My Driving is On Track to Burn Up Nearly 60% of my 5-T Carbon Budget This Year!
Drive a little, burn a lot
Dear Human of Planet Earth,
How are you?
I’ll admit, most of my broken promises are made on the internet. For me, social media is the easiest place to overpromise and underdeliver. Can you relate to that?
The good news is, I’m not about to break a promise.
I’m about to tell you how much of a 5-Tonne carbon budget I’ve already burned this year in petrol alone.
Here goes:
Between February 21st, when I started keeping records and June 13th, the car I drive has done 1,669 miles.
That’s 884.57 kg of CO2e over 16 weeks.
Assuming I carry on driving this much, in a year my driving will use up over 2,870 kg CO2e of my 5T carbon budget.
In other words, nearly 60% of my carbon budget is used up in petrol alone!
This really shocked me. Why? Because most of my driving is local to me - fifteen-minute to half-an-hour journeys within a five-mile radius. Most days I spend less than an hour and a half driving altogether, often less than an hour. And yet …
Making CO2e relatable. What does it mean?
I mentioned CO2e in earlier letters. But a few words about it, in case you’re not familiar.
The ‘e’ stands for equivalent. Consider methane’s greenhouse effect lasts over just ten years before it’s broken down in the environment, but it’s 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. On the other hand, carbon dioxide emissions have an impact over about hundred years, ten times longer than methane. So how can we talk about emissions in a way that takes account of the fact that it’s not all carbon dioxide? CO2e is a unit to include and standardise these variations. Think of it as a common language.
Now let’s work on visualising 1kg of CO2e.1
Burning one pint (just over half a litre if you only think in metric) would release just over 1kg of CO2e.
Now imagine 884 pints of milk. That’s like almost 100 rows of 9 pints of milk.
Now replace the milk with petrol and set fire to the lot. There! you’ve released as much CO2e as I did with my car over mere sixteen weeks.
(Don’t try this at home, keep it all in your head! These aren’t the kind of visualisations you want the Universe to manifest in your life!)
A blob of petrol the size of a chickpea would release 1 gram of CO2e.
Driving A Mere Mile. How do different cars compare?
180g CO2e - a mid-sized five-door electric car2
530g CO2e - an average UK car at 36 miles per gallon
1.26kg CO2e - a new Range Rover Sports car, poorly looked over and driving at 90 mph
This figures are estimations but they give you a sense of proportion - and if you don’t drive a big, fancy car, might even give you a sense of smug satisfaction.
Either way, we’re not here to feel smug. We’re here to pay attention, share information and do better, together. Do what you can. But remember, we need systemic change - and fast. What we do matters. And pushing for systemic change matters even more.
With Love,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Radical,
Croydon,
London,
That patch of earth known today as the United Kingdom
Lat +51.51 Long, -0.118
As explained by Mike Berners-Lee in How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything.
Source for these estimations: How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything by Mike Berners-Lee