March 2021: Transport and Travel Challenge
Transport is the UK’s biggest contributor to climate change, pumping out a whopping third of our greenhouse gas emissions – and that figure isn’t falling.
Just switching our fossil-fuel cars to electric ones won’t be enough. Even electric cars take a lot of energy (and hence carbon emissions) to make. And their tyres and brake pads, like those of conventional cars, can produce up to 1,000 times more air pollution, in the form of fine particulate matter, than from an exhaust .
And that’s before we start talking about traffic congestion and quality of life!
So this month, let’s see what we can do towards some healthier and greener transport choices. Pick one of more of the following challenges to do this month – or make up your own.
Transport is the UK’s biggest contributor to climate change, pumping out a whopping third of our greenhouse gas emissions – and that figure isn’t falling.
Just switching our fossil-fuel cars to electric ones won’t be enough. Even electric cars take a lot of energy (and hence carbon emissions) to make. And their tyres and brake pads, like those of conventional cars, can produce up to 1,000 times more air pollution, in the form of fine particulate matter, than from an exhaust .
And that’s before we start talking about traffic congestion and quality of life!
So this month, let’s see what we can do towards some healthier and greener transport choices. Pick one of more of the following challenges to do this month – or make up your own.
- ACTION: Buy a monthly bus pass and use the commute to do one or more of those things you wish you had more time to do. Read? Write? Listen? Crack Rubik’s cube?
- ACTION: Check out a car share/hire/pooling service such as Co-wheels and save yourself all the costs and hassles of private car ownership (and reduce your share of those emissions).
- ACTION: You’ll likely be deserving a holiday later this year; discuss with your loved ones the most interesting, beautiful places you could reach without taking to the skies. Please see the ‘Low Impact Holidays’ section of this here website. And meanwhile, go on a live, carbon-free, virtual tour of a lovely place with a professional guide!
- ACTION: Though it’s no substitute for oil remaining under the sea bed in the first place, offsetting past travel (or all) emissions is more helpful than writing them off. Gold Standard is a reputable organisation with a choice of offsetting projects to support.
- RESEARCH: Read this article and use its calculator to understand the realities and impact of air travel.
- ACTION: Sign up to FlightFree UK and pledge to go flight-free this year. Or for life!
- RESEARCH: Watch these TED talks about the why and how of ‘walkability’ in cities and its importance. It’s framed for the US but its principles (city sprawl, the private car being made king) are universal.
- RESEARCH: Read How Cycling Can Save The World by the Guardian’s Peter Walker. Or, for a short cut, read the review of it written by Smaller Footprints.
- AMPLIFY: Get three friends to come to our page here and choose a transport-related challenge for themselves.
