Tigroney Sustainable planet Series
The series comprises a series of detailed essays and articles on specific subjects relating to the problems of sustaining 9 billion people on Planet Earth by 2050. These are free to download with open copyright subject to correct citation and link.
Driving Sustainably: A guide to reducing your carbon footprint No matter what type or age of vehicle you drive, whether it’s a car, SUV or van, you can make a significant difference in you carbon emissions as well as save yourself money by following the advice in this guide. Newer cars do have lower emissions, but this advantage quickly disappears if you don’t follow some simple rules. Some sources have suggested that for the average driver savings of 10-30% are easily achievable while for the worst driver scenarios they could reduce their fuel usage by 30-50%. That is a lot of money and a lot of emissions. With 252 million passenger cars in Europe in 2015 alone there are a lot of drivers out there who could contribute to reducing emissions from driving sustainably. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association in 2015 there were just under 34 million cars in the UK with an average age of 8.5 years and 2 million cars in the Republic of Ireland with an average age of 8.0 years. So, if each one of these drivers can reduce their emissions by just 10 or 20% then this would save a lot of CO2 and other pollutants getting into the atmosphere. How much is a lot? Europe wide just a small reduction of 10% could save 40 million tonnes of CO2 or 80 million tonnes for a 20% reduction. This presents an enormous potential to save emissions without even reducing the amount or distance we drive. In the UK this equates to 7.85 or 15.7 million tonnes of CO2e for either a 10 or 20% reduction and for Ireland to 0.42 or 0.85 million tonnes of CO2e for either a 10 or 20% reduction respectively. That is an average saving per car of 0.234 and 0.213 tonnes of CO2e for every 10% reduction in your fuel consumption for UK and Irish drivers respectively. So, for the worst drivers that could mean an individual saving of one tonne of CO2e currently contributing to climate change saved every year with absolutely no change in the distance you drive and causing no real change to your life. |
Taking Control of Carbon Emissions: Implementing Personal Action
In this free downloadable pdf the problems associated with climate change due to global warming are summarized followed by how to develop your own personal plan which will allow you to achieve emissions targets in a staggered way.
The concepts of setting personal targets is explored in detail and some methods discussed, including a 10% reduction per year approach. Reducing emissions will also save you money, but it is also about our moral obligation to use resources wisely for those future generations, or perhaps for your own future. Now is the time to invest your time and effort in changing how we live. and interact with our home, Planet Earth.