It’s been 13 years since the documentary An Inconvenient Truth was released, and the issues it was trying to bring to light are still as relevant as ever. If it’s slipped your mind, it was a documentary on how our carbon emissions are going to end up contributing to global warming.
We’ve all played a part in this issue in some way or another, so we all need to play a part in reversing or at least mitigating the issue as well. Living more sustainable lifestyles that eliminate waste and use all of our available resources as efficiently as possible is the way forward. One of the biggest impacts on an individual’s carbon footprint is how they interface with transportation. Transport still relies heavily on fossil fuels and simply put everybody needs to get around somehow. So, if you manage to cut a few corners and save on how much you as an individual contribute to the usage of fossil fuels as far as transport is concerned, you’re going to be doing everybody a huge favor.
How can you accomplish this task? Well, there’s a few different ways:
Use A Rideshare App
Think about how many cars are on the road that only have one occupant inside of them. If every car was filled with people and we had figured out a way to get everyone where they needed to go, there’d be way less cars on the road burning gas. One way you can take a vehicle off the road is by using a rideshare app where somebody else has put their car up for use instead of you using gas to go to and from everywhere you need to be. Rideshare apps like Lyft offer promotional codes all the time, some of which can be found at https://www.rydely.com/lyft-promo-code/ so depending on which app you use and which deals you take advantage of, it can end up being cheaper than having to pay for your own car’s gas. In the end, one person driving a dozen or so people around every day is much better than a dozen people all in their own cars driving themselves around.
Make The Most Out Of Public Transportation
This one varies in convenience level based on where you live, as major cities tend to have a much more developed public transit system than smaller ones, but using public transport is just about one of the best ways to keep your transport footprint as small as possible. If you have the benefit of living in a city with a subway system, rest easy knowing that they run on electricity as opposed to dirty fossil fuels that pollute the environment. Public transit runs each and every single day regardless of how many people use it, so the more people make use of it the better the overall effect on the environment is. The sheer amount of people that can be transported on a daily basis this way really adds up, so don’t discount how helpful even taking the bus a few times a week can be.
Buy A Fuel Efficient Car
As comfortable and secure as you may feel in a huge SUV type vehicle, they tend not to be the best on gas. The difference in greenhouse gases based on your car’s gas mileage is staggering if you actually look at the numbers. If you made the switch to a 25 miles-per-gallon car from a 20 miles-per-gallon car your greenhouse gas emissions per year would go down by about 1.7 tons. Since you’re also getting further on less gas, you’re filling up less, which both saves you money and helps us to all start moving away from gasoline as we use less and less of it in favor of other energy sources. Bottom line is, the days of the Hummer should be long over if we expect to have a healthy ecosystem for generations to come.
It isn’t always easy being a human being, and sometimes we take the easier way out and opt for convenience and ease of use. This has came back to bite us all in the rear end in some ways, as our culture of excess has contributed to another form of excess in the form of greenhouse gases that clog up the atmosphere and trap the sun’s rays. There’s the common misconception that it doesn’t really matter what you do because you’re just one person, but the moment people stop dropping that mindset in mass is when we’ll start seeing meaningful change. Why not start with you?