I started this blog in 2010 after reading an article by the National Academy of Sciences reporting results from a study indicating 33 specific household actions that will cut US carbon emissions by 123 million metric tons. I was inspired to step up to the plate and wanted to challange our family (and inspire others) to do our part. We made it only 17 days and then life ...(you know the story).


Fast forward three years: It's 2013 and I am re-inspired after attending three very eye opening films featured in our community's One Earth Film Festival. Our family is kicking off a new challange (more broad and perhaps less defined by a carbon metric) - to pursue one new action a day (for 365 days) that will positively affect climate change and sustainability. Let's see how far we make it!



Sunday, April 25, 2010

Day 4: Continue to examine our driving behavior Reduce: Idling

Direct from the report sited above, "Recent survey data yield the estimate that 47% of drivers regularly idle unnecessarily in non-traffic situations." So today my husband and I are making a commitment to adopt the mindset to be aware of our idling and actually turn the car off in those situations such as waiting in line at the drive-thru, carpooling, warming up the car in the winter or getting stuck waiting for a train to pass. 
To calculate our carbon saved by reducing unnecessary idling I went to the The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center who sites that 1 gallon of gasoline (I'm going to guess that would be the equivalent of gas saved by reducing our idling for the year) discharges 19.6 pounds of CO2 or .009 metric tons.

Goal: Reduce Idling
CO2 Savings/year: -.009
Cost/year: $0, actually at $3.68/gallon this step saves us a whooping $3.68 year
Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)