What’s with Treehugger’s fascination?

Probably because the single largest contributor to atmospheric pollution is surprise, surprise: motor vehicles. And according to various estimates 250,000 people die on the road every year. That’s with 10,000,000 more injured. And yet the world has maybe 4 times as many bicycles as cars. I mean some estimates as high as 2 billion! There with 1 billion persons being classified as utiltarian cyclists. That should speak volumes for itself.

Humankind has yet to invent a means of transport that is more earth and people friendly or emission-free as a pushbike.

Munch a half decent breakfast and lunch and you can cover maybe 140 km (87 miles) a day. No electricity, oil, gas, hydrogen or batteries required.

And you could easily have 4-6 bicycles being ridden in the space taken up by a single car.

(Sometime ago there was an estimate that well over 40% of Los Angeles’ land area was given over to the automobile.) But there is also the embodied energy to consider too. This is the total of resources to make a thing. For that’s even before it is used. Say 15 lbs (7 kg) of steel for a bike. For that’s compared to 1,800 lbs (816 kg) for a car. A paltry 0.8%. Then there is the waste. In Europe alone about 250 million car tyres. For they are discarded annually. Thereby having consumed 370 million gallons (1,400M ltr) in their production.

In addition and in developing countries bicycles transport vast amounts of people. They also produce at minimal cost to personal incomes. Moreover and to the environment. They also provide a super efficient power source.

The ecological footprint (imagine all land, required to provide the resources to produce a product/service, squished into the one place and measured) of bike commuter has been estimated at 122 sq/m. The footprint of car doing the same commute is a whopping 1,442 sq/m. A tenfold difference.

Other stats we unearthed suggested that a bike that replaces an automobile. I mean for all travel is equal to the planting of 170 trees. That because a standard family car generates 24 times more CO2 pollution. That’s than a bike.