|
Almost everyone has accepted that when we burn fossil fuels to power our homes and our cars and move our goods from place to place, we release greenhouse gases — primarily carbon dioxide — into our atmosphere. These gases then trap heat from the sun and cause our entire planet's temperature to go up. If we don't significantly reduce our current emissions, the earth, and our children, will face a bleak, hot future. Rising temperatures will cause devastating droughts, dangerously rising sea levels and the threatening of millions of species of animals worldwide. Of course, there are more immediate and local consequences too. In 20 years, New York City could be two degrees hotter. Fiercer summer heat waves could place the lives of the elderly and other vulnerable populations at risk, and increased temperatures could boost the number of disease-carrying insects. Already, due to the warming, New York City faces the threat of a destructive "100-year flood" once every 80 years. If current trends continue, the likelihood of such a flood could quadruple by 2050. We all contribute to Global Warming: We work in energy-intensive buildings, eat food that has traveled on trucks, draw power from non-renewable sources, and much, much more. In fact, most people's largest contributions to total green house gas emissions are communal, ones that are difficult for any single individual not to choose, and tricky to try and change. There is, however, one simple and easy change that you and almost any other New Yorker can make to decrease our impact on the global temperature: We can change our commute. It is commonsense that biking, walking and riding public transit, which per-person, per-mile release a fraction of the CO2 of personal autos, are better for the environment than driving a car. But how much better? Rollingcarbon.org helps answer this question by calculating the carbon impact of various New York City commutes. It take's a traveler's mode, factors in the trip's distance and generates an estimate of the commute's carbon footprint. This allows millions of New York City commuters to know how their local actions impact global problems. |
In the past two years, citywide CO2 emissions have decreased 2.5%, which puts the City on target to reach its goal of a 30% reduction by 2030. Still there's more to do. Resources:
|
