For those who have been watching the small "statistics" section of our blog, you will have noticed that we were coming very close to the "1 million" g CO2 mark. Yesterday we indeed reached that milestone, so it's a good time to take a deeper look at the topic again.
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| We crossed the threshold of 1,000,000 g or 1 tonne of CO2 saved |
Remember from a
previous post how I got to the calculation. A car produces on average 271g CO2/km. When biking, total CO2 emissions are around 21g CO2/km. We are 2 on a bike, so that means 42g CO2/km, or a total saving of 229g CO2/km on the bicycle compared to the average car. This is how I come to the number. It's a bit artificial, as you would normally not do this trip by car, but it's still very indicative of how much you can save by pushing those bike pedals. However, there is also a completely different way of looking at it. With our normal lifestyle in Malaysia, we would produce at least 26 tonnes of CO2 annually - a considerable part of this is plane travel by the way. While biking, this is at most 10 tonnes per year, and I'm sure that is actually even less. So let's say we really do save at least 1,5 tonnes per month on the bike. Looking at it that way, we have saved around 4,5 tonnes of CO2 by now - and this is a real reduction.
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| Getting help while saving CO2 |
Let's put this in perspective. The world produced an astonishing 36Gt (giga tonne) of CO2 in 2014, and the average US household produces 50 tonnes per year. So our potential saving of let's say 12 tonnes during the 8 months trip, is 0.000000033% of the global emission, and 24% of just one US household... So, yep, it's a drop in the ocean... However, if all 7+ billion people could save say 50% of their carbon emission like we do, it's a totally different story. And again, there are so many small things everyone can do to contribute: no or less meat (especially beef), take that bicycle or walk, fly less, cool or heat less, etc etc.
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| Remember this one... This is our estimated combined CF while cycling, with no flights included. Eye-opener: worldwide target is about 2 tonnes pp... Calculate yours here |
Talking about flying. Yesterday we booked our tickets to Australia, flying from Korea. After booking I did the calculation of the CO2 emission for those flights, and wow, that was a real wake up call!!! Flying produces a bit more than 1 tonne of CO2 per 10,000km. It means, with all the flying I do from Malaysia, I probably produce more CO2 just by flying, than we produce combined in our household with our normal daily life!!! And doing this exercise about carbon footprint and global impact, I felt kind of inconsistent (and "guilty") by booking those flights. Now, while reducing impact is definitely the number 1 priority, there is also a way to at least compensate for the damage done: carbon offsetting.
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| CO2 emissions of air traffic. Emissions from short domestic flights are similar to driving a car, only you go much further in a short time. Long domestic flights and long haul are a bit better, only the total emission per person is very high due to the long distance. |
It means you pay for your carbon emission, and the money is used to support carbon reducing initiatives: reduce deforestation, invest in renewable energy, help communities to use more energy efficient devices, and so on. So while it's not the solution to the problem, it's a way to compensate and help carbon emission reductions elsewhere. So, for the first time in my life, I indeed paid a carbon offset, a mere 4,5 USD per tonne. Honestly, it feels good, and I think I will do this again in the future too. Many airlines offer this when booking, and otherwise you can go online and find offsetting programs to your liking...
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| Carbon offsetting our flights from Korea to Melbourne |
So once again, I leave you with the question: what will you do to contibute?!