Active travel can help tackle the climate crisis earlier than electric vehicles – even if you swap the car for a bike for just one trip a day.

Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK. Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars were electric now, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet.

The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.

  • n2burns
    1·
    10 months ago

    I think you misunderstood my comment. I was agreeing with you. If you’re staying with family, that’s almost certainly financially better than getting your own place. What I was saying is that you didn’t answer the second option: What if you got a job closer to home? You don’t have to answer it here, but I’d just recommend reviewing it by yourself.

    If you make $40K/year, your 37km commute probably costs you ~15% of your net income. Getting a slightly worse paying job within biking distance of your current home could leave more money in your pocket.

    • Rodeo
      2·
      10 months ago

      I see, I did misunderstand.

      Unfortunately being in a small town means there are limited options, and most of them I’ve used already. Some I could go back to. But really this is about the best I’ve found.

      The real option is to start a business, but I’m enjoying life more than I ever have at the moment, and I don’t want to give that up and go back to working all the time. I probably will eventually, because I hate working for people who I think are stupider than I am.