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10/12/08
Brittany accepted this challenge, reducing CO2 by 4 lbs so far.
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Leave Your Car At Home Featured on Oct 15, 2007
Challenge
Pick one day this week to leave your car at home and use another way to commute to work or school.
Individual Result
By not driving just one day this week, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a whopping 30 lbs!
Rally Impact
2432 people have reduced CO2 emissions by 36.04 tons by completing this challenge so far. That's equal to turning off the electricity of 24 homes for about 1 month!
Challenge Details
Commuting by car is part of “the daily grind” that doesn’t have to be so much of a grind. You already do what you can to keep your traffic stress down. You’ve got your decaf and your MP3 player. You even try to smile at another driver now and then. Want something even less stressful? Park your car one day this week, strap on a backpack, and walk to school or bike to work. Or, carpool with a friend. Same ground, less grind.
The Carbon Connection
The more we drive, the greater our carbon impact. Close to 30% of the greenhouse gases released in the United States come from transportation. Of that amount, over 80% is produced by our vehicles driving on the roads (cars, trucks, buses) and burning gasoline or diesel.
In the 1990s, greenhouse gas emissions from American automobiles increased almost 20%. And that trend continues in this decade. Car ownership is up; vehicle occupancy is down. Carpooling and the number of people who walk instead of driving has dropped by half since 1980. People are making more trips in their cars and commuting farther. And unfortunately the average fuel efficiency of passenger cars, including small trucks and SUVs, has actually decreased over the last 20 years.
Here’s the scary part. Each gallon of gasoline burned in an average car’s engine blows 19.4 pounds of CO2 out the exhaust and directly into Earth’s atmosphere. Just think. With a gas tank size of 15 to 18 gallons, that’s an incredible 350 pounds of CO2 you’re releasing each time you’ve driven around town enough for your fuel gauge to hit Empty.
Getting It Done
Need help meeting this Challenge? Here are a few simple suggestions:
- If you live close enough to your school or work to walk, do that. If it’s a little farther away, maybe you can ride your bike.
- Use public transportation — trains, buses, etc. — if it’s available.
- See if you can carpool with someone one day this week. Maybe you can even carpool with a fellow Rallyer. (Hint: To find Rallyers in your town or city, click on your user name at the top right of any page. That will take you to your My Carbon Page. Then click on the name of your town. On the town page, you can see other Rallyers who live in your town or leave a comment where you can look for carpool buddies.)
- Telecommute one day this week, if you can.
Do you have other suggestions? Share them in the comments section below.
Rules of the Challenge
This Challenge invites you to start small and think big. When you leave your car at home just one day this week, you and your team will be credited with 30 pounds of CO2 savings. Imagine how that will all add up as Rallyers across the country join together to take this same Challenge and reduce their carbon impact. Remember, this is a repeatable Challenge. So, come back later, take this Challenge again, and save another 30 pounds of CO2!
Learn More
Union of Concerned Scientists: Clean Vehicles
How Can a Gallon of Gasoline Produce 20 Pounds of Carbon Dioxide?
See the Math
Let’s start with the known or estimated numbers:
- Assume an average daily commute of 16 miles each way to school or work. That’s 32 miles driven each day for just commuting.
- The average car used in commuting to work or school gets 21 miles per gallon of gasoline.
- Each gallon of gasoline burned by an automobile engine leads to the release of 19.4 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Now put all that together to get the following equation:
Your numbers may vary. Your total daily commute may be longer or shorter than 32 miles. Your car may get better or worse mileage. However, the important thing to look at here is just how much carbon dioxide gets formed and released each day as you drive your car. At almost 20 pounds of CO2 for every gallon of gas you use, cutting back on any driving you do can make a huge carbon impact.
Discuss Leave Your Car At Home:
I decided to finally commit and start riding my bike to work 2 years ago. At first it was quite daunting, 30 miles a day. As the years have gone on my time on the bike is one of my favorite times of day, rain or shine. Headwind or like yesterday’s tailwind when I was hitting 30 mph on the way home. Using my poor gas mileage car I’m saving 32.3 lbs of carbon a day. Yikes! I’ve also started running errands on my neighborhood junker bike with a milk crate on the back. Great fun!
I usually walk for at least half an hour three times a week in order to leave the car at home and use public transportation. This cuts down on the carbon usage. It is also viewed as an exercise routine
I usually walk for at least half an hour three times a week in order to leave the car at home and use public transportation. This cuts down on the carbon usage. It is viewed as an exercise routine
i walk alot so this makes this challenge easy. Alot of times if im not walking i take the city bus anyways
Um, I haven’t used my car in over a month. I take my son to school and myself to work using a bike and a trail-a-bike. Rode in thunderstorms last week…
I am mainly driving by business. When Iam at my home office there are only a few short trips where I usually use my car. I will use for the next 2 months my bicycle for going to sport, shops, friends etc.
I DONT HAVE A CAR. I HAVENT IN 14 YEARS. I WALK AND TAKE THE SUBWAY OR THE METRO-BUS THAT RUNS ON NATURAL GAS
I am lucky to live only 1 mile from my place of work. I bike or walk (weather permitting).
I gave up the car 3 years ago and now bike or walk everywhere I can. And carpool or hire a friend to transport me when I need to go long distance or carry heavy loads. There is no public transportation in my area, so winters can be a bit cold… but it was easy to do as I work from home.
i told my parents to do this ^^
My wife and I have been carpooling for 6 months now. I’m going to say that this counts. :-)
I can certainly work from home at least one day a week all summer, and come the fall semester I am carpooling with a friend around the block. I also take commuter shuttles from the freeway in to work that run on biodiesel. It’s good to know that other people are working to reduce their carbon emissions this way too :) GO GREEN TEAM!!!
I carpool with someone to work, but I ride my bike to the library and elsewhere after work and on weekends.
Best thing about cycling is passing all the car drivers stuck in rush hour traffic. ;)
I wonder what would happen if, and I know this may be difficult for longer commuters, we left our cars home ALL week? I’ve done 58 miles on my bicycle in the last 3 weeks-thats two gallons of gas I didn’t buy, about $10 extra in my pocket, less carbon dioxide and other emissions I didn’t put out, and my clothes are fitting nicer now! That’s a real reward. I’m aiming to do 24 miles (6 miles/day) this week-thats two round trips per day (one to work/back for lunch, and then to work/back home) totaling 3 miles per round trip. That’s a lot of savings!
I usually only take a car trip one to two days a week. Once for groceries or small errands, and once for going into the pet store.So for this challenge I’m walking to the pet store each week instead of driving.
I stopped driving my child to school and now he rides with a friend who’s children go to the same school and she works 1/2 mile away from the school… saving me 80 miles of driving a day!
I live 11 miles from my job, and I only drive my car on days when I have no choice…..other erands to run that cannot be completed by bus. I would say on average I ride the bus atleast 3 times a week now, not only saving 22 miles a day of emissions, but also saving almost $3/day vs. the price of gas! woohoo!
I live about 13 miles from the nearest town with businesses in it and everything. I walk that every now and then, but mostly I live at my friend’s house which is in the middle of everything that I would need. I walk every where, and I RARELY get in cars now.
I leave my car at home whenever I have errands or commutes under 3 miles
I try to work from home one day a week, and taking bus the other times (but I have to drive to reach it). Question is does working from home consume extra energy offsetting this goal. For instance, I would not spend some energy by being in the office, example is common AC in the office, AC just for me at home, cafeteria in office (common food prep) opposed to individual food prep at home. I agree with this challenge and will do my best, just not sure if I am meeting its criteria correctly.
try carpooling.co.uk
i always walk evrywhere in my town
This one is easy as I am an avid cyclist and National Bike to Work Day was two weeks ago. So far in May, I have left my car home 9 days but I just started bike commuting again on May 16. June should be even better…
I do not have my lisence yet but I`ll tell my mom to not drive for a day.
Now that it’s warm enough I’m riding my scooter to work. It gets about 75 miles per gallon (twice what my Civic gets). I drive about 40 miles per day round trip and I do it, on average, 4 days per week. That should reduce my emissions by the equivalent of not driving at all 2 days per week – about 60 lbs per week by the above calculation!
I used to drive 18 miles each way to & from work. I just purchased my monthly bus pass. Yeah!
i already bike everywhere. :) public transpo can also be an entertaining, cheap, and green option.
Now I take a Vespa motor scooter everywhere, does that count? It gets 180 miles to a tank and the tank is only 1.5 gallons? It has a much smaller carbon footprint then a car.
Tele-commuting 3-5 days a week now instead of driving 40 miles a day. Yay new job!
So… I don’t have an option for carpooling due to my work hours, location, etc. But, I have been using the computer in my car to monitor my MPG consumption every single day. With some effort, practice, trial and error, I’ve been able to raise my MPG by 3-5 mpg each day (depending on weather and traffic). I’ve done the math to translate it to the 30 lbs for this challenge. So, I’m not carpooling, but I’m having a similar impact in a different way.
we do carpool atleast once a week to work.. ( 5 miles)
I’ve got a Vino 125-cc scooter that I use mon-fri it’s a sweet ride and gets better than 75-mpg. My Nissan Frontier only gets 25-mpg. so I guess I’m doing pretty good. I’m hoping to get my mountain Bike working again soon so I can ride it to class a couple of days a week.
A suggestion is to find someone to carpool with. If you find the right person you can carpool every week and really make a difference. I created RideSearch.com to help the nation find someone to carpool with.
Today was a beautiful day to walk to work. : )
I used to drive down to the park & ride to meet up with my commuter vanpool. Now I don’t even do that; I ride with my fiance down and take the bus back up. Jason also gets to feel a little better about his previously solo ride to work.
very good advice, and very hard to follow in southern california, unless you change your job to a job real close to home. And supermarkets are not allowed in residential zones, and they get bigger and fewer. DEMAND MORE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!
i have to drive to work every day(we don’t have public transportation here), so i try to take off one day on the weekend and not drive anywhere. i get a lot more done at home that way, as an added benefit.
We ride our bikes, take the bus and walk. We also use less polluting waste vegi oil (recycled fryer oil) when we do drive. We also make sure that there are several things we are going to do in town when we take the van.
This week I showed my kids that it was faster for them to ride their bikes or walk to school in the rain than to take the car. We have construction blocking one of our main thoroughfares and the traffic backs up so far, that they can get to school much faster than if we take the car. They wear rain gear and save the environment.
I either carpool with my boyfriend, who then drops me at the bus. And either continue on the bus and walk to work, or I sometimes commute with another coworker. The bottom line, is that I rideshare/bus/bike and walk every single day;o)
I work from home and my kids ride their bikes to school, but we will walk to a restaurant this week and try to bike everywhere else when possible.
If my commute is 35 miles each way (70 miles round trip), should I accept the challenge twice for each of these commutes which I forgo, or just one?
I work near a train station and have started taking the train and my bike to work 1-2 days per week. The cost is about the same, but I feel better after biking in the morning and I know I am saving on emissions.
ZNGU: Thanks for the question. We need to tackle this. Essentially, the objective of the Rally is to drive small changes in personal behavior. We’d like the rally scores to represent the CO2 reductions associated with these small changes. So, in a pure sense, folks should only accept challenges that represent a real change in behavior. If some challenges no longer apply to you, you can contribute in other ways like recruiting new members, or re-doing challenges that are repeatable. We will update the about section shortly to make this more clear going forward. Thanks for bearing with us.
If I already did something before hearing about your site, does it count or not? It’s hard to cite “reductions” and “impact” if my behavior is recorded but unchanged. So, birdman, is there somewhere on this site (other than an obscure comment) that makes the policy clear?
We’re trying our best to measure incremental reduction created by the Rally. So, this challenge really applies to folks that currently drive to work/school and are willing to give it up in the weeks ahead. Of course, we should all accept the challenge for every day we make this commitment going forward.
If you just recently gave up the car, it’s fair game to take some credit, but we can’t go too far back in time, for fairness to other Rallyers.
thoughts?
hooray, a challenge I know I can complete. Yay MBTA monthly passes!
Already sold my car, that counts, right?
those are some sweet chariots for sure!
Verdant: Very nice, and right here in Cambridge.
Check out these posh rides from Holland. Pricey, but cheaper than a car!
my weekday commute is a pretty low carbon transit-bike combo, but need to cut down on those weekend runs to Home Depot, so thinking of stepping up to the plate with one of these… http://www.newamsterdamproject.com/
Along those lines, check out this site… http://www.bikesatwork.com/
I started leaving my car at home back in October in favor of the commuter rail and am loving it.
deva: very cool how it works with facebook. Lots of rides in there. thanks
have u seen goloco.com?
Anybody know of a good ride sharing website for the Boston area?
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