Video Transcript: Taking Your Bike Makes a Big Difference
Transcript copyright earththrives.com
Chris Mason:
Massachusetts drivers annually produce 24 million tons of carbon monoxide. That’s the equivalent of filling up 24 million blimps every year upon every year upon every year– comes out of our tail pipes of our cars and into the air–is causing our world to warm up and the climate to change.
James Lowenth:
Every gallon of gas burned in a car causes about 20 pounds of CO2 to be emitted into the atmosphere. So I figure by not driving two cars for an average of 15,000 miles a year we save something like ten tons of CO2 per year from being emitted into the atmosphere.
Chris Mason:
In 2001, NESEA ran a program with local students in schools where we had 1200 students over one week time avoid 42 tons of CO2 by trying to get around, basically, without asking mom and dad for a ride. So they kept track of how they got around: by bike, by bus…and they calculated that they avoided producing 42 tons of carbon monoxide. They did that with a trip tally–a trip log—that you can download and challenge yourself to keep track of how many miles you could avoid in a single passenger car. You can carpool, chain your trips together so you can do multiple things together in one trip, take a bus, bike, for kids: skateboard.
For the trip log, just write down every time you take a trip: write down how many miles you took in each way. At the end of a week add them up and there is calculations on how to turn that into CO2.
Something to help you if you’re trying to get around with out using a single passenger car is the Getting Around Clean and Green map that shows bike routes, bus paths, recommended bike lanes on the sides of roads. Many of the bike paths that are around go from town to town. Not necessarily going from a home to a business or from a home to a play ground or to a school, but there are many side roads, beautiful back roads, or roads with wide shoulders that can help you link the bike paths together to get around. The pioneer valley is a wonderful place to bike.
All of Franklin and Hampshire counties have busses have got what I call rack and roll: there is a rack for the bike on the front of the bus that you can attach your bike to and get on the bus and when you get off you take your bike off. It’s easy to link bike routes and bus routes and bus paths together because every single bus has got a way to carry a bike.