Reducing Your Transportation Footprint. (2021, October 27). Retrieved from https://www.c2es.org/content/reducing-your-transportation-footprint/
This article delineated the most common transportation methods, their impact on the environment, and ways to improve them. It begins with passenger cars which contribute half of the carbon dioxide emissions from the U.S. transportation sector, and the average vehicle creates roughly 6 to 9 tons of CO2 each year. However, a 30-mpg car will save approximately $3,000 in fuel costs compared with a 20-mpg car per year. This study shows many cost-effective, eco-friendly petroleum options, whereas electric vehicles are traditionally more expensive. Thus, there are feasible ways to reduce your footprint without massive lifestyle changes quickly. Furthermore, optimal driving techniques can also help you cut emissions and save money in a gasoline-powered car. The article also stipulates that individuals can save more than $9,738 per year by taking public transportation instead of driving. Moreover, this mode can lead to substantial environmental benefits. If your commute is a 20-mile round trip, the switch to public transit could lower your carbon footprint by 4,800 pounds annually. By taking direct flights and packing lightly, you can significantly reduce your carbon footprint for aviation. The article states, “if all passengers packed one less pair of shoes or roughly two lbs/1kg, the aircraft’s fuel savings would be the same as taking 10,500 cars off the road for an entire year. “
This article relates to environmental science because it explores environmentally friendly transportation methods. It describes the emissions levels for different modes of transportation and strategies to reduce them. I enjoyed this article because of the preponderance of evidence provided throughout the piece. It continually provided statistics and numbers to substantiate its claims on costs and carbon emissions. I also like how they broke down the major transportation components and analyzed them separately so as to not get too muddled.
I found this to be a very interesting article because it is very relevant in our society today and it outlined the fact how it is time for us to switch over to more renewable sources. Do you think the costs for renewable transportation will go down even more in the future?
I do think that as supply and access to renewable transport increases the price will continue to decrease
I found it interesting that saving 2 lbs per passenger on a plane could save so much carbon. How could airlines work towards lowering weight maximums to do this? Would it hurt business?
I also found that fact particularly interesting, I am not sure how airlines could go about changing their weight maxes, but it deserves to be considered as a method to reduce emmisions