One way like to talk about this is to say,  "a bicycle gets the caloric equivalent of 1000 miles per gallon", then point out, "one gallon of gasoline has the energy necessary to sustain us for 50 days of riding 20 miles a day."  This comparison makes an attempt at humanizing the relation between driving cars and breathing.  Our lives have become so abstract we have a very hard time even recognizing our alien selves.  Now turn on the light, how do you relate the glow from the ceiling to the force expenditure necessary to get there?

--- On Sun, 8/14/11, Ryan Sharpe sharpe@sacbikekitchen.org wrote:

From: Ryan Sharpe sharpe@sacbikekitchen.org Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] comparing the carbon footprints of bikes vs cars. To: "The Think Tank" thethinktank@bikecollectives.org Date: Sunday, August 14, 2011, 2:23 PM

It's telling that the calculated carbon footprint of the bicycle included road and bicycle maintenance costs, rider's diet, and infrastructure capital expenditures.  Most automobile carbon calculations I've seen don't go nearly as deep.

For what it's worth, the 240 kg of carbon emitted during the manufacture of a bicycle is also the same amount emitted by burning 100 gallons of gas -- enough to get a sparingly-used Prius from one oil change to the next or a Hummer H2 out of its driveway.

--Ryan S.

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 8:35 AM, veganboyjosh@gmail.com wrote:

There's obviously a lot of variables to have to equalize to get to apples to apples, but this is a decent article comparing the impacts of bikes vs cars, and the number of miles it would take to offset one or the other.

http://www.slate.com/id/2300676/

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