How five days without a car helped Jayplay writer Courtney Hagen realize we can all make small changes in our day-to-day lives to help the environment
by Courtney Hagen
I have a confession to make: I'm a polluter, a non-conservationist and an all-around enemy of the environment. I'm oil- and energy-dependent. I sleep all night with the television on and I'm too concerned with my own life to worry about the effect of oil tankers on fragile coral reef systems.I haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth and I hardly feel threatened by environmental soothsayers who proclaim that the end is near.
Sometimes I litter, but only because I can't stand trash in my car (not like that's an excuse). I spend my life in my car, driving thousands of miles each year to quickly get to where I need to go. I can't imagine my life without it. It gets me to classes, meetings, the grocery store and the gym each day. I hate asking for rides and carpooling, so I see no problem
driving across town by myself to meet up with friends or go shopping. I'm the kind of person who drives four blocks to get a Diet Coke while I blast the air conditioning in the summer and the heat in the winter. I guzzle gas. My very first car was an SUV, which I received on my 16th birthday (though I've since changed to a compact car).
I hate myself for
this environmental disregard, and you may hate me, too. But I'm not ignorant — I've read the statistics and I know better. It's just so hard to change. Change takes time and patience, something I don't have a lot of.
THE END OF SUBURBIA
For more information visit: www.
endofsuburbia.com
To celebrate Earth Day, Lawrence residents Matt Toplikar and Tim Hiersted will present TheEndOfSuburbia at Liberty Hall as part of the Films for Action series. The documentary examines urban sprawl and the outrageous demand for fossil fuels in the United States. The film begins at 7 p.m. Admission is $2.
and industrialized, a change might be in order. A 2005 report by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics found almost four million miles of public highways in the United States and reported 59,410,000 annual vehicle sales and leases. Automobiles, and more specifically the fossil fuels they burn, contribute to global warming, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
CO2 emissions from cars create a greenhouse effect, trapping the heat from the sun in the earth's atmosphere, melting ice caps, raising temperatures and harming fragile ecosystems. Though improvements have been made to reduce this harmful impact since the Clean Air Act of 1970, including significant decreases in emissions per mile traveled — there are now twice
Yet in a world that is becoming more sprawling
as many cars on the road, according to a 2004 report from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Though cars are a hazardous byproduct of modern life, it's possible to combat their negative influence. Kristina Johnson, associate press secretary for the Sierra Club, says that finding alternative methods of transportation such as walking or biking
is one of the best ways to combat global warming.
"Scientists have told us that we must reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent before the year 2050 in order to minimize the negative effects of global warming," Johnson says. "It sounds overwhelming, but when you break it down, it adds up to about a two-percent
reduction a year."
Eric Rogers operates kcbc org, a bicycle advocacy Web site that caters to the Kansas City metro area,and is an outspoken proponent of bicycling as an method of transportation
proponent of bicycling as an alternative method of transportation.
"In the Kansas City metro area, the number-one source of greenhouse gas emissions is the automobile," Rogers says. "We're projected to violate the federal limits on ozone emissions this year. We have one of the highest rates of reliance on the single-occupancy automobile. The consequence is that we have some of the highest transportation costs in the country and some of the lowest rates of walking, bicycling and riding public transit."
I decided I can't ignore these devastating statistics any longer. In an effort to reduce my negative environmental impact and renew an appreciation for the natural beauty of
my personal environment, I decided to throw my keys in my desk drawer and leave my car untouched for five days.
For five days, I walked or rode a bike everywhere I needed to go, from class to the gym to the store, to discover the impact that a few days without cars would have on myself and my environment. It wasn't easy, but in the end learned how to leave a better imprint on my world.
This is my diary of those days.
Day one:Thursday
I spend a week worrying about and preparing for my car detachment. I calculate the best routes by bike and on foot from my house to campus and back again. I get nervous about being on a bike. I haven't been on one that wasn't at the gym since elementary school. My klutziness has me convinced that I'll get hurt during the course of this experiment.
For motivation, I calculate my personal contribution to global warming through www.fightglobalwarming.com. I answer a few quick questions about my living
metric tons of carbon emissions each year; the average American uses about 8.4 tons. Much of this has to do with the dozen or so flights I've taken in the past few months, but I'm still determined to reduce my harmful impact, so I park my car in the driveway and ask my roommates to keep me accountable.
I don't have class today, so I use it as an excuse to get outside. I walk to do a few errands and then settle in at home to catch up on homework.
I discover that walking is incredibly time consuming. If I wanted to go to Massachusetts Street, it would probably take me the whole day to get there and back on foot. I start to feel like I'll be trapped at home for the next four days because everything is too far away by bike or on foot. I feel like giving up, but I've barely started. I call Paul Dorn, former executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition and an advocate of bicycle commuting, for inspiration on alternative modes of transportation. Dorn operates a Web site (www.runmuki.com/commute) with tips for bicycle commuters. He hasn't owned a car in over a decade and has been commuting by bicycle to work and elsewhere in San Francisco for about 12 years.
"You get sort of an enthusiasm for life when you're in more of a connection with it, when you hear the birds sing and feel the sun shining, as opposed to when you're in your car driving." Dorn says. "You're more connected to your community than someone that's simply driving through it."
Dorn says that although it's a challenge at first, after time, commuting on a bicycle becomes less of a chore. I hope this is true.
Day two: Friday
I awake at 7:30 a.m. to walk to my 9 a.m. class. I'm not a morning person or a coffee drinker, so I wake up irritable and cursing myself for taking on this project. I'd rather
10➔ JAYPLAY 04.12.2007
VALUABLE WEB SITES
Learn more about global warming, purchase energy offsets and calculate your impact on these sites:
www.stopglobalwarming.org
www.sieraclub.org/foundation
www.globalgreen.org
www.fightglobalwarming.com
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