“Yes I think to myself…what a wonderful world…”
Earth images captured from the International Space Station at night show a gossamer light show—trucks, cars and airplanes interlacing their way throughout many parts of the globe. Here on terra firma, a plume of vehicle head and tail lights is a familiar sight, especially at rush hour. They are beautiful, comforting and we now know, unfortunately, destructive.
Currently, the energy and transportation sectors are responsible for the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHE) in the United States. Each contributes about a third of our total emissions. It’s easy to blame dirty trailer trucks, airplanes and freighters, but according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), cars, SUVs, minivans and the perennially popular pickup trucks account for half of the total transportation sector’s GHE.
Photo from Madisonbikes.org, a local nonprofit that encourages cycling in Madison.
As individuals, we can do something about this! It’s in our control and it’s simple. Keep your car, love your car, but drive it less. If everyone cut back driving by just ten percent or 1,350 miles per year, GHEs would go down by 110 million metric tons a year, or the equivalent of shutting down 28 coal fired plants for a year. How to do this? Ride share, combine errands, do not sit in your parked vehicle with the engine idling, and skip unnecessary trips. Better yet—walk, bike or use public transportation, as described in this New York Times article.
Much, however, is further from our individual control. Trucks move almost everything we use to our local stores: food, clothing, gasoline, beer, household and construction supplies. All this trucking creates 23% of transportation’s GHE. Commercial aircraft contribute 9%, ships and boats 3%, and trains 2% of the GHEs, respectively. Another 4% comes from goods shipped via multiple modes of transportation, including trucks, as described here.
Photo by Mathew T. Rader on Unsplash.com
What can be done? Dane County and the City of Madison are changing policies and practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Dane County has about 95 vehicles, including dozens of heavy-duty trucks and plows running on compressed natural gas. The county was recently recognized nationally for capturing methane in the landfill and selling the cleaned gas to a nearby pipeline reducing the carbon footprint of fuel by 88%. You can check out the spotlight on Dane County’s efforts here.
Madison Metro transit’s bus fleet already runs on biodiesel fuel. This year, three battery electric buses will be purchased to replace retiring biodiesel buses, extending “clean energy” bus services to nearby communities. You can read more about that effort here. Currently, there are nine hybrid vehicles in the police department, with plans to purchase 29 electric cars next year, making it the largest electric fleet in Wisconsin. Additional purchases of hybrid trucks and vehicles are planned, and they will make use of the county’s compressed natural gas. Now we can only hope battery recycling is topping many research and development “to do” lists.
Splash image is from a NASA video showing the world’s cities at night from the International Space Station. You can watch it here.
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This blog is written by LWVDC’s Climate Team. If you receive blog posts by email, our system automatically inserts “by Brook Soltvedt.” Brook is the webmaster, not the author of the blog.