BIKING VERSUS DRIVING & YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT
Everyone knows that you can save money by biking instead of driving, but the environmental impacts are not as obvious to most people. Vehicles account for most of the ozone pollution that enters the atmosphere and one vehicle releases 11,450 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.*
There has been some controversy about whether or not biking really does lower your carbon footprint because bikers have to consume more food to expend the energy to ride. The Pacific Institute clarifies this by explaining that driving a car only generates less greenhouse gas emissions when the food used to fuel biking or walking the same distance is highly greenhouse gas intensive. This means that the biker or walker would have to consume an all-beef diet. Looking at a much more realistic American diet reverses this fact: walking or biking will create less greenhouse gas emissions than driving.**
Many cities are becoming more bike-friendly and using a bike to commute is a great way to reduce pollution and a far less stressful way to get to work. Barcelona, Spain has a bike-sharing program called Bicing and a study found that the program reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 9,000 metric tons per year.***
New Orleans has welcomed bike enthusiasts with more bike lanes, many different bike shops to buy, repair and rent bikes and the NOLA Bike Map Project that shows the best routes for bike riders.**** New Orleans even has a weekly Thursday night social ride that is a great way to meet new people and discover new bike routes throughout the city. For more information on the Thursday social bike rides, check out the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nolasocialride/
* http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/f00013.html
** http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/driving_vs_walking.html
*** http://www.bikesbelong.org/resources/stats-and-research/statistics/environmental-statistics/