Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
Im really annoyed they did not do an electric bike thing in the ombudsman bill and just did electric cars.
Or at least use e-bike or e-scooter
Yeah but production of the battery causes alot of harm to the environment so a classic bike is still far better as it doesn't damage the environment as much
In practice, e-bikes open up cycling to more people and for more trips, likely making them far more net positive than regular bikes.
And this is coming from someone who bikes like mad on non-ebikes
i mean I dont blame the usage of cargo e-bikes for grocery travel by for example a 4 headed family.
thats literally best possible option, isnt it?! Or are you saying you could always use a non motored one for for weekly groceries for a family in for example a hilly area too. I dont know, to me e-bikes are pretty essential in that sense and therefore the final solution for mobility. and you can always use a non motored one for other lighter travels but theyre build.. so usage with ie self-hosted solar panel on your roofs, i dont see the issue.. they use like 2% of total materials a e-car does.
would love to hear your thoughts after that
A tesla model x battery has 7300 battery cells. My Bosch ebike battery has 8 cells.
You can power ebikes for the entire world and do a fraction of the environmental damage compared to building these massive cars.
Unless you're vegetarian, a traditional bicycle will have a higher carbon footprint than an ebike, due to how inefficient it is to grow and transport food when compared to production of electrical power.
Ebikes are way more efficient than electric cars, too. I calculated that my bike uses about 40 watt hours per mile, compared to about 250-350 for an electric car.
only 10x? cycling has 0 climate impact besides the manufacturing of said bycicle itsself.
electric cars not only require 100x crazier manufacturing but also run on electricity which is made in power plants.
frankly you couldve said a million times more important and it would still be a low ball.
There's tire particles that are released and occasional grease and repairs. So it'll never be 0 climate impact after manufacturing. Just a little nitpick.
But it's still the best choice.
Paradoxically there are actually some indications that the calories burned while bicycling, especially from a meat-heavy diet, lead to more carbon emissions per mile than powering an electric car with anything other than coal. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108357_electric-cars-vs-bicycles-which-has-a-higher-carbon-footprint There are still a wide variety of societal benefits to more bicycling but it's not quite accurate say "zero" impact I think.
The link to the raw data is dead, and it contradicts some other research, and also is an article on something that is called"green car reports". Those are indications of maybe not the most unbiased data
We've made fun of that weird propaganda piece when it came out though.
That completely ignores the fact that a human being needs at least half an hour to one hour of light exvercise / physical movement daily to stay healthy at all. If you do not cycle or run, you'd need to go to a gym / fitness studio.
Also, if you care at all about CO2 emissions, eating vegan or vegetarian food is the way.
Also, driving 3 or 4 kilometers to a supermarket to get a veggie pizza needs way more energy and CO2 for the drive, thsn for the food itself. You can compute that from the fuel consumption of a car - about 180 Grams of CO2 per person per kilometer, so 1.4 kilograms for 4 kilometers each way.
Also, often the danger of cycling is stressed. That's rubbish because of the health effect of physical exercise - the most dangerous aspect of modern life is lack of exercise, and if you use a bike instead a car you are wayyy less likely to die of cardiovascular problems, which are the real killer, not accidents.
It's feels very absurd to see that electric car could be almost twice as efficient with co^2 emissions than vegan riding bicycle, especially considering moving the vehicle 18 times as heavy (driver included).
Would be interesting to see the data used, but looks like the source sheets have been deleted:(
I'd imagine optimizing the bike and rider's physique and diet would likely affect the results dramatically. Dutch style grandma bike is hella lot less efficient than a commuter built for higher speeds, and a rider with more time in the saddle in long term is going to be more efficient on it than a (irr/)regular commuter
It's like these people are eating minimum amount of food in the first place.
That's why ebikes are considered better than analog bikes by some metrics. Outside of electrified trains, there's pretty much nothing as efficient as an ebike for distance /calories burned + electricity usage (minimal, compared to EVs)
I think the takeaway here should be that meat heavy diets are worse for the environment than you might realize.
The takeaway should not be that cars are only barely worse than bikes.
Electric bikes ruin the climate impact ratio. They are still much better than electric cars tho.
Yes, e-bikes take more resources to manufacture, especially the battery, but:
While manufacturing an e-bike is more resource intensive than a pushbike, lifetime CO2 emissions of an e-bike can be lower, because a motor is more efficient than human muscles.
If someone has an E-bike, depending on how they use it, it's possible that it will replace more car trips than a pushbike would. E-bikes also require less physical fitness, which again can increase uptake among people who aren't as fit or have health problems, for example.
This video is worth a watch: Simon Clark - How bad are electric bikes for the environment?
When you power your bike with your legs, you burn energy. That energy comes from food. Producing and transporting the food to you has a climate impact. Cycling has a climate impact.
Electric cars are a car industry solution
It would be cool if it was an option everywhere. I've cycle commuted. Hell I commuted on a skateboard for two years. But it is not an option where I live now. We can't let mandates get ahead of real world options. Let's make it an option everywhere. The next Dem president will champion this, right?
Right?
Edit just realized this was posted to the europe community. I've lived there a couple of years. You're light years ahead of anywhere else in the world on this stuff. Good job! But don't forget the rest of the world needs at minimum a few decades of massive infrastructure investment to come anywhere near what you already have. If we punish people for not riding bikes where riding a bike is impossible, we only lose support.
What else would help is making companies fucking liable (and not just that, their CEOs directly!) for the environment damage they cause.
Oil spill because of neglected maintenance ? Straight to jail for the responsible CEO.
Fake tests for car emmissions? Straight to jail.
The high pay of the C-levels is often argued with the big responsibility they have, when in reality the have none. They should be directly and personally responsbile, thats their job.