Rides: 179
Kilometers: 2294.8(approx.)

CO2 Saved: 701.1kg
Created by OnePlusYou

Thursday, 4 March 2010

Carbon, Carbon Everywhere...

So, I've been thinking how much carbon I can claim to be offsetting (if such a thing makes a blind bit of difference to climate change, which incidentally I do believe in) in striving to my goal.

Put your maths head on.

Our Focus produces 140g/km. Our Cherokee produces 366g/km (!). I'll assume that I'd be driving the Jeep as that's the most likely scenario.

According to the Irish Times a cyclist at 16km/h produces 5g/km. My current average is 24km/h so let's double it to be sure, so 10g/km.

Therefore I'm saving 356g of CO2 for every kilometer I ride on my commute. Or roughly 5.5kg for each return journey.

It's all academic and pointless really because an internal combustion engine burns a fuel that captured carbon millions of years ago, while I burn fuel that captured carbon in the last few months (or years at a stretch). I.e. my expelled CO2 has been captured from the present day atmosphere so I'm not putting anything into the air that wasn't there very recently beforehand. And I still have to breathe when I'm sat in my car.

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