Cycling bad for the environment after all
Posted at 4:12pm on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006I’ve just started commuting on a bike, rather than using the car. Having worked from home for 9 months I thought it would do me a bit of good to actually get some exercise, rather than return to the ludicrously short drive that I used to make every day at my last place.
I was feeling rather good about it until I read this rather well argued case that cycling is in fact worse for the environment than cars…
The environmental benefits of human power are, however, strongly coupled to the environmental costs of increased population, due to increased longevity of those who engage in physical activity. Paradoxically, increased use of human power for transportation is unlikely to reduce substantially the use of energy because of this second-order effect.
