Aventures Bicyclétales ...

Pollution from motor transportation : we talk a lot about it, we can see it, we can hear it, we can smell it, we can cough it too … some go as far as vomiting it while some others die from it, but actually what is it !?

• Pollution from motor transportation in general,
• Air pollution from motor transportation and global warming,
• Oil depletion,
• My personal impact,
• My commitments.

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Pollution from motor transportation in general

• Air pollution of course, it’s the most obvious because it can be observed with your own eyes. Stinky air and respiratory diseases in towns, emission of greenhouse gases and global warming for the whole planet … with all the unpleasant consequences this will have for the future generations. For more information, click here.
• Water pollution, with intentional and unintentional marine oil spills.
• Noise pollution, especially for those lucky city dwellers who live right next to an airport.
• Esthetic pollution, frankly, do you really enjoy the sight of a hundred cars waiting in front of a traffic light ? Or an highway  crossing right in the middle of  your garden ? ... I think we agree ...
• Nervous pollution, with the unbearable stress of the traffic jams, the irritating behavior of some other motorists, the impossibility to get parked sometimes, the accidents, and so on ...
• Space pollution,
• In town, with the congestion of the heart of the city and the obligation to give away always more room for roads and car parks, all this at the expense of Humans living space ...
• Upcountry, with the division of large natural habitats by highways and rail-lines, provoking the extinction of big mammals and therefore reducing the biodiversity.
• Last type of « pollution », but not least, it's the one that consist in using and wasting a non renewable resource. It may come as a surprise to some, but no, given the pace at which we are consuming it, oil cannot be considered as a renewable energy. For more information, click here.

 

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Air pollution from motor transportation and global warming

Air pollution from motor transportation comes at 80% from road vehicles (cars, motorbikes, scooters, trucks, bus) and at 20% from airplanes … (air pollution from trains and boats is not significant here). 

                   

Here are the major primary air pollutants produced by Human motor transportation :
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• Carbon dioxide (CO2) : this is the main greenhouse gas, responsible for 60% of the actual global warming.
• Carbon monoxide (CO) : it is colorless, odorless, non-irritating but it is a very poisonous gas, it prevents blood from carrying oxygen in the body.
• Nitrogen oxides (NOx) : especially nitrogen dioxide are emitted from high temperature combustion. Can be seen as the brown haze dome above or plume downwind of cities. It provokes respiratory diseases and increases body vulnerability to the microbes. It is responsible for about 6% of the actual global warming phenomenon.
• Ground level ozone (O3) : formed by NOx and VOCs pollutants together with oxygen under the sun light. During particularly hot summers, its evacuation towards the higher layers of the atmosphere is slowed down, thus resulting in health hazard for the most vulnerable city dwellers. This dangerous ground level ozone is not the same ozone as the stratospheric ozone, usually called the ozone layer ; this latest ozone is a necessary vital filter of the UV light.
• Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) : such as hydrocarbon fuel vapors and solvents, they are one of the two constituents necessary to generate ground level ozone. See above.
• Particulate Matter (PM) : it is measured as smoke and dust. PM10 is the fraction of suspended particles 10 micrometers in diameter and smaller that will enter the nasal cavity. PM2.5 has a maximum particle size of 2.5 µm and will enter the bronchus and lungs. They are mostly produced by Diesel engines. They are responsible for multiple allergies, respiratory problems or even cancer in some cases.
• Sulfur dioxide (SO2) : this irritates the respiratory system and is as well responsible for acid rains.

Transports account for 20 to 30% of the greenhouse gases resulting from Human activity, and it is the only source which keeps rising out of control (other sources of human produced greenhouse gases, worldwide data : industry = 25%, housing / services = 22%, deforestation = 15%, agriculture = 13%). 

Air traffic statistics speak for themselves : +30% over the last 4 years since 2002, 2.12 billions passengers in 2006 and forecasts suggesting +5%/year until 2026, with 29,000 additional aircrafts in the air (Source : Capital, No193, October 2007). On the long run, air transport (which conveniently is not part of the Kyoto protocol) will become the largest source of greenhouse gases in the world !

As for cars and trucks, there were 550 millions of those vehicles registered in 2005, and since a growth of 5%/year is anticipated for the next 25 years, we will reach over a billion cars in 2030 … help ...

      

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Oil depletion

In 2002, France spent 95 million tons of oil, out of which 50 millions were spent in transports ; this is more than half of the total consumption. The world burns (there is no better word) 4 billion tons of oil per year, and this number increases by 2% every year.

Oil and its derivatives (coil, natural gas, tar sands, etc …) originate from a very long sedimentation process over a period of several hundred million years. So theoretically, oil is a renewable resource ; however, practically it is not. By spending within 200 years what took 100 million years to be produced, we spend this resource 500,000 times faster than it can re-generate itself. So oil, with certainty, will be depleted.

Specialists predict the oil production peak will occur between 2010 (geologist opinion) and 2035 (economist opinion). The actual proven and possible oil reserves in the world should be sufficient for another 30 years … however the real troubles will happen much sooner, and as soon as production will not be able to grow as fast as the demand. Of course, when this happens, any "hiccup" (war in a major producing country, strike, sabotage, downgrading of the reserves of a major operator, etc) will generate a surge in the oil price, going from anything from a little price increase to a major oil shock, equivalent to that of 1979 or even greater ... This would not be the first war which purpose is to secure resources a country does not have at home. Remember those two numbers : 80% of the oil is located in countries spending only 20% of it (Persian Gulf) … and 20% of the oil is located in countries spending 80% of it (Western countries and Asia).

                             

And the solution will not come from biofuels, since given their poor productivity and the limited surface available for cultivation, we (in France) could produce biofuels only for 40% of our cars … assuming we would not grow any food at all !!! This is not likely to be the future … 

Electric cars and Hydrogen cars (fuel cell) are also false good ideas, because those energies are not primary energies but need to be produced from another energy source. In today's world, electricity and hydrogen are mainly produced from fossil energy, except in France, where nuclear energy generates 78% of the electricity. OK, so let's imagine that we (in France) all go for electric cars, we will then have to double our nuclear energy capacity and is it necessary to recall that Uranium 235 reserves (only nuclear fuel right now) are evaluated at 50 to 90 years at most ? We see it clearly, there will be no miracle the science only can handle, consumers behaviors will have to change. We will have to change.

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My personal impact

To measure your ecological footprint, WWF Switzerland has developed a very instructive little game !! Do not hesitate, it takes less than 5 minutes. You're going to be surprised ...

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My commitments

Our generation is the generation who has come at the parting of the ways. It is the generation who can make history tip over one side or another. It is the generation on which lies the responsibility of the living conditions of the entire Humanity for the next millenniums … just this, only this but nothing less than this … so are you still considering going to the Seychelles for your honeymoon !?

As an individual, if I do not change my behavior, I will travel another ~ 4 million kilometers before death comes, burning an additional 100,000 liters of oil and emitting an equivalent of 400 tons of CO2 more (this is assuming  an average polluting efficiency improvement of 33% over the 2008-2055 period). This would not be very responsible, would it ? …

So I decided to take a few steps in order to become a better citizen of the planet :

• My first step has consisted in limiting my air-travel, allowing myself only one return trip from Bangkok to France per year, and so far I have successfully respected this over the last 4 years.
• Second step was to resign from my present work, located 65 km away for my apartment and 10,000 km away from my family. Expatriation is an aberration of our time, an ecological non-sense.
• Third step was to quit flying, just in the same way as some quit smoking. My last flight will be in June 2008. 

  I have to admit that this will not require much efforts since flying has become an increasingly unpleasant experience : endless queues when boarding, intrusive security measures, ridiculous space inside the plane, and much worse ... If you have decided as well to stop flying, you can register here and then get your non-flying certificate : see mine here (this certificate takes into consideration my flight of June 2008).

• Fourth step was to offer a greenhouse-gas free year to the planet by cycling home, and inform a maximum number of people on this project, notably through partnerships with participating schools.
• Fifth and last step was to reset my carbon emission counter by paying for all my past emissions (including but not limited to the 3,773 Euros calculated above). If you wish to help me in becoming CO2 neutral, click here !

Unfortunately, we often hear saying that Westerners -be it true or not- "accept the reality of the global warming, think the environment is in danger and are in favor of sustainable development … HOWEVER, they usually do not acknowledge their individual responsibility, and refuse to follow a discipline which would impact their standard of living". 

The little, the very little we can do, we have to do it.
Théodore Monod.

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Gandhi.