Sorry, Lately With Me It's All About Gas
Here are some tips you truck, SUV, and regular car (read: morally superior) drivers can do to make our planet a healthier place to live. From Environmental Defense:
- Take with you only what you need and be sure to place luggage inside instead of in the trunk or on the roof to minimize drag and maximize your mileage.
- Rapid acceleration and braking reduces gas mileage and can burn an extra 125 gallons of gas per year.
- In highway travel, exceeding the speed limit by a mere five mph results in an average fuel economy loss of six percent.
- Keeping your engine properly tuned can save you up to 165 gallons of gas per year.
- Carpool and use public transportation when possible.
- In summer, park in the shade. Use windshield shades to keep summer heat from baking your car and to help keep frost away in the winter.
We can all do more to cut global warming pollution from our cars.
posted by kate @ 8:02 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I do all of the following with my civic except one. My highway travel is 75-80 mph, as conservation friendly as i am, i dont feel so bad for driving 7 mph over the speed limit, especially being in a civic, i am always running late, needing to rush.
Besides, i could drive 120 mph, and i would still be burning less gas than any truck or suv. ;)
A few more tips:
1. Trip chain. Combine errands into one trip to reduce cold starts, which produce more emissions.
2. Keep your tires properly inflated.
3. Telecommute from work and teleconference when possible.
4. Support local land use decisions that reduce commute trips and provide the density needed for effective public transportation.
5. Live near where you work, or work near where you live.
Wind resistance increases as a square of the speed at which you're traveling. So, for example, at 70 mph, wind resistance is double what it is at 50 mph (70 squared is almost twice as much as 50 squared). Add to that the decreased efficiency of the engine equipped with a transmission that is not geared for the higher engine speeds and mileage worsens even more dramatically at speeds 10-15 miles over the limit.
I'd also like to add- Don't buy a new car every couple years. Buying a new, "more efficient" car is not always the greenest solution. The manufacturing of a new vehicle, and the disposal of the old, can well offset any environmental savings if you don't drive your car for very long.
point taken, port tampa, as for my car, i dont actually ever drive 120 mph, or ever over 80 for that matter. But, my fuel mileage at 70 mph is 36 mpg, and at 80 mph, it only drops to 35 mpg. I dont know what those japanese do with these cars, but they get great fuel mileage under almost any conditions. In the city i still achieve about 31 mpg, averaging overall at 34 mpg. My wife averages 31.5 mpg on her accord.
But, im not sure you are correct about buying a new car every 2 years. you are assuming that you drive your 2 year old car into the junkyard when you buy the new car. Even when i buy a newer car when my existing car has 135K miles on it, i am still selling my car to someone else. A two year old car will go to someone else, not to junk.
That said, for financial reasons, i dont buy a car every 2 years, i try to keep them for over 5 years, my goal is 8 years.
rich-it's all about inertia, and how easy it is to overcome, and transmission in the Civic. A good choice in car.
Used cars of the couple year old variety do get resold as opposed to crushed. However, "disposal" through sale still generates the manufacture of a new car and in Florida something for someone else to park on the grass in the front yard. (Bottom line, some car is going to the junk pile, or a former carless person is now driving. It's not a direct cause->effect relationship between new car buyer and land fill, but the overall impact is the same.)
Kate—
As little gas as I already use, if I were to save 125 gallons for not gunning it and 165 gallons for a tuned engine, I would have a surplus of gasoline. I could open my own one-pump filling station. I could plow all the profits back into the operation. When I have enough money that I do not need the United States anymore, I can move to Bahrain. I love free trade.
Come to think of it, i only use 350 gallons a year anyways, so saving 290 gallons, that would mean I get about 140 mpg on my car. Sign me up!!! ;)
Goader, I hope to not need the US someday as well. I am in the process of saving as much money as possible, for when liberals turn this country into another socialist european country, and utterly destroy it, we will owe virtually nothing, and can sell our home and afford to move to another country and start there.... I hear the cayman islands are a nice little tax haven... :)
Post a Comment
<< Home