this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
535 points (92.5% liked)

Fuck Cars

9685 readers
1847 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Bikes are actually greener than walking, because if you need to move, they allow you to have a greater daily range for a not much higher footprint (more efficient and 3 times faster).

[–] tomi000 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Embedded CO2 for a bike is like 100kg (that's what 4 trees in your backyard absorb a year), which over a lifetime of 30 years is negligible.

[–] tomi000 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You say negligible, but what you mean is negligible on a scale of the CO2 emissions we are used to. Human body CO2 emission is just as negligible on that scale.

Ill do some quick maths: According to the first source on google, an average human burns 3kcal/min walking and 5kcal/min biking at 15km/h, which is about 3x as fast as walking. Considering that, we arrive at a difference of 1.33kcal/min by walking instead of biking. Estimates suggest 1.3g CO2-equivalents per kcal for average consumption (much lower for vegans), so thats 1.73g CO2/min. 100kg CO2 for bike production would take 57,800min of walking, thats almost 963h. An average bike will probably be used more so I guess you are right and bikes are indeed more efficient than walking :D

[–] orrk 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

CO2 emissions that fall within natural cycles in terms of scale, are negligible.

[–] tomi000 1 points 1 year ago

I agree, but the question at hand was not whether one or the other was negligible, but which is more efficient: walking or biking.

[–] A7thStone 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I responded to the wrong comment, sorry

[–] Adori 4 points 1 year ago

It's faster to make bikes than legs

[–] doingthestuff 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's also really green if you die riding one in places where it's completely unsafe to ride one like where I live. You eliminate your carbon footprint completely!

[–] knotthatone 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I was so excited to finally live in a city where I could actually ride a bike to work most of the year until I actually tried it.

Drivers are assholes, have no awareness of their surroundings, the rules of the road and they give zero shits.

Nope nope nope. I'll walk to the train

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not really the drivers' fault, it's the bad infrastructure that drives their behavior.

[–] knotthatone 3 points 1 year ago

I'm talking about running stop signs, gunning it at yellow lights, not using turn signals, using turn signals but not turning, swerving into bike lanes and flinging open their doors without looking.

Infrastructure like protected bike lanes and robust public transit so fewer people feel the need to drive are great, but bad driving is bad driving.

[–] doingthestuff 2 points 1 year ago

I lived somewhere with trains half my life ago, it was very nice. I have no trains or buses or sidewalks or even a shoulder on the road. Just fast two-lane curvy backroads with a ditch on the side.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Even greener if the murderer in the car gets thrown in jail!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I can say the same about public transportation