant action on climate change in the first place).
@@soccer81894 It particularly grinds my gears when politicians that claim to be taking action on climate change will deliver big speeches and introduce legislation and taxes on the public, then in their private lives take jets for their vacations and have no problem flying all around the world to meet with their international colleagues in this age of online meetings and other options. Like, don't pretend you're making this a priority. It's so phony.
I have been bike commiting since 2007 and keep a spreadsheet log calculating my avoided carbon emissions from transportation cycling miles. I have equated it to equivalent carbon savings by number of trees growing per year. Also compared to carbon emissions from taking a typical city bus in my city. I also pick up and recycle trash litter to make my commute carbon footprint lower than zero. Home energy conservation investments have also been undertaken simultaneously to get my overall footprint down significantly. Also I only flew on a plane once since 2011. Bikes are self empowering self powered transportation!!😊
A carbon footprint of 11 is still crazy high. I discuss this a lot in my classes, and the least green students here in the Netherlands are below that number. For me personally the most negative factors in my lifestyle are that me and my girlfriend both live in a separate home and that I buy too much stuff. Don't own a car, cycle to work, took to return flights in my in life and hardly consume meat.
Aaarrrgghh!! No links to the research! How do I take this to council without numbers? And how do I include the research in our Climate Action Plan for the town? Great video, but there are some important things missing....
Living in England a pretty big part of our carbon footprint comes from heating our buildings. I'm glad that I realised this recently, it's better for my mental health to know that much of the fossil fuel I burn (to keep warm) is basically by no choice of my own. I didn't choose to come to this cold place where I have to burn fuel to stay warm. I'd love to live in a hotter country, but these imaginary lines that humans call borders make it extremely difficult for me.
Ground source heat pumps run on renewable sourced electricity would greatly reduce building carbon emissions. Even before that properly insulating our buildings up to Passive House standards.
@@CarFreeSegnitz absolutely, but you will hear the Tories clamouring that improving insulation standards are making homes unaffordable for the 'common man'. And frankly, they aren't entirely wrong, proper insulation will easily add another 5-15K per house, more if you go for a passive standard. A heat pump adds another few thousands. With real estate prices gone up as it is, that might not be in everyone's budget. Frankly, I don't see many easy solutions.
i bet you are the kind of guy who doesn't bother to vote and thinks somebody else is responsible for how the country is run. if you are serious about the carbon footprint just move to a place near a hydro power station. you saw the difference it makes in the comparison alberta vs other provinces
@@LucidFL yes, usually for a 90 day maximum and you're not allowed to work. Unless you do visa applications and then the job has to be offered to the entire EU before you
I think that 90% or more people I meet riding their bikes are quite simply in a good mood. I think that number is nearly reversed for people driving motor vehicles. Drivers are constantly thinking and worrying about being in the right or being in the wrong in case they get "caught" or get into an accident. That good mood thing should be a motive of its own for cycling.
I don't like when they count food calories for bike travel carbon production. Those calories are also going toward fitness! We should at least divide food calories by 2.
@jackosborne9324 maybe because very material living conditions have been getting worse and worse for each new year of '30 year olds'. But nah, they're probably just complainin' 'bout their silly tik tac app
I've been worried about climate change since I was like 18 and am now in my early 40s. I have never driven, but just bought my first ebike for trips in sparsely populated West Quebec. I rarely fly. I want to see my score, I'm guessing under 10. Not bragging but I am very frustrated by car dependency and wish I was not in the minority on this after, though it's definitely gaining momentum. Love your channel! Super informative. You're very well spoken!
It is absurd to count the food that one would supposedly have to eat more because he travels by bicycle. I ride my bike 30-60 km nearly every day with some days off. I eat the same amount of food whether I ride my bike 0, 30 or 60 km...
I agree, and I've thought about this when it's come up before. In fact, I ate less yesterday because I was out cycling during lunchtime with no ill effects. Most of us consume more energy than we expend anyway, so the cycling probably just cancels that out.
The study came from the European Cyclists' Federation, hardly a lobby trying to downplay the benefits of cycling. And they saw a higher consumption of food by cyclists on average. It was still completely offset by cycling vs. driving, which is the main point they made.
@@SuperHyperExtra links get removed by the TH-cam gods, but the study is conducted by the ECF, and the brochure I think they mentioned in the video is called 'Cycle More Often 2 Cool Down The Planet', more precisely on page 10.
Not only do you need to eat more to account for the bike trip itself, you also need to account for the higher metabolic rate from having more muscles from all the cycling.
Climate change and broader environmental factors were probably the biggest factor involved in me switching from an electric car to an electric car bike, definitely glad to be saving money but being able to make a tangible change and also walk the walk instead of just taking the talk was important to me
The entire idea of a “carbon footprint”, including that name, is a propaganda campaign from BP. I took that test and it told me to take land transport instead of cross continental flights, but in North America that’s literally not an option. Trains cost at least 4 times more than flights, can take days, run only a few times per week, and are often delayed by hours and hours.
It's like most carbon credits are generated by giving millions of plastic water filters or junky ovens, green-washing has reached an industrial-scale scam.
This fallacy that trains even high speed compete with air travel is pervasive. Trains compete with car travel. I take the train into the city. instead of driving. so I don't have to deal with parking. I Take the train across the state so I don't have to deal with paying attention. I would never consider taking the train across the country and the only reason I would drive that far is if I had a U haul.
I don’t think that means carbon footprint is a completely useless metric. It shouldn’t be used as an argument that climate change has to be solved by the individual choices of consumers, but more as a measure of how much our lives will need to change in order to address the largest impacts of climate change. Americans’ carbon footprints are much larger than Namibians’, which means that the US needs to do more to change than Namibia does. This means stronger policies, not stronger consumer will.
@@birdrocket agreed! It can also be a useful metric to break down how much policy changes impact pollution on an individual level. Megatonnes of CO2 eq. can be hard to grasp, but if you hear that a person, by biking, can reduce their carbon footprint from transport by 80%, that’s much more tangible for most people.
This was great! A lot to think about. One calculation that was overlooked is the food choices we make. A vegan in a car may have a lower footprint than a meat eater on a bicycle. Our diets take a massive amount of energy which is unsustainable.
Fantastic video, Tom! Also, to anyone reading this, bike choice is a significant factor in all of this. A cheap bike that needs to be thrown out after one season is far less sustainable than a bike that can be maintained easily and lasts a long time, especially ebikes.
I agree in principle and would also advocate for buying a decent bike if you can afford it but maybe a bit of perspective is required here. Even a cheap bike will last more than one season! I've seen plenty of bikes that are in the sub £150/$200 range that have lasted for years. You'd have to be looking at the absolutely ridiculously cheap bikes to have them break in just one year. Other tip is to buy second hand from a reputable bike shop. You'll save a lot of money to the point where you can spend as little as around £75 with a perfectly serviceable bike for local trips that will last for years.
One thing jumping out at me was the large expanse of barren concrete behind you. Imagine how nice it would be if it were terraformed into a park-like environment with flowers, shrubs, trees, and walking and biking paths similar to what some European cities have
It's a bit stupid to count carbon emissions from the calories used to propell it since exercise is a necessity for your health. In other words you should then add the carbon emissions of going to the gym for car commuters for a fair comparison. Also, as others have mentioned, the carbon savings of bike infrastructure compared to car infrastructures (widening highways, parking lots, petrol stations etc) is massive!
Great thought provoking topic! The switch to electric vehicles is currently “complicated” by the negative consequences of battery production, which shouldn’t be underestimated. The entire concept of individual car reliance needs rethinking. I live 18 miles from my work, which is a sad compromise as the hunt for affordable housing pushed us and many into rural areas outside of downtown. I currently own a car, and a house that is too big IMO, but probably smaller than average. I hope to move closer to downtown services and workplaces in the next 5 yrs. I All that to say, as Tom notes in this video, that even when you’re a dedicated climate activist/concerned citizen, we have a long way to go in North America! Can we at least begin the journey in our minds to realize that in our current context of climate change and human population boom, we need to think of how to downsize our overall footprint? As individuals, North Americans simply use too much and feel entitled to do so. Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting we outlaw hamburgers, but we need to at least transform our sense of entitlement, and consider what is essential in life and how we want to move on this world when our impacts are global.
Nice job Cailynn and Tom. It would be great to see a video on the environmental impact of maintaining a bike. Tyres, inner tubes, brake pads, gear and brake cables, oil and grease etc. I imagine it's far less than a car, but by how much? Also what's the scope for recycling consumable parts on a bike?
Is not exactly what you are asking, but you compensate all the emissions for a bike when you use it 340 miles. So, the emissions you save for not using the car 340 miles are similar to the emissions needed to build the bike. This is according to the sustainability report from Trek that has a number for all the components of a bike.
Inner tubes can be repaired and then eventually reused for other projects. It might take five years or longer to use one small container of oil. Cables can be recycled. Eventually (50 years with care and no accidents) a metal bike frame can be recycled.
Great to see how many thousands of kg of CO2 I have not generated over my cycle-commuting life! Interestingly, I always said I was a vegetarian for climate reasons, but cycled for my health. More nuance.
A bicycle is healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. A win - win option for travel. You will be healthier and the planet will be healthier too.
A thoughtful and well-balanced video and some good information for people trying to grapple with the climate emergency and how to respond. As with any change, good intentions are not generally enough to bring about long term change so I'm quite glad you haven't come across too many people citing the climate as a main motivation. You have to find some intrinsic benefit for yourself in the change to make it stick whether this is making personal changes or voting for system-level change. We are all human - let's celebrate it!
The crazy thing is y'all were having that conversation outdoors, in a city, with so little noise you could hear each other and a child playing. Try that in Dallas, and it would be like you were trying to have that conversation at a NASCAR event.
Great video on a topic I think about. Lifetime BIKE RIDER here from. Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. I love the thorough, detailed research and results reported In this video. Well done and keep going!
Kinda hate to see people putting any stock in the idea of individual carbon footprint. This propaganda has weaseled it's way into everything. This footprint stuff only makes sense aggregated over whole populations. It literally makes zero difference if you ride a bike. It makes a difference if a large portion of the population rides, and that is a public policy issue.
@@ernststravoblofeld what do you mean it makes no sense? You’re right, the footprint stuff does only show results if a large portion of the population acts. Dass dieses Video hochgeladen wurde, ist die Antwort gegen deine Stellung: es wurde auf TH-cam gepostet in dem Bestreben, mehr Menschen zu bekehren, ihre Carbon-Footprints weniger zu werden. Wenn keiner muss seinen Teil beitragen, erreichen wir nix. Aber der eigentliche Kampf liegt natürlich mit großen Korporationen; ist doch ein anderes Video und eine andere Diskussion.
@@bradyrice6631 My German is limited to bathrooms and train stations, so I didn't get anything after the English part where you clearly misread my comment.
Great video. Oh the power of WIND! My local energy provider has a "wind-source" program that allows me to purchase all my power from windmills. What's rarely I barely drive (4500km/y) and that is electric. My annual footprint living in a nice-enough 1st world city is only 4.85 metric tons. 3.9 of that is air travel!
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How do you think about cycling and climate change? Share your thoughts.
And for those asking for sources (you're my kind of people), here's a list of the main sources used in this piece: docs.google.com/document/d/1o-LUd9LLco0zKPBXow--eW1uffD3wLdpip0LhDnQmWY/edit?usp=sharing
It's important to acknowledge that cycling as a solution to climate change might not be feasible for all contexts. Factors such as weather, urban design, infrastructure, and accessibility can impact the ability of individuals to use bicycles as a primary mode of transportation. To fully harness the benefits of cycling for climate change mitigation, a comprehensive approach is needed, including investments in cycling infrastructure, public awareness campaigns, and policy support for sustainable transportation options. By reducing the demand for fossil fuels and promoting eco-friendly lifestyles, cycling can play a significant role in mitigating climate change and creating more sustainable communities. Keep using your channel to promote the change. Thanks.
I've seen a couple studies that find bikes are less efficient than ebikes given typical developed country food systems. I was surprised the studies here found ebikes used more energy. I wonder if that's because they were mostly European, which were all pedal assist and not throttle? Anyway, maybe something to explore in a future video?
Over five years now since I stopped using a car. 25 years since I last traveled by air. All my local travel is by bicycle, and each year I pick up several old bicycles at yard sales for near zero cost and then rehab them for other people to ride. .
There's also the question of induced demand. One person switching to a bike commute doesn't mean exactly one less car on the road. If there's less congestion, driving becomes more appealing and there will be more trips by car up to a certain point. That's why removing road capacity for cars including converting lanes from car lanes to bus-only, bike-only, and electric moped-only, and zoning car-free neighborhoods ought to be part of the solution, as well as other policy changes. As a bonus those bike-only lanes require a lot less road construction as bikes are much less heavy and wear much less on the pavement! Electric cars actually wear the pavement down faster because those battery packs are incredibly heavy, but it's not an issue with bikes and e-bikes.
Soooo like.. where did Calgary's emissions from food consumption go? Into thin air? I doubt it. Animal agriculture makes up about a third of worldwide emissions, do cities think it doesn't exist? I think we are truly lost in the wilderness of bad climate maths, having these conversations without ever discussing the difficult questions. Absolutely no chart showing analysis of any population's emissions should lack this information, in this day and age. How is it that we only show certain types of household consumption, but not others which have a far greater impact? Get out of your organisational silos and stop thinking purely in terms of infrastructure and how it's used inside of the city. Our consumption also begins outside of the city, where our food is grown, fed and killed.
One thing missing from this calculation for cycling is the cost of infrastructure. Even a 2-lane roadway is significantly more expensive to build and maintain than a typical bike path occupying as little as 1/4 of the land area, requiring less robust construction to support it.
Not just construction cost. Maintenance is ORDERS of magnitude lower for bike paths. There are dedicated bike paths in my city built in the late 90's, built with brick pavers, that to this day are as good to bike on as the day they were built. And these aren't recreational trails. These are paths that handle thousands of bikes every day.
One path handled between 4000 and 5000 bikes per day, over 1 million per year, and was changed to a bicycle street a few years back because the path had become to narrow for that much two way bike traffic. So now bikes ride on the traffic calmed street and the bike path is now used as a pedestrian path. And the path is fine and didn't require any maintenance or construction at all, even after 25 years of use.
The only points that create problems for bicycle paths are the points where motor traffic crosses them, and there they require as much maintenance as roads do. But it's not due to the bikes, but due to motor traffic...
And there are many other factors that can be calculated into the low low cost of cycling infrastructure, and gains a city can make by building it. Just a few:
More cyclists means less cars, this means less air and noise pollution, which means healthier cities. This reduces health care costs for the majority of citizens, and the city or government.
More cyclists means less cars, which means more space available for public spaces and places to relax. This means less stress and this feeds back into the health benefits. But this also means more space for greenery which further reduces pollution, but which also reduces the heat island effect of cities. More greenery means cities heat up less in hot weather making them far more pleasant environments. This then also reduces AC usage during hot weather. And on top of that more greenery and green space allows for more water to infiltrate into the soil where it falls, leading to less water needing to be taken in by sewage and drainage systems, leading to less flooding during extreme rainfall. And it benefits the groundwater level too, allowing for more water to infiltrate. This in turn means less watering is needed during dry months to keep plants alive.
Less cars and more cycling means more kids cycling. This gives kids an enormous freedom. Kids can then safely cycle to friends, family, school etc. And it is immensely empowering, and let's kids build independence. Otherwise they are stuck at home and rely on their parents to be able to go anywhere. As a kid I cycled everywhere as soon as I was in primary school, including school. And it gave me a huge level of independence and freedom from an early age on. I could go play with friends even if my parents were busy, I could go to school on my own, and so on. It is often forgotten, but what it does for kids is such a huge part of making cities and suburbs more bike and pedestrian friendly.
And all this is not even taking into account cities with less cars in them are just generally much more pleasant environments to be in, to live in, to work in, to shop in, etc.
And I could go on. Making cities more pedestrian and bike friendly has huge knock-on effects. The construction cost is just one factor, and not even a major one considering all the others... One study from the Netherlands I once read calculated that every euro invested in bike infrastructure actually creates a return for society of up to 8 euro, exactly because all these knock on effects are diverse, but when you add them up they really.... Add up...
@@johanwittens7712can you create a YT video with your comment instead? A really nice summary of benefits of a city not dependant on cars. :)
@@johanwittens7712, 100%. Less cement (repair and initial pouring) is huge--it releases so much CO2. Things I didn't see you mention are run-off (less flash flooding) and head island from lower parking needs, too. And also from air quality from brake/tire dust.
yes.. but most bike paths are made by sacrificing part of an existing street or parallel parking spaces.
This would probably be a difficult calculation, but the increased physical health of cycling versus a sedentary car-dependent life-style almost certainly has a calculable carbon impact. Or would living longer negate that?
What I enjoy the most about bikes is how silent they are in comparison to cars. Cars can turn a lovely street into a noise and heath hell, whereas bikes just adds to the charm of the community.
Yes, I was gonna say ! Noise pollution and unsafe streets are way more important than we think. If kids can bike by themselves it means less parents by car to drive them therefore less cars on the road for example. Noise and air pollution are a stress for the body which will make people sicker.
I live off an arterial boulevard and you're absolutely right, during the peak of business hours the road is louder than a highway with all of the semi truck and industrial vehicle sounds. You can also smell the diesel if the wind is coming from the south.
On the other hand, during the weekend or evenings it's a very very quiet roadway with only the occasional car passing by. It's almost a different living experience all together, and typically fresh air from the north blows the acrid smells away during the evening.
😆I live on a crescent off of a semi-major stroad in my city, and the people gunning their engines (up to the nearby red light) are the worst!
I was in Amersfoort, Netherlands one day and watched, fascinated, as moms went to pick up their kids from school. Everyone was on a bike. So quiet. No fumes from running cars. And the moms could catch up with one mother. It was magical.
Most big cities are on the coast. Unless we adapt they are going to be sea before too long. Its ironic how short term many are when protesting against cycling.
You forgot, I think, the Co2 cost of land use change. A car uses enormously more land than a bike and that is a very big contributor to co2 emissions.
Not to mention the land destroyed by oil drilling, or by mining for cobalt and other minerals for electric car batteries (which require hundreds more in terms of capacity than an e-bike). The land's ability to be a carbon sink is completely destroyed.
I will add in the land "use" for cars increasing the SPACING of housing / businesses and everything else causing MORE LAND use to "support" the same number of people
a STROAD goes back to a road and 2 tower blocks PER block is built housing 200 people each AND having "local" stores at street level and toss in office towers and we have turned a linier slowly moving"car park" into a village
This! Shifter was bellow average even while driving and flying internationally several times - because he lives in a dense area only possible if some people give up their cars. So biking not only reduce your CO2, it also reduce the CO2 of everyone around you (even drivers). Driving does the exact opposite, causing everyone to exert more energy due to multiplying distances between destinations. Enabling denser cities is a top benefit of cycling.
You would expect CO2 levels to be rising. CO2 levels rise with an 800 year lag as temperatures rise. We are coming out of the Little Ice Age.
It’s worth noting that during the time of COVID, citizens in India were able to see the Himalayas for the first time in 'decades,' as the lockdown eased air pollution
As well world wide!!!
Wow, they could see Himalaya while they died of hunger because they could not make money to buy food. What a great advantage.
@@gerrysecure5874 you must be fun to hangout with
@@arekgalang5555 Great you enjoy truth and rationale thinking. Most hysterical idiots turn even more crazy and approach red face and cardiac arrest.
Smog used to be bad in Los Angeles, now the mountain are visible, yet there are more cars. 🤷🏿
Cailynn mentions that in order to make its goals, Vancouver needs to have 2/3 or daily trips by active transportation and transit by 2030. It’s currently one of the best cities in North America with almost 1/3 of daily trips by AT and transit, but that means it needs to double that in less than 7 years. The transit is already bursting at the seams, and the city council is actively removing bike lanes. We desperately need a ton of funding and need to start building bus and bike lanes on a huge scale yesterday
They're REMOVING bike lanes?!
Wait wait. At a time where Montréal is adding bike lanes and spaces, god damn Vancouver is removing them?!!
I find it hard to believe that they are removing them.
Surrey, for example, has abandoned painting any new lanes, which means that new lanes will separated/protected. This could mean that some lanes might be quieted with painted lines removed.
This doesn't sound like reduced bike infrastructure, so maybe Vancouver is doing the same.
@@josiahclagett7369
As a sovereign country, Canada has a sovereign currency it can create and destroy at will. At present, like NZ, Australia, USA, UK, Japan, they all use currency creation - fiat currency as a method of social and economic control. It's all a part of the rules based system of the USUK. It's worked well since the close of WW2 and for Britain since the East India Company. Why change it? Well it happens to be the cause of imperial empire and destruction of the biosphere on the living earth. We can't have it both ways. Anyway, looks like it's all coming to an end for the USUK EU in the next 10 years as BRICS takes off. Africa's told us to leave, South America is on the same track and things are stirring in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and both Russia and China are well underway. I know it's a long way from bike lanes, but it's all part of the same thing. We just have to ask what shape planet will we be handing over to our kids this decade and the next two or three. Good luck Skip, we're all going to need it.
They're also making some bus lanes less frequent. For bus 17, there's now 25 min waits sometimes during the day. It's bad. The more they invest in transit, the more people will use it. Same principle as why adding lanes on roads creates more traffic: the infrastructure is there, so people use it.
me during the intro: “is he hauling a folding bike in a bakfiets?”
tom: “…and yes, i am currently transporting a folding bike in a cargo bike, but that’s not the point of this video”
me: “oh, ok”
I was foreshadowing a future video 😉
@@Shifter_Cyclinghow many seats can you comfortably put on a bike? That hold can hold human in the seat?
Hauling a bakfiets on a folding bike would be more noteworthy...
Me at start of video: I've never heard of a tandem bike with seats that face each other and front rider riding backwards 🙂
@@jfmezei I have seen that, but only in circus ;)
The positive impact of cycling over driving goes beyond carbon emissions though. Cars produce particulate matter from tyres grinding down. They produce general air pollution. They're far more likely to cause pedestrian injury and death. Parking lots for cars makes huge hot spots within a town or city, which are ecologically dead and can exacerbate flooding. A car uses much more energy and resources to produce in the first place, and the fuel for cars has to be extracted, refined, and delivered by tanker.
Add the material from brake pads...
Yeah it takes about 5-10 tons of CO2 to produce and ship a car to a customer.
You can produce about 50-100 bicycles for that. A typical car has a weight of 1000-2000 kg and more complex components, while most bicycles are like 10-15 kg.
@T33K3SS3LCH3N yep and a regular bike is almost infinitely repairable, ship of Theseus style, whereas a cars will almost eventually always fail in some way that can't be fixed.
I know people who are still using 1970s bike frames
Then don't ever get in an auto again. Ever.
@@mcbullitt I think we can admit that cars pollute without making them illegal, no?
I feel like the claimed environmental benefits have already dominated the mainstream narrative of why biking is beneficial. Definitely important but I don't think it is as strong a motivator as the benefits to an individuals health. Also I feel like the 'war on cars' people will never be swayed by an environmental argument, whereas they might become more moderate from points about reducing diseases of lifestyle, reducing car accident deaths, reducing noise pollution or if they could be convinced that alternatives to cars can actually reduce traffic.
Like I said late in the video, I don’t often hear people who cite climate change as a motivator for cycling, but it’s often a second or third factor so I think it should be in the conversation
@@Shifter_Cycling Not second or third, but near the bottom. Even citing it as a reason risks putting a lot of people on the defensive against cycling.
@@rangersmith4652 I'd have to disagree with that. A lot of people have start biking more because it's both enjoyable while being a sustainable alternative. Sure, every person's different, but I hardly see it as "at the bottom".
@@Ryan_hey My point is this: There are a lot of people who think the entire climate change push is a money grab for a relative handful of companies, a disingenuous virtue signal for others, and an excuse for massive overreach of their governments. For these folks, citing "man-made" climate change as a reason to ride a bike instead of driving a car is political; it comes across as very progressive and immediately brands all cyclists as Leftist environmentalist wackos. As soon as you cite climate change as a reason for doing anything, people who think this way -- and they're not wrong -- are on the defensive.
@@Shifter_Cyclingit's my top motivator, personally. So - I'm good that degree of focus!
I think any calculation like this massively underestimates long-term savings if changes in land-use are allowed to play out. The type of city that is conducive to cycling performs better along a lot of other dimensions too :)
You have also all the land and material saved abroad. Most vehicles, even those "made in America" often source parts abroad, so we're relying on draining other countries to support our lifestyles, as well as offload some of our carbon footprint to other countries.
.. But bike wastes 1 hour more of time than car a day, out of 16 awake hours.. This is 7% less time for family and work, so only for those who hate their children and want to risk divorce and not be promoted. Non car life increases risk of sucky life, it's why the rich tell poor to bike why they drive and fly. It's pretty evil to tell person to waste 7% of life.... Please skip the denials that cars are faster than bikes, walking, and transit... Cars are great for good life, they do suck for encironment...
@@mostlyguesses8385 That's not my experience on the door-to-door round trip. I am working in Amsterdam and living some 35 Km away. Just looking at time and cost of commuting:
- Car. 90 to 120 minutes (depending on traffic). Add two hours of work to pay for ~10 EUR fuel , ~50 EUR parking (for eight hours), car costs per trip, forgetting about insurance and car maintenance. And forget about joining the weekly office drinks.
- Bike. 150 to 200 minutes (mostly depending on wind). Add some 100 EUR bike maintenance per year. Should still avoid the weekly office drinks
- Public transportation. 120 to 180 minutes (depending on transportation coincidences), about 25 EUR round trip. The organization is quite good, and companies are required to pay transport costs when further than 10 Km). Great when joining the weekly office drinks, even if you may have to wait 45 minutes for the bus (in the evening). As a plus, I can read in the train and bus, some 80 minutes gained for myself
- Weapon of choice (for me): bike to and from the stations. 100 to 120 minutes round trip, with no dependence on public transportation on the short trips. I still have time to read on the train, can join office drinks, have a bike for the short trip...
One thing that's also not covered in this video is that cars also generate heat. The heat generated is surely a lot more than the metabolic heat by cyclists or the GHG's involved in growing the food.
Apart from contributing to the urban heat island effect, then actually no - the sum total of all man-made heat directly pales by comparison to the energy imbalance caused by CO2 emissions. (Like, 500x more). To put it in perspective, the energy imbalance caused by the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is the equivalent to 5-7 Hiroshima sized bombs being detonated *every second*.
@@thepandaman It will eventually become a problem if economic growth continues though, Process waste heat is expected to boil the oceans in about 400 years at current growth rates.
2 tons is a MASSIVE difference.... keep in mind that that the global average is 4.79 ton per person and not 15.5tons like the Canadian average. In 2030 we need to go down to a global average of 3.5tons/person.... so really, 2 tons does help out A LOT in terms of climate change!
This isn't related to the video. I just wanted to post a wild biking experience (for me).
I live in a town with no biking infrastructure, and it's just sharing the raod with cars. But I recently spent a month in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and holy balls is their whole biking thing different. I've never seen a protected bike lane before then. It was wild!
Glad you enjoyed it! The current city government is quickly building new bike infrastructure and the community is (slowly) getting used to it. The protected bike lanes downtown have been great and have made cycling to work a much more pleasant experience. Here's to hoping that they keep up with the pace and keep making cycling more viable.
I live in Victoria, and if anywhere in Canada is to pull off this modal shift, it will be here. Mildest year round climate in the country; expansive cycling network; robust cycling culture - come this Saturday, some 2300 cyclist will take to the streets, MUPs of Southern V.I., as competitors in the Ryder Hesjedal's Tour de Victoria.
In fact, I will be cycling against this mob on the trail at some point that morning on my commute to work; wish me luck!
@@jasonarthurs3885 as an EV Victorian that city is #1 in North America for the "score card" on CITY to be biking capital of North America
Try Tucson AZ. VERY bike friendly
Changing the car for a (e)bike is a step, but in all the steps that needs addressing (like house, food, travel) this one surely gives instant gratification/fun.
It's also a very visible and public thing which means it's more likely to impact others towards seeing it as normal and eventually considering it themselves. The same is less true for home upgrades, so it stands to reason that things like bicycle commuting are more apt for grassroots cultural change leading to mass adoption. Perhaps home upgrades is something where we will depend more on incentives from the government to get it done, but with transportation we can achieve a lot simply by spreading bike culture.
Biking and walking are one of the rare win-wins out there where doing the "good" thing can also be more enjoyable. So many times doing the "good" thing requires some sacrifice, but in this case it's enjoyable and enriching :-)
Loved the video and all the interesting research, thanks Tom and Cailynn!
Happy to see that my electric bike is only a little bit worse than a non-electric bicycle. Pedal assist was a life changing thing for me. I have really bad knees, and a normal bicycle wasn't very usable to me, no matter how much I wanted to make it work.
Realistically though? I'm not cycling because of climate change. I cycle because I love riding my bike, I hated driving, and cycling is SO much less expensive. Cars are expensive to buy, expensive to run, expensive to ensure. They guzzle up money like they do gasoline.
Benefiting the planet is just a nice extra :)
Looking at 6:25 , e-bikes are 2 to 3 times worse than a regular bicycle... Still a lot better than cars of course. Anyway, doesn't really matter, I'm happy you're happy to be cycling! ;)
They're not. They excluded the incredibly harmful effects on mining rare heavy metals by slave labor in third-world nations AND the ticking time bomb that in fast approaching in that we are going to have to spend massive amounts on carbon to decommission these incredibly toxic batteries. That'll be a fun wake up call!
i think that the main advantage to bike commuting is reducing traffic. If half the drivers leave their cars, the traffic is cut in half.
I agree there are far more benefits to bike commuting that we didn’t address in this video. That’s kind of what this whole channel is about 😉
Yet your commute time would be the same, and longer the greater the distance.
it is also good for your health. a simple excercice and also beneficial for mental health (like any outdoor activity)
It seems a little weird to me to factor in the carbon footprint of the food you had to eat to power your bike. Like yes, it does technically factor in, but that's also probably replacing a cardio workout for most people. When I drive more often, I'm more likely to want to find time to go on a jog to stay in shape, so I'm burning those calories either way.
Exactly. They also didn't factor in the resting metabolic rate while driving.
that's very true... I have definitely commited to "the gym of life" rather than actually going to a gym and waste energy... I combine it with transportation, activities with friends etc instead.
Indeed. There is a limit to the level of scrutiny of each little things.
There was a great tv show called "The Good Place" and in some point they discover that no one reached heaven in years and after investigation they find out the reason. There is a point system to decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and in the past when someone did a good thing, like getting flowers to his mother he got points for that and today if someone brings flowers to his mother he still gets the same point but they deduct from that the fact that he drove a car, the flowers were wrapped in non recyclable plastic, were picked up by poorly paid workers and pesticides and access of water were used to grow them so he ends up with negative points so in the end, no one, no matter how hard he tries, gets the points to get to heaven.
I've always found that weird in these comparisons as well. For me personally, I don't notice any difference at all in eating habits from what I would have just eaten anyway 🤷♂️ It seems to be reaching to factor that in, unless you're riding an exceptionally long way all the time.
No, hard disagree. Commuting isn't really a workout unless you want to get sweaty
I always enjoy your videos, Tom. Keep them coming 👍
Thank you for watching!
The bikeshare I use in Boston, called BlueBikes, lets you know via their app how many trips and miles you've done, so you can calculate how you're doing. I do drive a rental car occasionally, but not owning a car apparently makes a huge huge difference. Also, I'm a lot less stressed just dealing with regular bike maintenance rather than adding a car onto what I do.
City living increases your carbon footprint dispite "research" stating the contary. They exclude buses, transports, etc., lights, HVAC, etc. that all run even when not used. That is also part of your footprint. But they don't include that.
Hey Tom, 2 tonnes less co2 is a lot! I’m somewhere down at 3 tonnes looking for ways to get to 1 (which has been said to be globally sustainable). Last time I calculated my footprint I was commuting to work by bus, but now I’m biking. Seeing this video I realize I need to recalculate! 🤓
Fantastic job.
Thanks!
This may have been said already, but I feel the best thing to emphasize to the public is the pollution aspect. It's already known that vehicle occupants get a bigger dose of air pollution than those outside of them (due to how the vehicles intake 'fresh' air). Pollution directly affects people in their immediate surroundings. Yes, pollution over large areas affect people, but I'm only thinking of the "selling point" to get people to think more about biking or walking instead of driving.
The more people you have biking, the less traffic, and the less immediate area pollution, especially for those using the bike lanes or the sidewalks.
This is an interesting point. Climate change has, for a long time, been pretty intangible, which made it difficult to galvanize people. Maybe a focus on pollution is a better approach. Thank you for the support!
@@Shifter_Cycling You're most welcome! Your videos are great, especially for sharing with the non-athletic bicycle users out there.
Great episode Tom and Cailynn. There are also health benefits by reduction in cardio-vascular and emission poisoning, and straight out fitness. Many strokes and heart attacks are caused by emissions poisoning, but most hospital staff put causes down to heart failure and inflammation as the usual suspects. Infact the inflammation is caused in no small part by emissions. There's also the economic system to consider, which in most western democracies is driven by GDP and endless growth and profit. As we all know, we live in a finite space called the biosphere and take earth's services for free with no or little penalty for suppliers causing ecosystem damage, ecocide and in the global south mass murder. It's our governments and corporations, the IMF and IBRD plus military industrial complex and City of London, Wall street who make these decisions. So there's plenty of major factors outside the individuals' personal control at play. Flying regularly is extremely damaging, as is cruise liner travel. The term Individual carbon footprint was of course introduced by the fossil fuel corporations as a diversion to their role in supplying the stuff. Systemwide change is the only real way to reduce carbon, methane, and nitrous emissions. But individuals can feel personally better about themselves by reducing their own footprint. BTW food and industrial ag is a major contributer to greenhouse gas emissions. International trading in foodstuffs and consumables is a big contributor to climate breakdown. NZ could be self sufficient for instance, but a few can profit greatly by exporting dairy and importing everything consumable. I know I live in NZ the biggest dairy exporter in the world, which per capital joins the 5 eyes countries plus Japan and a few others like Saudi Arabia as one of the top per capita emitters on the planet. Another measure is how many planet earths worth of stuff countries consume per year. NZ reaches its limit of one earth by mid April, Australia by mid March, and so on. The poorest countries usually in Africa last most of the year. They have indivial carbon footprints of around a single ton. We see where the real problem lies. The top 10 percent by fiat wealth which is me and you Tom and and the people we know. It's us, our friends and families and work colleagues. It isn't the global south where most of the world population lives at the present time. Thanks again Tom and Cailynn, great video. Long live cycling! One of the stats I like is "if the top 10 percent reduced their emissions to the level of the average european, we'd reduce planetary emissions by one third" (Prof. Kevin Anderson Tyndall Centre and University of Manchester, University of Uppsala and University of Bergen - who's a cyclist too!)
Carbon footprint is primarily a tactic to shift blame from corporations and governments who emit carbon/protect carbon emitting corporations respectively. The carbon footprint does exist in the sense that one person emits x number of tonnes per year, but ultimately most people arent able to change that number enough to matter. A systemic issue is basically impossible to solve with unorganized individual actions
I totally agree. Each of our own contributions to the climate is negligible compared to the biggest polluting companies on the planet. That's almost a completely different topic that I'm not versed enough in to even know how to begin talking about and knowing how to solve.
But I still think it's worth talking about. The more you talk about social issues, the more they can spread to people who weren't even aware of it. Me suddenly riding my bike, walking, or taking the bus to work instead of driving won't make even a fraction's fraction's fraction's worth of a dent to climate change. But if enough people can be convinced, and make that decision together, it can. Look at what happened during COVID when everybody stayed home. And when enough people begin to demand better infrastructure, cities will be required to listen. People always use the excuse that their city has shit bike infrastructure and awful transit solutions so they never use it. But if we all tried to use it and crippled the system, it would give them evidence that they need to improve.
Look at all the European cities with thousands of kilometers of dedicated bike lanes and 20-minute-interval train and bus systems. It didn't happen overnight. Fortunately for them, their leaders aren't as car-brained as North American ones so that did help, but the informed people also demanded it.
Don't just ask for change. Demand it, and do your best to BE the change you want to see.
totally, individuals should minimize their "carbon footprint" and also be aware that includes prejudice towards bad companies. You can't just go vegan but still use big oil!
People purchase hydrocarbons, the corpos provide what is in demand...
definitely need to be fighting on both fronts - personally living lives more environmentally friendly, and doing whatever we can to tear down oil companies and keep politicians accountable for enforcing climate friendly legislation. if only governments were truly of the people and not just plutocrats who are so far removed from the struggles and harms to the average person… they can afford to get away from the effects of climate change, we cannot
I agree to a certain extent but it can become a copout, nihilistic thing to act like nothing you do matters. Doing small things like trying to compost food scraps or using less paper to more life style changes like biking to work or mostly buying local food could influence people around you to do the same and would cascade over time and more people doing it. Throwing your hands up about corporations is on par with saying "well it doesn't matter what the US does because China/India/etc. are worse".
For the first time in my life starting next week I will be able to consistently bike ride to and from work because of getting a new job. Now I will work in the city I live! I cannot begin to describe how excited I am to be part of the change for a stronger, and healthier community.
Cailynn's bike is very fun! She did such good deep research 🚲
A few weeks ago, I bought an electric bicycle that goes 50kmh (32mph), which keeps up with cars in downtown traffic! It's a gamechanger, that challenges how people get around the streets, especially where there isn't sufficient bicycle infrastructure. The more that we push the envelope to show healthier alternatives, the more that people will be consciously aware.
It’s also wild how much variation there is across Canada. Someone riding their bike around Montreal, in a province where electricity is 99% carbon free,as a carbon footprint orders of magnitude lower than an Alberta suburbanite.
also having "milder" winter lows reducing heating costs AND emissions and CHEAP electricity creating a "incentive" to drop GAS heating for electric heating
Reducing your personal carbon footprint by around 20% just by biking is already awesome!
😂🤣
The personal carbon footprint is a scam created by British Petroleum to deflect the blame for climate change.
And the effect planet wide... absolutely nothing. If a million people do it... still nothing.
@@EGL24Xx don't try and reason with the delusional, they are way too far gone
Please, dawg, for the love of god why are you using terminology invented and popularised by multinational corporations in order to shift the blame on the little man?
The more people are riding bikes, as long as the city is tacking metrics on that, the more pressure there is to improve the situation for bikes. Having read a few of my city's DoT reports & proposals, having proven traffic is unfortunately super helpful for justifying new infrastructure. Yes, it is a backwards system (if you build bad infrastructure that no one uses, this system will then just say utilization is too low to justify an improvement), but for a city with forward momentum just riding has a great externality of getting the city to put more money into biking (and making it more visible, so safer for others).
and that is how MOST cities work and why "advocating" is important
Systemic change is Really the point. HAVING AFFORDABLE housing near places of work, reduce the driving and making a 50+km commutes into a thing of the past and make them into something more reasonable to bike. Additionally selling those newly made houses to people whom actually work in the AREA not to the people with the most money. SYSTEMIC change not pure unadulterated real-estate profit investing.
The extra calories you use to ride a bike are kinda irrelevant because if you weren’t riding the bike you would probably go run on a treadmill or something. So instead of uselessly burning calories you get to combine it with your commute. Of course the numbers are negligible but it’s basically free.
Agreed: you'd go to a spin class and use exactly the same calories. I don't sit on my sofa just because I'm not commuting.
Thank you. I was thinking this too. People driving to the gym.
Spot on. I swear I eat more on the days I don’t bike commute.
Or just become obese.
Also you should add te reduced emissions from needing less health care
I think one of this most undervalued aspects of getting more people out of cars and biking is the impact on health care systems. Covid allowed us to see that health care systems all over the world have very little real margin to cope with large impacts over and above the norm. The improvements in the health of people taking more trips by bike would make an immense difference in reducing the strains currently on health care systems. Taking this to it's logical conclusion would be that the cost's of bike infrastructure would likely be made up, at least in part, in savings to the cost of health care. Thanks for another great video Tom.
One of the things I always find crazy about my employer's carbon report is that one of the big adjustments that could reduce our footprint would be to move our shared computer resources from Calgary to Vancouver. Sources of generation make such a difference.
(And gotta love that Dani's latest pronouncement is that we shall not further green the grid.)
You probably still want to keep at least backup servers local though.
the carbon of the power grid and servers take a LOT OF power
Manitoba has "sold" the idea that we are a clean and cheap place for servers to operate and being very COLD for 10 months helps greatly as you can "passively" cool the servers for a LOT Longer then in "milder" climates where ACTIVE cooling is required
Really excellent report on a very complex topic, Tom.
The observation about needing system changes in addition to individual actions is very important one!
The way I see it - When we go before city council or any government entity petitioning for systemic changes, We'll have more credibility if we have taken at least some individual actions (such as bike commuting) to mitigate my climate impact. We have "skin in the game." Even better if we encourage others to do likewise.
Then, we can frame requests from the context of, "We have made these X individual changes to improve the climate situation. So now it's your turn to do something."
For many years i was a commission salesman, didn't earn a dollar unless i sold. On days where I i biked to work and didn't have a good day, I still felt better than on days when I drove and didn't sell anything.
Tom, I loved this one. Cailynn's analysis is great. But I wonder if there's room for a follow-on video that analyzes time-weighted cost-efficiency of bikes and other emissions-reduction strategies. I mean, it's one thing to know where current emissions are coming from but another to know where we get the most bang for our emissions reduction buck. I'd think that bikes would really shine when viewed through this lens given that cars are so expensive to own and operate. And I think it's important to time-weight the analysis because more modest emissions reductions that can start today (such as commuting by bike instead of car) might be better than more cost-efficient emissions reduction strategies that would take longer to deploy. Also, I'd love to see an analysis of the emissions reductions of bike compared to internal combustion engine vehicle for short trips on a cold engine. Most of the analyses that I've seen on comparative emissions assume some average vehicular fuel efficiency that is much, much higher than actual fuel efficiency of a vehicle with a cold engine. For short trips (where an engine would not have time to warm up completely), bikes are likely even better for the environment than car and, likely, much, much easier on the pocketbook. I know this to be true from personal experience but it'd be great to see real data. My personal experience was blowing through an entire tank of gas (in a 2017 Subaru Outback) in a couple of weeks when commuting by car about .5 miles each way every day. That comes about to about USD $3.60 per mile, which is, of course, insanely expensive. I bet a lot more people would opt to bike for short trips if they realized that driving on a cold engine is so ridiculously expensive and carbon inefficient. Rollie Williams might even collaborate on these videos given the connection with climate change.
Perhaps a typo: “.5 miles”, as in “a half mile”. Were you really driving a half mile, a walk of less than 10 minutes? Or did you mean “5 miles”?… which is still a short bike ride but a longish walk.
@@CarFreeSegnitz Alas, not a typo. And it seems that most trips by most people are so short that an engine could not warm. Hence my concern that the comparative value of bikes is often grossly understated.
I’ve greatly enjoyed the video thank you. I’m watching from the UK. There is something I’d like people to consider with regard to action on climate change. I think a good idea is if there is an election in your area then write to all the candidates asking them what they plan to do to combat climate change. I like old fashioned letters personally, but an email will also be good to do. If you like you can deliver the letters by bicycle of course.
Reminding politicians of how important this issue is to the public is always a good thing to do.
Awesome video; want so many people to see this.
Nothing is a silver bullet, but cycling is so good for so many things and I want it to be accessible for everyone!
I think the number for Utrecht sounds kind of low because of how it was expressed. Because in cities like Montreal if bicycle usage is 18.2%, that means there is 81.7% car usage. In the Netherlands there is 51% bicycle usage and also significant percentages for walking and public transportation and even the car usage is less impactful due to the on-average smaller cars.
Anyone who has tried to drive downtown Montréal in the past decade would point out that there’s a lot of public transport there, it’s definitely not 81% cars. Downtown is always a gridlock, driving there really sucks.
@@vincentlemire8435 There was an ounce of hyperbole in my comment. The overall point is that the not-bicycle portion is going to be cars by a greater percentage in Canada.
Montreal proper have less than 50% of trips made by cars. Bike is 18%, transit is around 30%, and walking about 5%.
To put your number into context, the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C by 2050 requires global average per capita carbon emissions to be around 2 tons per year. We can't get there with bikes alone, but we certainly can't get there without them!
Would also love to see comparisons on miles travelled for cyclists - I've noticed it keeps me closer to home, more locally focused. Not just delta in cost per km but also in total usage.
Biking makes me like a smaller life in general too, no more suburban big box stores.
So many beautiful knock on effects.
This is a good point, and I’ve noticed this in my journeys as well. Using a bike makes me appreciate more the things in my own neighbourhood.
@@Shifter_Cycling swapping from the "lowest priced" to the best local likely is a big change from NOT being able to DRIVE to a far off box store to "save" a few bucks
When you have to carry it home via bicycle you tend to shop more insightfully.
Great video Tom, Cailynn is a jewel, I’m glad you had her on again. You both think through the whole picture and I love it.
Very good. Thanks. I try and commute by bike whenever I can. Much better than driving. Thanks
Good to learn about this. Unfortunately many of the things mentioned are not financially attainable for a very large percentage of the US population. It’s very expensive to improve a home’s insulation, get a new vehicle, or add solar (not all homes are located in a place and/or orientation that makes solar “pay for itself”). Getting a bicycle is usually affordable. Wages don’t keep up with inflation and most people are poorly educated, or not educated at all, regarding how to manage their finances for their benefit.
Big hit for wage earners when your bike/wheel/seat is stolen. I volunteered at UCalgary community bike shop, every week some poor soul barely scraping by came in looking to replace stolen parts or rides to make it to work.
@@phenej that’s too bad & that kind of thing happened where I lived too. I actually kept my bike seat chained to my frame, and had chains for the wheels too. It helped to not be the easiest target, so no one ever tried cutting my locks or chains.
One of your best ! Good hard facts and I love the drawings/graphs !
This channels about bikes .. and their impact .. not trains or air.
Keep the facts coming .. great ammo against the deniers !
I love Kaitlyn's bike. It is so sunny and a pleasure to look at.
For me personally the whole climate part or carbon footprint doesn't even factor in.
Biking allows me to live in a city without needing to own a car. It allows me to move around when I want without ever worrying about traffic delays. (almost) Never need to look for a parking spot when biking. It's cheap as dirt (no payments, no insurance, no taxes, no parking fees, no tolls, etc) even with yearly maintenance of my bike by a professional, allowing me to save tons of money. Biking is enjoyable and allows me to unwind after a day of work, even when biking at a completely relaxed pace. Biking gets me daily exercise while not doing anything special except move around. It allows me to enjoy my environment and see what's going on in my community. It allows me to live in a place without parking needed, right in the city center. And biking is just convenient and fun.
Never owned a car in my life and never regretted it at all.
For me, climate change is pretty low on my list of reasons for riding, but it's still on the list. There are so many other benefits that are also important.
I was out shopping early one morning recently and the rain was intense. Because my gear is pretty good now I didn’t get wet and I was just buzzing because I enjoy cycling so much. Cycling is always a great experience.
While I think this discussion is valuable, I think we really need to be aware of how Jevons paradox will make most of this discussion moot. While I personally don't burn the fuel, so my personal footprint is lower, that fuel is still going to be extracted and burnt (because the reduced demand makes it cheaper and thus others will buy more). This is why the takeaway at the end of the video is so important. This issue is not personal but systemic. And it goes deeper than just changing the way we move and live and consume. We need to also demand that governments phase out fossil fuels and stop subsidizing them.
Well done, both of you.
It makes a huge difference in solving space issues in cities, air quality, safety, and definetely affects the micro climate in the city itself, that you could feel and smell in my hometown during lockdown.
I tried out WWFs climate calculator, and I ended up with 0.6tons personally. However, 3tons being Swedish society and the city I live in, so I ended up with 3.6tons... 0.1 tons away from the global 2030 goal. I think people would consider me to have a pretty extreme lifestyle according to western standards. this is approximately what my last couple of years have been
- Work from home
- Cycle everywhere (even during vacation, bike packing)
- Train rides 20km/week
- 20sqm apartment
- Household electricity 60kWh/month + heating
- Heating: geothermal (I don't know if this is what is called, we use a compressor to extract heat using pipes dug deep into the ground. 80% more efficient than direct electricity heating)
- No AC.
- Buys practically nothing
- Buys very little clothes (10EUR/Week), sanitary products (6EUR/week),
- Vegan diet
- Eats seasonal food primarily local
- Monthly food budget: 160EUR
- Don't waste any food at all, everything gets eaten
- Don't eat out
- No flights
- No bus rides
- this year I bought one new electronic gadget. A video upscaler to use my old tech on my modern display -_- (I need it to be able to re-use my old hardware and not buy new hardware unnecessarily)
EDITED: I have to mention, I still feel like I live a very fulfilling life, I spend a lot of time with friends, family and loved ones. It's actually quite amazing how very little you actually need to feel content and happy with life.
I thank you for your commitment. Mother earth thanks you for your commitment everything is governed by Karma - yours is good.
@@johnfowler4820 Thank you john! I hope people don't look at my comment like some kind of "humble brag". I am only trying to spotlight what one could do to reach very low levels... Society and our financial system doesn't appreciate it though. It's built on constant growth, and I am DEFINITELY not helping the economy 😅... This is my biggest gripe, our societies are built on exploitative systems which are extremely hard to circumvent... But at least I do what I can for the planet and hopefully I can inspire others to make similar choices. 🙃Even though they can seem like "extreme" in the eyes of some people.
Beyond all the possible cycling comments I could make (endorphins would come top), what this episode makes clear is the *context* of where that clamour for endorphins gets us all collectively. And it's Reward Squared.
Ooooh, my city is 6th place on the Global Bicycle Index. That makes me super happy! :D
Really really smart to use the visual illustrations during this talk.
If I recall this hasn’t been used before and it makes the presentation so so so so so so much more compelling! Nice job Tom or whoever thought to do this!
Also super informative video. So much props to the researcher.
I appreciate the details your videos have 😊
Oh yea, the "hauling a folding bike in a cargo bike"-situation when you're about to collect 2 or 3 friends from the train station, they have an argument on who gets to sit where and after all they end up switching half ride because it's easy😍
About 20 years ago I did some math. I added the personal financial costs to me for buying a car and owning it for 10 years, vs buying two bicycles and owning them for two years. At the time the car costs would have been about $45,000 and the bikes would have been about $5000. The car would have saved me about 40 minutes a day in commute time. Anyway, my calculations at the time indicated that by biking I would be paying myself about $7 an hour to get exercise.
Did this factor in compounding interest on the money saved biking as well?
@@buttlesschap I didn't factor that in. But seeing that most people wind up borrowing money for a car, it would be a lot.
This channel is such an information, inspiration powerhouse.
I got a 4.18 metric ton on the website you two recommended, and a 3.9 on the EPA calculators. It's a little tricky because we generate most of our own electricity, and the power authority here is getting greener but it's hard to find an exact report. They say 60% non-carbon mix sometime next year. Also we charge our cars/escooters off our own solar...which the calculators aren't super good at factoring in.
That makes sense though, we barely use grid energy and flew one international flight...oopsie!
Would be really interested to hear how much it'd be without the international flight.
Where I live it's all hydro electric for power, it really brings your household emissions down.
Thanks for airing this analysis. I’m an everyday cyclist who’s thought the same way. By itself, bicycling isn’t going to mitigate climate change. And it’s not for everybody. But it can be a simple, affordable, and enjoyable part of the larger approach.
I live in the number 2 city on that global list, Münster Germany. Awesome bike city.
That's awesome! I live in Malmö, 6th place. It feels like Malmö tries to catch up with Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Antwerp, while they are all fighting for the 3rd place right now with a score of ~60points :)
Nice, I was just looking at Malmö on the map. I was just wondering, is it possible to bike the bridge to Copenhagen or is it just for cars? @@PixelShade
I just watched the video for the title screen of your game "unsung" and it's really nice, really good music. @@PixelShade
Nice illustrations and succinct guest that make this complicated topic easier to understand. Thank you, Tom.
Bikes are important for 2 key reasons. Yes, the reduction in carbon is clear, BUT the cost is a critical consideration as well. Toward 2050, food supply is projected to be halved per-capita, which means the cost of food will increase significantly, increasing the cost of living substantially. Transportation remains the second largest expense to individuals next to residence.
To avoid civil unrest (possibly leading to war) and societal collapse, I think three things need to happen:
1) We need to lower cost of transportation (ie. Bicycles/busses/trains/trams)
2) We need to give up meat
3) We need to largely drop landlords and private ownership of housing (ie. single-family homes), opting instead for socially collective solutions (eg. co-op low-rise apartment complexes -- look at Austria as a guide)
Not so ironically, these changes would also benefit environmental efforts to lower emissions.
Love the magic-marker graphics and the sunset, also the hosts and the content. Carbon aside, have you done an analysis of what happens to all the spent batteries from all the electric cars and e-bikes. (I avoid car travel and question marks).
Cycling rocks!
Honestly, I know my bike commuting in a largely car-centric city has a negligible impact on climate change. However, a big motivator for me is fitness. The exercise I get riding to work every day has had a big impact on my physical and mental health. Plus, not having to deal with the anxiety of commanding a one-tonne death machine helps.
People like to say that personal carbon footprint doesn’t matter and is a way to shift blame from corporations to people but I don’t agree fully. Big corporations are just giving into supply and demand of the people. It is largely a systemic issue too but I’m not a fan of people using that as an excuse to absolve themselves of all personal responsibility.
Yes, the carboon foot print was made by oil companies to shift responsibilities from their profits to the consumer. You're also right that people should make different choices, but people (especially with the lack of time and funds available to most working class people) will tend to pick the most convenient options and those comes from systemic realities, it's not their fault directly. Even looking at the owning class, these people choose to fly on private airplanes because it is convenient for them even though in terms of fighting climate change, private planes shouldn't be allowed to fly anymore (looking at how much pollution private planes generate to transport a dozen people).
Those options people have available are a result of the systems people live in which has been shaped by companies and politicians)
You're ignoring the fact that big corporations greatly and are responsible for the systems in our lives.
The reason why so many cities are car-dependent are not supply and demand, it's because the auto mobile industry as climate town explains here:
th-cam.com/video/oOttvpjJvAo/w-d-xo.html
Even the shift to EV's and electric cars. That's being pushed because yes roads for cars exist now but also because that's the way the auto industry will continue to exist. As this video points out, in terms of transit - the answer is buses, trains, metros and bikes - the ideal thing to do is to get rid of cars but then the whole auto industry falls.
We also have to look at the lobbying and financial gifts that oil and car companies give to politicians to keep things going the way they have been for the last 60 years (and why there has not been significant action on climate change in the first place).
WELL STATED, xSuperFryx!
@@soccer81894 It particularly grinds my gears when politicians that claim to be taking action on climate change will deliver big speeches and introduce legislation and taxes on the public, then in their private lives take jets for their vacations and have no problem flying all around the world to meet with their international colleagues in this age of online meetings and other options. Like, don't pretend you're making this a priority. It's so phony.
Corporations manufacture the demand for their products.
It's called marketing, and yes Lobbying can also contribute to the market "demand".
@@rustyshackleford1465only for suckers that buy their crap.
I have been bike commiting since 2007 and keep a spreadsheet log calculating my avoided carbon emissions from transportation cycling miles. I have equated it to equivalent carbon savings by number of trees growing per year. Also compared to carbon emissions from taking a typical city bus in my city. I also pick up and recycle trash litter to make my commute carbon footprint lower than zero.
Home energy conservation investments have also been undertaken simultaneously to get my overall footprint down significantly. Also I only flew on a plane once since 2011. Bikes are self empowering self powered transportation!!😊
Great episode. Thanks!
Amazing, thank you for the support! I really appreciate it.
A carbon footprint of 11 is still crazy high. I discuss this a lot in my classes, and the least green students here in the Netherlands are below that number. For me personally the most negative factors in my lifestyle are that me and my girlfriend both live in a separate home and that I buy too much stuff. Don't own a car, cycle to work, took to return flights in my in life and hardly consume meat.
Aaarrrgghh!! No links to the research! How do I take this to council without numbers? And how do I include the research in our Climate Action Plan for the town? Great video, but there are some important things missing....
agreed, can you put references in the comments? Thanks!
Nice video showing how bike commuting is beneficial to the environment. I hope my city and country promote active transport
Living in England a pretty big part of our carbon footprint comes from heating our buildings. I'm glad that I realised this recently, it's better for my mental health to know that much of the fossil fuel I burn (to keep warm) is basically by no choice of my own. I didn't choose to come to this cold place where I have to burn fuel to stay warm. I'd love to live in a hotter country, but these imaginary lines that humans call borders make it extremely difficult for me.
Ground source heat pumps run on renewable sourced electricity would greatly reduce building carbon emissions. Even before that properly insulating our buildings up to Passive House standards.
@@CarFreeSegnitz absolutely, but you will hear the Tories clamouring that improving insulation standards are making homes unaffordable for the 'common man'. And frankly, they aren't entirely wrong, proper insulation will easily add another 5-15K per house, more if you go for a passive standard. A heat pump adds another few thousands. With real estate prices gone up as it is, that might not be in everyone's budget. Frankly, I don't see many easy solutions.
i bet you are the kind of guy who doesn't bother to vote and thinks somebody else is responsible for how the country is run.
if you are serious about the carbon footprint just move to a place near a hydro power station. you saw the difference it makes in the comparison alberta vs other provinces
Lmao what if you have a UK passport you can go anywhere in the world
@@LucidFL yes, usually for a 90 day maximum and you're not allowed to work. Unless you do visa applications and then the job has to be offered to the entire EU before you
I think that 90% or more people I meet riding their bikes are quite simply in a good mood. I think that number is nearly reversed for people driving motor vehicles. Drivers are constantly thinking and worrying about being in the right or being in the wrong in case they get "caught" or get into an accident. That good mood thing should be a motive of its own for cycling.
I don't like when they count food calories for bike travel carbon production. Those calories are also going toward fitness! We should at least divide food calories by 2.
Fantastic information shared in this video shared in an engaging format. Thanks Tom and Cailynn!
It's hard to believe things are going to get better
even small changes we can even change a little bit?
this happens so much with 30 year olds too I hope you guys can figure yourselves out
@jackosborne9324 maybe because very material living conditions have been getting worse and worse for each new year of '30 year olds'. But nah, they're probably just complainin' 'bout their silly tik tac app
I've been worried about climate change since I was like 18 and am now in my early 40s. I have never driven, but just bought my first ebike for trips in sparsely populated West Quebec. I rarely fly. I want to see my score, I'm guessing under 10. Not bragging but I am very frustrated by car dependency and wish I was not in the minority on this after, though it's definitely gaining momentum.
Love your channel! Super informative. You're very well spoken!
It is absurd to count the food that one would supposedly have to eat more because he travels by bicycle. I ride my bike 30-60 km nearly every day with some days off. I eat the same amount of food whether I ride my bike 0, 30 or 60 km...
I agree, and I've thought about this when it's come up before. In fact, I ate less yesterday because I was out cycling during lunchtime with no ill effects. Most of us consume more energy than we expend anyway, so the cycling probably just cancels that out.
The study came from the European Cyclists' Federation, hardly a lobby trying to downplay the benefits of cycling. And they saw a higher consumption of food by cyclists on average. It was still completely offset by cycling vs. driving, which is the main point they made.
@@barvdw Have you a link? I searched and all I found was about road RACING cyclists, not commuters...
@@SuperHyperExtra links get removed by the TH-cam gods, but the study is conducted by the ECF, and the brochure I think they mentioned in the video is called 'Cycle More Often 2 Cool Down The Planet', more precisely on page 10.
Not only do you need to eat more to account for the bike trip itself, you also need to account for the higher metabolic rate from having more muscles from all the cycling.
Fascinating research. Cycling is definitely a good part of the whole solution to climate change. Thank you.
Out of interest, what's your carbon footprint calculation if you take out international flights?
Climate change and broader environmental factors were probably the biggest factor involved in me switching from an electric car to an electric car bike, definitely glad to be saving money but being able to make a tangible change and also walk the walk instead of just taking the talk was important to me
The entire idea of a “carbon footprint”, including that name, is a propaganda campaign from BP. I took that test and it told me to take land transport instead of cross continental flights, but in North America that’s literally not an option. Trains cost at least 4 times more than flights, can take days, run only a few times per week, and are often delayed by hours and hours.
It's like most carbon credits are generated by giving millions of plastic water filters or junky ovens, green-washing has reached an industrial-scale scam.
This fallacy that trains even high speed compete with air travel is pervasive. Trains compete with car travel. I take the train into the city. instead of driving. so I don't have to deal with parking. I Take the train across the state so I don't have to deal with paying attention. I would never consider taking the train across the country and the only reason I would drive that far is if I had a U haul.
I don’t think that means carbon footprint is a completely useless metric. It shouldn’t be used as an argument that climate change has to be solved by the individual choices of consumers, but more as a measure of how much our lives will need to change in order to address the largest impacts of climate change.
Americans’ carbon footprints are much larger than Namibians’, which means that the US needs to do more to change than Namibia does. This means stronger policies, not stronger consumer will.
@@georgekarnezis4311citynerd has a few videos on where high speed train travel competes: it's in this middle sweet spot between car and plane.
@@birdrocket agreed! It can also be a useful metric to break down how much policy changes impact pollution on an individual level. Megatonnes of CO2 eq. can be hard to grasp, but if you hear that a person, by biking, can reduce their carbon footprint from transport by 80%, that’s much more tangible for most people.
This was great! A lot to think about. One calculation that was overlooked is the food choices we make. A vegan in a car may have a lower footprint than a meat eater on a bicycle. Our diets take a massive amount of energy which is unsustainable.
Fantastic video, Tom!
Also, to anyone reading this, bike choice is a significant factor in all of this. A cheap bike that needs to be thrown out after one season is far less sustainable than a bike that can be maintained easily and lasts a long time, especially ebikes.
I agree in principle and would also advocate for buying a decent bike if you can afford it but maybe a bit of perspective is required here. Even a cheap bike will last more than one season! I've seen plenty of bikes that are in the sub £150/$200 range that have lasted for years. You'd have to be looking at the absolutely ridiculously cheap bikes to have them break in just one year. Other tip is to buy second hand from a reputable bike shop. You'll save a lot of money to the point where you can spend as little as around £75 with a perfectly serviceable bike for local trips that will last for years.
One thing jumping out at me was the large expanse of barren concrete behind you. Imagine how nice it would be if it were terraformed into a park-like environment with flowers, shrubs, trees, and walking and biking paths similar to what some European cities have
Actually, that part of the city is nice. It has a pathway along the Bow River which is magnificent.
I appreciate all the different camera angles in the same park
It's a bit stupid to count carbon emissions from the calories used to propell it since exercise is a necessity for your health. In other words you should then add the carbon emissions of going to the gym for car commuters for a fair comparison. Also, as others have mentioned, the carbon savings of bike infrastructure compared to car infrastructures (widening highways, parking lots, petrol stations etc) is massive!
Great thought provoking topic! The switch to electric vehicles is currently “complicated” by the negative consequences of battery production, which shouldn’t be underestimated. The entire concept of individual car reliance needs rethinking. I live 18 miles from my work, which is a sad compromise as the hunt for affordable housing pushed us and many into rural areas outside of downtown. I currently own a car, and a house that is too big IMO, but probably smaller than average. I hope to move closer to downtown services and workplaces in the next 5 yrs. I All that to say, as Tom notes in this video, that even when you’re a dedicated climate activist/concerned citizen, we have a long way to go in North America! Can we at least begin the journey in our minds to realize that in our current context of climate change and human population boom, we need to think of how to downsize our overall footprint? As individuals, North Americans simply use too much and feel entitled to do so. Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting we outlaw hamburgers, but we need to at least transform our sense of entitlement, and consider what is essential in life and how we want to move on this world when our impacts are global.
Nice job Cailynn and Tom. It would be great to see a video on the environmental impact of maintaining a bike. Tyres, inner tubes, brake pads, gear and brake cables, oil and grease etc.
I imagine it's far less than a car, but by how much? Also what's the scope for recycling consumable parts on a bike?
Is not exactly what you are asking, but you compensate all the emissions for a bike when you use it 340 miles. So, the emissions you save for not using the car 340 miles are similar to the emissions needed to build the bike. This is according to the sustainability report from Trek that has a number for all the components of a bike.
Compare the mass of a bike to that of a car. 1/100. Basically negligible compared to the emissions or savings for the transportation miles traveled
If you don't ride a plastic bike you can recycle it as scrap metal at end of its useful life
Inner tubes can be repaired and then eventually reused for other projects. It might take five years or longer to use one small container of oil. Cables can be recycled. Eventually (50 years with care and no accidents) a metal bike frame can be recycled.
Great to see how many thousands of kg of CO2 I have not generated over my cycle-commuting life!
Interestingly, I always said I was a vegetarian for climate reasons, but cycled for my health. More nuance.
A bicycle is healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. A win - win option for travel.
You will be healthier and the planet will be healthier too.
A thoughtful and well-balanced video and some good information for people trying to grapple with the climate emergency and how to respond. As with any change, good intentions are not generally enough to bring about long term change so I'm quite glad you haven't come across too many people citing the climate as a main motivation. You have to find some intrinsic benefit for yourself in the change to make it stick whether this is making personal changes or voting for system-level change. We are all human - let's celebrate it!
Also, good to mention switching to a plant based diet is a huge reduction of emissions. And it saves hundreds of animals a year per person.
100% with you there!
Yeah this was a huge oversight
The crazy thing is y'all were having that conversation outdoors, in a city, with so little noise you could hear each other and a child playing.
Try that in Dallas, and it would be like you were trying to have that conversation at a NASCAR event.
Cars take up too much space.
Great video on a topic I think about. Lifetime BIKE RIDER here from. Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. I love the thorough, detailed research and results reported In this video. Well done and keep going!
That's bike rider before it morphed into cyclist or bike commuter. Since middle school in the 1mid 1970s.
Kinda hate to see people putting any stock in the idea of individual carbon footprint. This propaganda has weaseled it's way into everything.
This footprint stuff only makes sense aggregated over whole populations. It literally makes zero difference if you ride a bike. It makes a difference if a large portion of the population rides, and that is a public policy issue.
This comes up later in the video when we discuss individual versus systemic actions. There’s only so much we can do as individuals.
Collective action problem. Are you not gonna take action?
@@bradyrice6631 That makes no grammatical sense. What do you mean?
@@ernststravoblofeld what do you mean it makes no sense? You’re right, the footprint stuff does only show results if a large portion of the population acts. Dass dieses Video hochgeladen wurde, ist die Antwort gegen deine Stellung: es wurde auf TH-cam gepostet in dem Bestreben, mehr Menschen zu bekehren, ihre Carbon-Footprints weniger zu werden. Wenn keiner muss seinen Teil beitragen, erreichen wir nix. Aber der eigentliche Kampf liegt natürlich mit großen Korporationen; ist doch ein anderes Video und eine andere Diskussion.
@@bradyrice6631 My German is limited to bathrooms and train stations, so I didn't get anything after the English part where you clearly misread my comment.
Great video. Oh the power of WIND!
My local energy provider has a "wind-source" program that allows me to purchase all my power from windmills. What's rarely I barely drive (4500km/y) and that is electric.
My annual footprint living in a nice-enough 1st world city is only 4.85 metric tons.
3.9 of that is air travel!