Tag Archives: gasoline

Slow Travel

I'm enjoying a staycation at the beach.

Hsinya and I are flying to Taiwan this December on Eva Airlines. As a result, I have been thinking about eco-friendly travel a lot recently. Even though flying is mass transit, airplanes get only mediocre mileage. On average, planes get the same passenger fuel efficiency as cars (1). However, the simple fact that planes travel much further than cars means planes waste a lot more gasoline. Planes also fly at high altitudes, so their effect on climate change may be greater. We’ll be flying overseas from Los Angeles to Taipei, which is a distance of 6800 miles one-way. For two people, the total round-trip distance is 27,000 passenger miles. Given that airplanes average around 50 passenger miles per gallon, our trip will waste a total of 500 gallons of gasoline. Burning 3000 lbs. of gasoline each year to carry two people across the Pacific Ocean and back is definitely not sustainable.

As of today, sustainable travel doesn’t exist. Solar-powered airplanes look promising, but these inventions aren’t ready for mainstream use yet. So until green travel becomes mainstream, the next best thing is minimizing our impact.

The most effective tactic is to not travel at all. Today, with modern technology, it is often possible to work long distances without traveling by using the internet. Video conferencing tools let you conduct virtual business meetings and collaborate online, saving you money and time while using less fuel.

If you do decide to travel anyway, travel slowly. The Slow Travel movement is dedicated to helping people better enjoy tourism by traveling at a more leisurely pace. Most tourists try to blitz through a laundry list of famous attractions in a few days. Slow Travel activists argue that you’ll better savor the experience by traveling slowly and living like the locals. Coincidentally, slower travel tends to be more fuel-efficient. By traveling less frequently, but for longer durations, you save a lot of gasoline. For example, when we travel to Taiwan this year, we’re going to stay for 3 months. This helps us save money, gas, and time by not flying twice this year.

Choosing slower modes of transportation helps as well. Slower vehicles tend to be more fuel efficient: trains and buses get better mileage than planes or cars. It takes longer, but you can bring a laptop or a book along the ride. Unlike airplanes, which give me nausea, trains are the most comfortable way to travel. Many experienced, round-the-world travelers prefer trains because they are roomier, have no luggage limits, and have wi-fi internet. Train travel can be cheaper than airfare, so give it a check out. I personally would love to travel cross-continent by rail someday to enjoy the scenic landscape.

For overseas travel, however, I couldn’t find any real substitute for the airplane. Some environmentalists have suggested traveling across the ocean by boat. A pass on a cargo is expensive, costing $1200+ for a one-way trip across the Pacific Ocean (I only paid $1000 for a round-trip plane ticket). Cargo freighter travel is a hassle, and I don’t know if it’s much more green than flying. So unless you’re looking for a unique travel experience, I would probably just take the plane and travel less often. You’ll get there much faster in half the price.

I hope you will consider alternative travel before you book your next flight. As for me, I’ve decided to only take vacations close to my local neighborhood (staycations). Besides that, I commit to replacing all domestic flights with travel by bus or train. For family visits overseas, I’ll stay for several months and reduce the frequency of visits. If we all join together, these small changes can make a big difference.

Does slow travel work for you?

We calculate efficiency based on passenger miles per gallon (pmpg). To obtain pmpg, take the miles traveled per gallon and multiply it by the number of passengers. For example, if a car gets 25mpg, but it carries two passengers, the car gets 50 passenger miles per gallon.

Second Hand Smog

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Gas mask protects me from smog.

If you’re an urban dweller like me, it can be hard to enjoy the outdoors.

God’s creation is often tainted by man’s pollution. Instead of clean air, we breathe smog. Every day, commuting motorists dump toxic pollutants into our city’s air. Exercising in the city can be unhealthful: instead of feeling refreshed, you’ll come home with itchy eyes, a burning throat, and a terrible cough. One common theme among the world’s major cities is that they are all plagued by air pollution. Cities like Beijing, Calcutta, Mexico City, and Los Angeles are all known for their terrible quality of air.

The pollutants dangerous to our health come from side products produced during combustion. Inside the motor engine, hydrocarbons are combined with oxygen under high pressure and temperature to form carbon dioxide and water. Like all chemical reactions, combustion is inefficient: the by-products of combustion release dangerous gases and particulate matter into the air. The toxic chemicals include carbon monoxide, ozone, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Carbon monoxide is a poison that binds to heme molecules in the blood, making it difficult for the blood to transport oxygen (1). Analogous to cyanide, carbon monoxide can kill if there is insufficient ventilation. The PAHs found in car exhaust are the same carcinogens present in cigarette smoke. Lastly, while ozone can be beneficial in the upper atmosphere, it is harmful in the lower atmosphere. Prolonged exposure to these toxins might cause a variety of illnesses.

Because I exercise outdoors, I worry for my own lung health. I live in the suburbs, where I enjoy relatively clean air. Nevertheless, I still feel the effects of car pollution each day I go bicycling during rush hour traffic. I ultimately purchased a smog mask because air pollution aggravate my asthma (2). All things considered, I’m lucky: in Mexico City or Beijing, smog is so terrible that mask filters clog with soot in a few hours. Pedestrians are not the only victims; motorists often inhale their own pollutants.

The interior of a car may be even more toxic than the outdoor air beside the car. When you drive in traffic, you are parked right behind another car’s tailpipe. Car exhaust can then end up inside the interior of your car (3). Moreover, cars often contain additional volatile chemicals in their interior of the car (the “new car smell” is not good for you). Many motorists remain oblivious about the pollution that harms both themselves and others.

We can continue justifying our driving, or we can make a change for more livable communities by rethinking the commute. Kids should be able to play outside without a breathing mask. Communities should never fear for lung cancer. Neighborhoods should be safe for jogging. Let’s say no to second hand smog.

Would you be willing to give up your car if it meant we could all enjoy smog-free air?

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning for more information.
Car pollution can cause asthma: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/13/california-air-pollution-_n_143521.html
Learn about in-car air pollution: http://www.physorg.com/news112977314.html

The Ten Second Commute

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Hsinya loves working from home!

Instead of fighting thirty miles of traffic driving downtown, some people commute from their bed to the computer room. Instead of meeting up at a regular office cubicle to work, these employees work from any place in the world with an Internet connection.

The telecommute is one exciting way to reduce your environmental impact by avoiding driving to work. If you sell a digital product or service by telecommuting, you also avoid producing waste. By switching from a conventional job to working online, you could save $2000 in gasoline and $500 in insurance premiums each year (1). In fact, if you go completely car-free, you could save over a million dollars in your lifetime. That’s not bad for the luxury of getting to work anywhere you want, and often anytime you want.

There are telecommuting jobs available for all sorts of skills. You could be a virtual assistant, software developer, graphics artist, accountant, banker, or a writer. Hsinya has spent the last few weeks working as an online tutor. You could work in the health sector if you have a nursing or medical degree. Telecommuting allows companies like Canonical, 37Signals, and MySQL to hire employees from all over the globe. Don’t think that telecommuting is only for small, niche companies: larger companies such as Price Waterhouse Coopers, Cisco, and Intel have many employees that regularly telecommute (2).

Hsinya and I are really excited about working online because it gives us the freedom to explore possibilities outside of the standard 9-to-5 job. It gives us location independence, the freedom to work anywhere in the world. In December, we’re going to visit our family in Taiwan. Most travelers can only afford to take short vacations during holiday seasons due to work constraints. However, because telecommuting offers location independence, we could afford to spend 3 months visiting relatives and leisurely touring the country. Instead of rushing back home on an expensive flight in early January, we booked a cheaper return ticket in late February (I saved about $200 per person, for a total savings of $400). When we return, we have the option of choosing any city in the world to live in.

If you want to start your own business, consider an online technology business. All you need is a laptop, a power outlet, and internet access. There are plenty of digital products you can sell online, including e-books, artwork, software, and consulting services. If you have absolutely no technical skills and no experience as an entrepreneur, there are plenty of online tutorials, books, and websites to help you get started (3). I was inspired a friend who launched his own iPhone business, GreenGar Studios. Right now, I’m thinking about working on software that focuses on Greenimalist values.

You also save money by reducing work-related expenses when you telecommute. Conventional jobs typically force you to drive to work, which can cost you $5,000 a year. A 40+ hour work-week might force you to eat out all the time, costing you another $5,000 each year. If you’re a parent, working online can save you on thousands of dollars on babysitting. Factor these costs into your income, and then evaluate your conventional job to its telecommuting alternative.

In a historical context, the idea of working from home isn’t novel. For millennia, many people worked close to their home on nearby farms or in local trades. From a historical perspective, a daily thirty-mile commute to the office is a total anomaly, made possible only by expensive, gas-guzzling, smog-polluting cars. As society begins to rediscover the benefits of working from home, telecommuting will take us full-circle. The ten second commute–the confluence between technology and environment–is as age-old as history itself.

Have you ever considered telecommuting?

The average car in America gets about 22.4 mpg. If you drive 30 miles to work one-way, then you drive 60 miles per day. If you work 5 days per week, 50 weeks per year, then you use 670 gallons of gasoline per year. At a price of $3/gallon, that’s about $2010 per year in gasoline. If you cut back on driving, you will pay less for insurance premiums because there’s less chance of you getting into an auto accident when you telecommute.
Check out the top telecommuting companies: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2010/benefits/telecommuting.html
Borrow these books from your local library or buy them on Amazon: Rework, Escape From Cubicle Nation, Crush It!, The Wealthy Freelancer, Undress for Success.