Bike Sharing Programs Pick Up Speed

It’s hard not to gush about bicycle sharing programs. Biking is a great choice for the environment. The carbon emissions from riding a bike are zero. Bike riding also reduces traffic congestion, allowing cars to make trips faster. But carrying locks and worrying about where to store your bike can be a real hassle. These sharing programs eliminate the fuss, making it easy for you to commute by bike. They’ve been very successful in cities like Montreal and Washington, DC, and the trend seems to be continuing. The City of Boston recently announced a new program that, when completed, will be the largest in the United States.

According to the proposal, set to begin next summer,  the city will place between 1,000 and 3,000 bikes at stations 300 or 400 yards apart, located at major points around the city. Like other programs, there will be a small fee for use: around $2.50 for a daily pass or $40 for the year. This makes bike sharing often much more affordable than commuting by car or even public transportation. Boston will also be investing in more bike lanes. There’s reason to believe the program could have a major impact on commuting habits. Less than 1 percent of Bostonians currently commute by bike. In Lyon, France, which has a bike-sharing program and is similar in size to Boston, 13 percent commute by bike.

As if you need more reasons to get on board with bike sharing, according to the International Bicycle Fund, cyclists who begin commuting by bike lose an average of 13 pounds in the first year. And there’s safety in numbers. Numbers from New York City suggest that as the number of cyclists increases, the number of accidents goes down. Injuries and fatalities have fallen by around 50% since 1998, even as daily ridership more than doubled from 80,000 to 180,000. As more people ride, drivers become more aware of bikers and the city has a greater incentive to build more bike lanes to accommodate new riders.

It’s a win-win situation for the environment and your health.

5 Reasons to Conserve Energy

Energy has become one of our biggest challenges because of our dependence on foreign sources and the environmental consequences existing sources have. Our dependence on foreign oil means that we have to send dollars abroad that could instead stay domestically to create jobs and fuel growth. Our use of fossil fuels as our main source of energy is causing the planet to warm rapidly as a result of a growing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Clearly, energy is a big issue, and the first thing we need to do is learn how to avoid having to use energy without giving up quality of life (conservation). So here are five reasons why you should conserve energy.

1) Save Money. The best reason why you should conserve energy is because it will save you money. This is money that you can instead spend on paying for green products or purchasing clean energy. When you conserve energy, you save money on your energy bill. In general, energy efficiency upgrades can be paid back relatively quickly, so these are smart investments to make. Conserving energy by changing behaviors can have no monetary costs while accruing big savings.

2) Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. As mentioned already, fossil fuels unfortunately release carbon dioxide when burned. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas causing the planet to warm rapidly, and so this requires us to dramatically reduce its emissions. When you conserve energy, you reduce the burning of fossil fuels and therefore cut on carbon dioxide emissions, helping slow down global warming.

3) Reduce Air Pollution. In the same way that carbon dioxide is released when we burn fossil fuels, air pollution is a result of fossil fuel combustion. For example, the burning of coal releases sulfur dioxide and soot, pollutants that lead to acid rain and respiratory illnesses. Gasoline combustion releases nitrogen compounds that, when hot enough, lead to ozone formation and smog. Air pollution is responsible for thousands of deaths annually, so it is in our interest to reduce air pollution by conserving energy at home and on the road.

4) Reduce Mercury Pollution. Our heavy reliance on coal means that we also emit a lot of mercury, which is found in significant amounts in coal. When coal is burned to produce electricity, mercury is released into the atmosphere and quickly deposits into water bodies and soils, eventually making it to fish populations. When they reach fish, mercury is already in the form of methylmercury, a toxic form that is a known carcinogen. Conserving energy, as a result, would directly impact our health as we would be less exposed to mercury in the food we eat and in the environment.

5) Save Water. Finally, you may not have thought of this. Just like when you reduce water use you save energy because that water does not have to be heated nor treated at the wastewater treatment plant, when you reduce energy use you also help save water. This is because power plants, particularly those that are fired by fossil fuels, require copious amounts of water in order to keep them cool. In fact, power plants represent the second largest consumer of water in the country, gobbling up 39% of all water withdrawals. Moreover, since the water is used to cool power plants, the end product is thermal water, which is much warmer than normal and affects local aquatic ecosystems.

There are very good reasons why we should be conserving energy other than the typical worries given out. Interested in learning all you can do to conserve energy? Sign up for a Green Home Makeover today. Look up your local Eco-Consultant and get on the path of conserving energy.

NYC Law Prohibits Wasteful Idling

Commentary: This is great news. Reduced idling will improve the city’s air quality by reducing car and truck pollution. This will lead to an improvement in air quality and reduced carbon dioxide emissions. Improved air quality will reduce health costs and increase quality of life in the City. We hope that typical idlers will follow the new law and that it will in fact be enforced.

With temperatures plummeting, drivers in New York City are more likely to leave their car engines idling for a few minutes before getting on the road. The City Council has a message for such drivers: Don’t do it.

City law generally prohibits letting the engine of a motor vehicle (other than emergency vehicles) idle for longer than three minutes while parking, standing or stopping. Construction vehicles are also prohibited from idling. As an an air-pollution control measure, state regulations restrict the idling of buses on school grounds and ban the idling for more than five minutes of on-road heavy-duty and nondiesel vehicles that transport people or property.

Engine idling has serious health consequences, experts say. Air pollution contributes to ozone depletion, increases rates of asthma and heart disease and contributes to the greenhouse gases that are associated with climate change.

A Council report on the matter noted that drivers often leave engines idling because of misconceptions.

Cars with electronic engines, now the standard, do not have to be warmed up before they are drive; simply driving is the best way to bring the engine to its optimum performance level. Also, leaving a car engine idling for more than 10 seconds actually uses more fuel than stopping and restarting the engine, and idling causes more engine wear than stopping and restarting, officials said. Although more restarts cause a minimal reduction in battery life, “the cost to drivers of this decrease in battery life is far less than the cost of the fuel wasted while a vehicle is idling,” the Council found.

Although the city has restricted engine idling since 1971, there is in fact little enforcement of the law, according to council members. In 2003, only 325 idling violations were issued by the city’s Police, Transportation and Environmental Protection Departments, although the number rose somewhat, to 526, in 2007. And most of the violations were issued to diesel-fueled vehicles, suggesting that there was little enforcement for passenger cars that idle.

On Wednesday morning, the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection approved two measures to curb idling.

One measure, sponsored by Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat, would prohibit engine idling next to schools for longer than a minute. Exceptions would be made for school buses to perform mechanical work on them, “to maintain an appropriate temperature for passenger comfort,” or in emergency evacuations when it is necessary to operate wheelchair lifts.

The second bill, sponsored by Councilman David Yassky, a Brooklyn Democrat, would specifically empower the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Sanitation, along with the Police and Transportation Departments, to issue summonses, appearance tickets and violation notices for engine idling. That bill also would give civilians the ability to report truck violations, including idling, under the Air Pollution Control Code; currently, citizens may bring complaints only about noncompliant buses under the code.

Mr. Liu was joined at City Hall today for a rally in favor of the legislation by numerous advocacy groups and unions, including Asthma Free School Zone, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, Livable Streets Initiative, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, We Act for Environmental Justice, Environmental Defense Fund, the New York City chapter of the Sierra Club, Make the Road New York, and Sustainable South Bronx.

“As a city, our asthma rate is through the roof,” Mr. Yassky said in a statement about his bill. “We’ve got idling laws on the books, but there’s no one around to enforce them. Drivers keep their engines going because they know they’ll get away with it. This bill will significantly increase enforcement so that these laws do what they were designed to do.”

Excerpted from the NY Times.

Rosamaria Caballero Stafford
Co-Founder and the Original Green Irene