US lawmaker blames bicycle breath for global warming gas A Washington state representative has uncovered a previously under-reported source of greenhouse gas: huffing and puffing cyclists. Ed Orcutt, who lists "Tax relief" at the top of his legislative priorities and who was 2000's Washington Young Republican Federation Man of the Year, emailed the owner of a Tacoma, Washington, …
The Right Hon. Representative may be wrong when he said that "You would be giving off more CO2 if you are riding a bike than driving in a car," but the figures from a bike site that The Reg used to make his words look ridiculous seem highly suspect to me.
The engineering toolbox (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-persons-d_691.html) says that CO2 emission from a person doing "hard work" is 0.33-0.38 m^3/h. Assume that riding a bike is similar to "hard work" (it well may be harder), at a normal pressure density of CO2 of 1980 g/m^3 this amounts to 752.4 g/h. A cyclist going at 35 km/h (we are not talking Tour de France here) that's 21.5 g/km per person (without emissions from food production, etc., unlike the bike side claims).
According to EU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_emissions) average new car emitted 145.6 g/km of CO2 3 years ago. Today the figure is probably a bit lower still, and it is not per person. If I play a devil's advocate and cheekily assume 4 people in a car that's 36.4 g/km/person. That is not too far from cycling.
I did not forget the CO2 emitted by the 4 passengers in a car, but I assumed that corresponds to "rest or low activity work", and according to the engineering Toolbox site I looked up the emissions are low, almost 20 times lower than those from "hard work".
So, the gentleman may be wrong, but not necessarily completely ridiculous.
Another point to consider is the effect of bicycles on other traffic. I regularly find myself in a train of traffic doing 10-15mph behind a cyclist, watching my mpg figure plummet. It's very hard to calculate the overall effect of that, but I personally experience that several times a week, and in each case one bike is slowing down a lot of cars, so I suspect there might be a sigificant effect there. It's all very well in places with ample dedicated bike lanes, but that isn't the reality for most of the UK. I don't recall seeing many bike lanes, so maybe that is an issue over there too. Mr Orcutt sounds like an idiot though, regardless of whether he inadvertently has a point.
Ok, steady on chaps...
Lets factor in the fuel source as well. I think you'll find the amount of energy require to process and transport fuel from the middle east, is far more than plucking and eating an apple off a tree in Yorkshire. Even high energy meat produce is more efficient.
And lets not forget..."our" fuel is "carbon neutral", as it's grown organically, whereas fossil fuels is net contributor to the CO2 level. Errrr....well...mostly...if we ignore the amount that is converted to methane which is factor more dangerous greenhouse gas...and the agro-chemical fertilizers and our tractors are mostly based and run on hydrocarbons...and that we do stupid things like fly bananas over from Brazil...
Finally lets not forget that in most towns, bikes are actually faster than cars, and the biggest restriction for cars in towns are junctions and traffic lights, rather than cyclists. I'm an "above average" cyclist, and I actually find the cars are the ones holding me up. But regardless - tony's solutions is correct - make our cycle lanes better! Please!
"A cyclist going at 35 km/h (we are not talking Tour de France here) that's 21.5 g/km per person (without emissions from food production, etc., unlike the bike side claims)."
I'm not sure I'd manage a steady 35km/h - I'm probably ambling making about 15km/h through the city. Maybe you are wasted in front of computer and a career in cycle couriership might be beckoning.
I'm not sure I'd manage a steady 35km/h - I'm probably ambling making about 15km/h through the city. Maybe you are wasted in front of computer and a career in cycle couriership might be beckoning.
Actually, that's only < 22mph. With flat roads and the wind assistance of passing traffic, this is easily achievable with a modicum of effort. With a bit of training on a road bike/"racer", 27-28mph is perfectly possible to maintain on more open sections.
One might ask why you're going so slow...
"Actually, that's only < 22mph. With flat roads and the wind assistance of passing traffic, this is easily achievable with a modicum of effort. With a bit of training on a road bike/"racer", 27-28mph is perfectly possible to maintain on more open sections."
Thumb in the air - 28 mph would require not far short of double the power to maintain than 22 mph, which in turn would take 25% more power than 20 mph. Quick online calculator says for a 75kg person (not that heavy) riding on the hoods of a 10kg bike (reasonably light) you'd need about 210W for 20 mph, 270W for 22 mph and 500W for 28 mph. If you can do 500 W for any length of time after "a bit of training" you should consider a change in career (assuming you're not already a Cat1 or Pro rider).
Oh yes - nearly forgot...
"the wind assistance of passing traffic"
WTF ?
Yep - it's true. Ask any competitive roadie if you like - there is a definite effect. The fact that some of the fastest Time Trial courses use busy roads is no coincidence.
And re: 500watts...yes, that pretty close. However, aerodynamics are crucial here. At that speed you won't be sitting bolt upright like Mary Poppins...Think closer to 350watts with traffic assist, which most amateur riders can hold for extended periods.
"
"the wind assistance of passing traffic"
WTF ?
Yep - it's true. Ask any competitive roadie if you like - there is a definite effect. The fact that some of the fastest Time Trial courses use busy roads is no coincidence."
Oh ok.. interesting. I've had some assist from traffic but it's usually from the frontal wave off a large vehicle or a small train of them.. the dominant effect is lateral in my experience. I understand some of the fluid dynamics of why it can help, but I would have thought that dissipation would have limited the benefits... perhaps the roads i'm on don't have a regular enough flow or something.. i'll keep on eye on that.
"And re: 500watts...yes, that pretty close. However, aerodynamics are crucial here. At that speed you won't be sitting bolt upright like Mary Poppins...Think closer to 350watts with traffic assist, which most amateur riders can hold for extended periods."
Yep aerodynamics matter, agreed - 500W ? that's a figure (estimated) on the hoods, so not bolt upright but, yeah, pretty sloppy but what you'd expect for commuting (which is where this started from). It's a bit over 400 on the drops on the same calculation. That said, 350W over an extended period is most certainly not what the vast majority of cyclists can manage - that's nearly 5W/kg for a 75kg person and is in the very top of Cat2 and into Cat 1 territory for functional threshold in the Coggan chart for gents (with all the caveats about that)... and if you're talking extended periods then FTP is a fair guide.
Anyway - I guess this is going a long way away from talking about an average Joe cycling to work, which is a good thing to be encouraging anyway.
I dunno about you, but sometimes I'm outa breath after using the stairs at work because it's "healthier"
But apparently I'm killing the planet .
For that matter they ought to tax people who can't leave their homes on time in the morning and so have to run down the road and over the train station bridges to catch their trains.
And that's not to mention the CO2 produced by people having sex.....
And that's not to mention the CO2 produced by people having sex.....
It's worse than that. If the sex results in pregnancy it means elevated metabolic requirements for 9 months, followed by an additional and parrallel aerobic system being started, which is likely to be constantly producing CO2 for another 85 years afterwards.
So much, much worse than cycling. Time for Dr Breen's supression field, methinks...
Because you breathe harder and faster when rogering (or being rogered), then it stands to reason that that should be taxed also.
Cycling, rogering, rowing, running, playing football (in all it's incarnations), skiing, hockey ........... Let's just tax everything. Oh wait, we already do.
Paris, because from what I've heard .......
Better not tell him that the act of having sex frequently results is increased levels of cardio-vascular activity, respiration and breathing... OMG now we're all at it! ... killing the planet that is!
... Better tax sex!!
Mike
PS. Paris because she knows how to make CO2 ;-)
Not sure about the rest of you, but most of the C02 I relesase when cycling was recently captured from the atmosphere when the wheat, carrot, potato or whatever grew. As such, we're part of a closed loop with the food we eat: C02 + H2O + Sunlight -> carrots + O2 -> exercise + CO2 + H2O.
So there's no net effect on CO2 from the food itself or how much you eat. It just changes how fast things go through the loop.
What does matter is the energy cost in getting the food to you (C02 and H20 make their way back to plants on their own) which is often driven by fossil fuels, but I suspect that subtlety is lost on the gentleman.
Errr...not quite (see my post above). Being a cyclist, I'd love to believe this too, but there are a couple of snags:
- One of the biggest consumer of fossil fuel is agriculture, both in processing, transport and fertilizers. Yes, the end product is "carbon neutral", but the processing is not.
- Also, a lot of our food is flown in. Bananas from Brazil, Lamb from New Zealand, Strawberries from South Africa. This is done - very inefficiently - via fossil fuel.
- Some of our food products (cows, mainly) product a lot of methane.This is a far more potent greenhouse gas than plain ol' CO2.
Until we go 100% organic, using solar-powered electric tractors, and we only eat stuff harvested within a 10 mile radius, "our" food source will not be carbon neutral.
There's also the question of how you define "carbon neutral" and over what timescales. Geologically speaking, fossil fuels are from a plant source and therefore part of a geological timescale carbon cycle. They sequestered lots of atmospheric CO2 back when we had a lot more atmospheric CO2.
Yes, the current view is that today's (more like 200 years ago but still) CO2 percentage is the "optimal" one, but that's only because some people have an issue with the seas being 100m+ higher than they are now. From a planetary perspective we are at a CO2 low ;)
Solution? Grow more fast-growing crops (whatever sequesters carbon the quickest) then bury them in landfill / down deep mine shafts. Make another batch of fossil fuels ready for a few million years hence. It appears to have worked on atmospheric CO2 levels several times higher than todays, so it is certainly scientifically viable as an option ;)
Speaking as a cyclist, I think he's perfectly correct. If it's right to tax cars for emitting 271g /km, then it's just as reasonable to tax us cyclists too for emitting 21g. Of course, what the guys really doing is, as an earlier commenter mentioned, is bringing out how hypocritical the average greenie is :-)
Wrote :- "I think he's perfectly correct. If it's right to tax cars for emitting 271g /km, then it's just as reasonable to tax us cyclists too for emitting 21g."
That assumes that road tax is, and should be, purely about pollution. It did not start that way; it existed from the 1920's (AFAIR) and no-one gave a thought about pullution before about 1970. Roads cost a great deal of money to maintain (don't forget lighting, policing, signage etc).
The Hon. Republican Representative is, in fact, representative of his party. I lived many years in Idaho (conceded to be the most Republican state in the U.S.) prior to moving back to my native state of Washington (historically, heavily Democratic). This gentleman's position that bicyclists exhale a disproportionately burdensome quantity of pollutant gasses and thus impose a burden on the streets and lanes, and therefore must be taxed--is pure Republican logic. But one must understand, it is NOT a TAX that he supports.
It's part and parcel of the USER FEE mentality. Since he cannot easily craft a bill that would mandate GPS-based mileage recording devices on bicycles, upon which a mileage-based user fee could be imposed for passage upon government-owned streets and lanes, he is taking the easy way out. The proposed annual tax is simply a variant of the Republican-favored user fee.
Thus, the annual tax is not a tax at all ... it is an alternative fee that spares the cyclist the purchase, installation, maintenace, monitoring, and reporting of device-recorded mileage ridden, upon which a per-mile user fee would be based.
The user fee is the mainstay of the U.S. Republican philosophy. Thus when former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney tripled and quadrupled license, permit, and user fees in that state, he was NOT increasing taxes. He simply updated the user fees. User fees are never to be construed as taxes, which is why Gov. Romney bragged endlessly that he never increased taxes in Massachusetts.
Simple, no?
Another fabulous hypothesis from the people that brought us intelligent design and vaginas that can identify evil penises.
Leaving aside: -
The fact that the driver's car will be spewing out far more CO2 than the cyclist (not to mention other pollutants).
The fact that the cyclist is causing less damage to the roads that will cost taxes to repair
The strong probability that the cyclist will be healthier and use up less healthcare resources in their life.
The important point is that the CO2 the cyclist gives off came from the food that they ate. Which in turn was absorbed from the atmosphere while the food was growing. The net carbon increase in the atmosphere is 0. Meanwhile the car is giving of carbon that was dragged out of the earth and has not been part of the atmosphere in millions of years.
Why can't politicians leave science to scientists.
Fatties should receive tax breaks.
They offer 2 advantages over people who exercise:
1) Less CO2 produced, due to no exercise
2) they operate as highly efficient carbon capture devices.
Providing they are buried and not cremated when they die, they are an ideal carbon capture and storage resource :-)
Aye but when you dig a little deeper:
What about the extra CO2 produced by the poor buggers that have to sweat under the weight of them as they carry them behind the hearse?
The gravediggers having to shift an extra one or two hundred kilos of soil?
And even after that, surely they need a lot more worms working a lot harder?
The guy is obviously not quite the full shilling, in effect he's talking about a tax on breathing, which is dumb however you dress it up. And for the various commentards that claim they are 'held up' by cyclists, oh please. If you're driving in town then you're average speed is lower than the fleshy human on the bicycle, he'll beat you from one side of the city to the other, you're occupying a disproportionately large piece of road space to move your arse around, he's not. If you're on a country road, the 10 or 15 seconds you have to 'wait' behind the flashy human on the bicycle adds how much time to your total journey? In a nutshell, if you're going slowly in your car, you're not IN traffic. You ARE traffic.
Dear cyclist bashers, the total tax amount gained from Road Tax (which hasn't existed since 1937 by the way - its a tax on vehicle emissions, the more polluting the car, the more you pay) plus petrol taxes, taxes from selling new cars and so on is estimated at 50 billion per year. The cost of maintaining the roads is 70 billion per year. The cost of paying for idiiot drivers killing and seriously injuring other people to the NHS/Police/Fire brigade/tax payer via benefit costs/investigation costs plus the cost to the nhs of treating unnecessary pollution caused by cars and so on has been estimated at between 30 - 50 billion per year
So thats 50 - 70 billion per year not paid for by car related taxes.
AND THE ROADS ARE PAID FOR OUT OF LOCAL AND GENERAL TAXATION - ALL UK TAX PAYERS INCLUDING THOSE WHO CYCLE OR WALK PAY FOR THE ROADS YET 99.9999999% OF ROAD PLANNING IS FOR THE CAR.
Oh, and according to various surveys around 85% of 'cyclists' own a car anyway, so this cyclist vs car driver debate is crap anyway.
Basicaly go to this website for more info: http://ipayroadtax.com/ - knocks down a fair few myths.
" its a tax on vehicle emisions". No it isn't. It's a vehicle tax, the current RATE is based upon vehicle emissions (which is a relatively new concept in the history of the tax). Hint: it's called Vehicle Excise Duty and has gone from being a flat rate (for cars) through banding based on engine size then linking the duty to CO2 emissions. It is NOT a tax on emisions as you will find out when Govt finds a new formula for implementing some policy or other.
You ar right in that all tax payers pay for roads some way or other as chunk of council tax (householders) pay some parts; fuel+income tax+other taxes+national insurance get lumped together for Govt to divy out in proportions they see fit..
"Oh, and according to various surveys around 85% of 'cyclists' own a car anyway, so this cyclist vs car driver debate is crap anyway."
Oh I see - so a second car would be tax free. Oh wait, no it isn't.
Cyclists should pay for their road use just like everyone else. All the extra cycle lanes, advance stops (not that any cyclist stops at a red light) etc all cost money. Who pays? The long-suffering CAR DRIVERS. Not all of whom like to squeeze into fetishistic lycra and ignore the Highway Code on a whim.
Ah another troll. I'll bite.
"Oh I see - so a second car would be tax free. Oh wait, no it isn't."
---Why should a second car be tax free? I cycle to work. I also I own a car, sitting on my drive, which is taxed. Why should I not pay tax on my car?
"Cyclists should pay for their road use just like everyone else. All the extra cycle lanes, advance stops (not that any cyclist stops at a red light) etc all cost money. Who pays? The long-suffering CAR DRIVERS. "
---Covered previously. In a nutshell everybody pays for the roads, whether they use them or not. And why do you think car drivers are long suffering? What would you like to change? Fewer cars on the road, perhaps? What if cyclists decided to drive instead of cycle? More cars on the road? Is this what you want?
"Not all of whom like to squeeze into fetishistic lycra and ignore the Highway Code on a whim."
--Why the obsession with lycra? A footballer wears football kit. A runner wears stuff for running. A cyclist wears attire appropriate to cycling. What would you like them to wear?
Ignore the Highway Code on a whim? The same can be said for any road user.
"Why should a second car be tax free?"
It shouldn't be.
"I cycle to work. I also I own a car, sitting on my drive, which is taxed. Why should I not pay tax on my car?
Again, you car should not be tax free. But you bike is, that's the problem. You are using your bike on the road, you should be paying road tax. If you have two cars, you would pay for both. You have a car and a bike - yet you don't pay for both.
"Covered previously."
No, your second vehicle (the bicycle) is free. You should be paying for that as well. Unless you want to continue to claim that the first car somehow includes the road tax for you other vehicle (which is what you are claiming). I can only drive one car at a time, but I would pay road tax on both. Why should your bicycle continue to be road tax exempt? It shouldn't.
"What if cyclists decided to drive instead of cycle? More cars on the road? Is this what you want?"
Then they'd actually be paying road tax which would allow for any required improvements to be paid for. Just now cyclists get all their lanes, extra marking and special considerations FOR FREE as they pay nothing for their bike use.
"What would you like them to wear?"
Day-glo/hi-vis and a helmet. Under force of law.
I'm a cyclist and a car driver (as most are btw Mr Troll), and I have the following suggestion.
To save having to listen to the ill educated whiners going on about "oh cyclists don't pay tax"...I propose that VED version 1.0 is scrapped, and VED version 2.0 taxes applied to all road using vehicles, based on the vehicle's kerb weight x by the number of wheels (as weight is what damages roads).
2.5p per kilo is about right. So a 1,200kg car will pay around the same as now - £120. A 3.5t van...£525.
So my 8kg bike will pay...40p. It's a fair cop. Apart from the bit where it will probably cost the Government at least £1 to process every application and it's payment...
"Again, you car should not be tax free. But you bike is, that's the problem. You are using your bike on the road, you should be paying road tax. If you have two cars, you would pay for both. You have a car and a bike - yet you don't pay for both."
Muddying the waters, my friend.
Road tax? Abolished in the 1930s. Roads are funded from taxation.
VED is an excise duty. It is not hypothecated tax.
*** Paying VED grants you no more rights to use the road than paying excise duty on a bottle of whisky. ***
"No, your second vehicle (the bicycle) is free. You should be paying for that as well. Unless you want to continue to claim that the first car somehow includes the road tax for you other vehicle (which is what you are claiming). I can only drive one car at a time, but I would pay road tax on both. Why should your bicycle continue to be road tax exempt? It shouldn't."
A flawed argument. You're confusing a non-existent 'road tax' with vehicle excise duty.
VED for low/zero emission vehicles is £0.00. This £0.00 charge also would apply to, say Hyundai i20 1.4, a Nissan Micra 1.2 and so on.
Them's the rules.
Don't like it? Buy a Micra. Or get on a bike. Your heart will thank you for it.
"Then they'd actually be paying road tax which would allow for any required improvements to be paid for. Just now cyclists get all their lanes, extra marking and special considerations FOR FREE as they pay nothing for their bike use."
Wrong. it's not free. It's paid for from from taxation. As are the roads.
quote: "*** Paying VED grants you no more rights to use the road than paying excise duty on a bottle of whisky. ***"
Not quite true. Not paying VED for a vehicle that requires it, means you are not allowed to use the public roads. Any registered vehicle is required by law to have a valid VED disc or be declared SORN, and driving a vehicle that is declared SORN on the public road is an offence.
Whilst correlation is not causation, I would feel perfectly comfortable claiming that, in the UK, paying VED (along with insurance and having a valid MOT) is what grants you the right to use the public roads.
Also:
quote: "To save having to listen to the ill educated whiners going on about "oh cyclists don't pay tax"...I propose that VED version 1.0 is scrapped, and VED version 2.0 taxes applied to all road using vehicles, based on the vehicle's kerb weight x by the number of wheels (as weight is what damages roads).
2.5p per kilo is about right. So a 1,200kg car will pay around the same as now - £120. A 3.5t van...£525.
So my 8kg bike will pay...40p. It's a fair cop. Apart from the bit where it will probably cost the Government at least £1 to process every application and it's payment..."
You seem to be forgetting that your bicycle does not self-navigate; when it is on the roads, it also has you riding it. EU regs on "kerb weight" for cars includes a driver at 75kg, so this would make the "kerb weight" of your 8kg bicycle 83kg, or a VED of £4.15 (not £0.40). Still peanuts, but a significant increase.
I'd welcome this sort of change too, as my 350kg motorcycle+me would pay £17.50 instead of the current £76 :)
Anyone with a Band A, B, or C hybrid / electric will hate you for it though, as they pretty much all weigh over a tonne (revised VED £100+), but currently pay £0-£30.
Also note that the contact patch for a bicycle is significantly smaller than the contact patch for a car due to difference in tyre size; a VED targeted at "amount of weight applied to the roads during use" would need to also factor tyre width in there as well somewhere, and would need to divide weight by number of wheels (you provide less downward force per wheel when using more than one wheel for the same weight). In that sense, an 83kg monocycle would technically do more damage than an 83kg tricycle using the same tyres, as the total downward force due to weight would be distributed between wheels / tyres ;)
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-------------------------- quote --------------------------
: Quote [quote: "*** Paying VED grants you no more rights to use the road than paying excise duty on a bottle of whisky. ***"
Not quite true. Not paying VED for a vehicle that requires it, means you are not allowed to use the public roads. Any registered vehicle is required by law to have a valid VED disc or be declared SORN, and driving a vehicle that is declared SORN on the public road is an offence.
Whilst correlation is not causation, I would feel perfectly comfortable claiming that, in the UK, paying VED (along with insurance and having a valid MOT) is what grants you the right to use the public roads.]
-------------------------- end quote --------------------------
Not quite true.
Pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders have the RIGHT to use the roads (with restrictions, such motorways and so on). These restrictions are in the highway code.
In order to use a motor vehicle on the roads you have to apply for a (revocable) licence which gives you PERMISSION to drive the vehicle on the road, and this motor vehicle is subject to VED (whether a charge applies or not).
So you'd be right if you said "VED does not grant any rights whatsoever. However, VED is one of the legal requirements to use a motor vehicle on the road".
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