Cyclists above the law
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From: Conor on 5 Dec 2009 14:37 In article <6ae2e4c1-d316-4b4a-85d9-87d8921d2009 @r1g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>, MasonS(a)BP.com says... > They are PhDs and think that I emit more CO2 on my bike as I breathe > more than them and therefore emit more CO2 than their 4.2 litre 4x4s - > there's no hope is there? Considering man made CO2 has absolutely no effect on climate change at all, why does it matter? -- Conor www.notebooks-r-us.co.uk I'm not prejudiced. I hate everybody equally.
From: Ian Dalziel on 5 Dec 2009 14:43 On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:06:42 +0000, dan(a)telent.net wrote: >%steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) writes: > >> <shrug> So you came to an erroneous conclusion. The Cycling and Health >> booklet produced by Cycling England gives a figure of 1200kcal/h for >> cycling. > >Are you sure about that? I'd have expected it to be about half that or >a little more, which is what most other sources list. > >> You might think that's insignficant, however if you are cycling at 12 >> miles per hour then your emissions are 26g CO2 per km. Again you might >> argue that is insignificant. However a car such as VW Polo Blue Motion >> can take five occupants and emits 100g CO2 per km. The same five people >> travelling by bicycle would emit 130g CO2 per km. > >Er, some mistake there surely? I don't know about the VW Polo Blue >Motion (maybe it's biodiesel?), but most cars are running on fossil >fuels: the carbon they're releasing has been stuck at the bottom of the >ground for the past n million years. The carbon released by my cycling >came from metabolising sugars: renewable plant resources that next >season's growth will suck back out of the atmosphere. I find it very >odd if that doesn't make a difference > How does the plant growth know which carbon to suck out of the atmosphere? If you were ploughing up tarmac every year to plant sugar cane that might work - chopping down forests to do it emphatically does not. -- Ian D
From: dan on 5 Dec 2009 14:47 %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) writes: > <dan(a)telent.net> wrote: > >> %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) writes: >> >> > <shrug> So you came to an erroneous conclusion. The Cycling and Health >> > booklet produced by Cycling England gives a figure of 1200kcal/h for >> > cycling. >> >> Are you sure about that? I'd have expected it to be about half that or >> a little more, which is what most other sources list. > > Yes, I'm sure that's what it says. I'm not sure that it's correct I'm fairly sure it's not. I would expect aerobic exercise of any form to come in at about 700-800 kcals/hour max, and 12mph is nowhere near anaerobic threshold except for the very portliest of fat bastards. >> I don't know about the VW Polo Blue Motion (maybe it's biodiesel?), but >> most cars are running on fossil fuels: the carbon they're releasing has >> been stuck at the bottom of the ground for the past n million years. The >> carbon released by my cycling came from metabolising sugars: renewable >> plant resources that next season's growth will suck back out of the >> atmosphere. I find it very odd if that doesn't make a difference > > I see. No tractors, fertilisers, trucks, warehouses, distribution chain > packaging, processing etc to consider at all, eh? There are trucks, warehouses, distributions chains and processing to consider for fossil fuels too, as I'm sure you know. Do you have numbers for the carbon footprints of processing 300g of sugar into flapjacks and malt loat and of getting the equivalent energy into a petrol tank on a garage forecourt? -dan
From: Conor on 5 Dec 2009 14:50 In article <72d485a6-6a6e-477f-b740- 239f034836fd(a)v37g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, MasonS(a)BP.com says... > That's another debate altogether. Even if true, it makes sense to make > whatever oil we have got left last as long as possible. > As someone said "When it's gone, it's gone". They've recently found a 2 billion barrel oilfield off the coast of Brazil in September which followed a 500 million barrel field they found in the Gulf of Mexico earlier that month. So in those two fields alone, there's roughly 79 years worth of oil in those two fields alone based on pre-recession global consumption rates. -- Conor www.notebooks-r-us.co.uk I'm not prejudiced. I hate everybody equally.
From: MasonS on 5 Dec 2009 14:53
On 5 Dec, 19:36, Conor <co...(a)gmx.co.uk> wrote: > In article <hfe63g$6q...(a)news.eternal-september.org>, mileburner says... > > > While out on my bike today, I was thinking to myself, I wonder what the > > vehicle emissions are on my bikes and what the VED would be if there was > > any. I came to the conclusion that the emissions are nil and the VED would > > be zero. > > So you're a clueless cyclist. I'll give you a lesson. > > When you cycle, you exert energy over and above that of a person who is > driving a car or walking. That additional energy is converted from food. > Someone who cycles needs to intake more calories than someone who is > walking or driving. In addition to that, you are also breathing more > heavily and thus exhaling higher levels of CO2. When you take into > account the emissions caused by the source of your energy plus those > exhaled which are directly attributable to the activity of cycling, it > is not zero. > > -- > Conorwww.notebooks-r-us.co.uk > > I'm not prejudiced. I hate everybody equally. The food a cyclist eats contains *the same* carbon atoms going round and round. The plant absorbs it, I eat it, breathe it out and the plant takes it in again. The fuel a car burns is adding *new* carbon to the atmosphere that had been locked away for millennia. Please do not confuse the two. -- Simon Mason |