Biking For Food... And Energy Efficiency

Bike ready for a 15km round trip to the grocery store. Van? Not so much.

Gas engine cars where never a very good idea. I can see them pulling a dinosaur act soon, dieing in our driveways and being fossilized over the coming eons. 

Why? Because they are notoriously energy inefficient and nature does not reward inefficiency. 

An internal combustion gas engine offers a pathetic 20 - 30% efficiency. The remaining 70 to 80% of the gas in the tank is wasted as exhaust heat, mechanical sound energy, and friction loss, rather than moving the car from point A to point B.

An electric car does better, operating at between 50 and 85% efficiency, but that still does not make it anywhere as efficient as a bicycle.

A bike is the most efficient method of travel in the known Universe. It can be up to 5 times more efficient than walking, and is impressively more efficient than a car.

100 calories of energy will power a bicycle 5 km, while those same calories will only take a car 85 meters. A car is a more efficient mechanism for wasting energy than it is as a method of transportation.

Getting ready for the trip home with my groceries.

A 2015 survey of 44 countries found that only 1/3 of total respondents reported owning a car. That's about the same fraction of Americans over the age of 3 that rode a bike at least once over the last year. 

As part of my experiment in joining that 65% segment of car-free respondents, I have been doing bike-supported grocery shopping trips since our van broke down.

The distance to the store is 7.5 km. Along the way the route descends from 500 ft to sea level. 

On my first trip, I used my travel backpack that has about a 55 L capacity. I carried home 7 kg of food, which got us nicely stocked up.

The entire trip took me 1.5 hours, and it was much more enjoyable than driving. I was freed from the metal cage of the car.

On a bike you are out there, in there, immersed in the scene and part of it all. I saw things I have never seen before while driving, even though I have blasted up and down this road a few times over the past 5 years. 

As I pumped uphill I revelled in the essence of trees and flowers and grass and soil and a million other things organic. I listened to several species of birds singing their songs. 

People greeted me as I pedalled by.

Home is up in the hills in the background. I was the only bike in the lot on this day.

After shopping it felt good to go outside to a waiting bike instead of our van. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy driving cars and vans, trucks and tractors. I have also driven limousines, the most insane, idiotic and inefficient vehicles on the planet. 

Yes, for a short while I did personal research on the rich of Edmonton, Alberta while working as a chauffeur. Brushing shoulders with the upper crust was interesting and strange.

I have always enjoyed motor vehicles. Thing is, I love bicycles, too. And when I ride, it is amazing. Just not as fast. Which is good.

On my first grocery ride I was so excited about my hill climb back home with all my food that I rode off like a kid returning home after a visit to the candy store. 

So excited that I forgot my bike helmet outside where my bike was locked up. It's gone.

Other than that, biking for food has been a success. So far it is a viable method that is efficient, effective, and a whole lot of fun.

I am going to have to buy a new helmet. Safety first.

A Triumph of Principles

A return flight from Halifax to Calgary for two would produce 1.11 tons of CO2.

I could have went with the title, "Should we Stay, Or Should We Go?" for this post. I consider this after we were invited to fly an 8000 km round trip to attend a family gathering for the weekend.

Then running across some Ralph Waldo Emerson helped me out with what I thought to be the better title. 

“Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles", he said.

That really spoke to me, so I thought about it for a while.

First I looked to see if there was still a climate emergency. Check. There is.

Then I added to that the extinction emergency, resource emergency, and inequality emergency (to name just a few). The flight was not looking as good as it looks on the surface.

"At what point?" I wondered, "should one start to change ones behaviour?" When it is a Class 1 emergency? A 5? Are we at at 10 yet? Should I change my ways now? 

How about now? Now? When? 

Are we being "climate ignorers"? Being addicted to a consumer lifestyle, like any addiction, requires the denial of the consequences. How long can the ignoring go on?

Moving forward, we all will have to determine exactly what our principles are, and what we are willing to do, or not do, to be true to them. 

Am I willing to stand for what I believe, or do I cave easily and do something that doesn't jell with me just because it would be nice? Or fun. Or out of the ordinary? 

My principles tell me that the two of us flying such a trip would significantly increase our carbon footprint at a time when scientists are imploring us to reduce and even eliminate our carbon consumption. 

My principles tell me there are consequences to our behaviours, and those consequences are now coming to haunt us. The time to change our ways, it seems to me, is now.

Therefore, in the end we decided that while family is important, the importance of our commitment to the Earth, to the larger human family, and to our principles, is greater still. 

Going on such a trip would bear gifts, no doubt, but for us, not as much as not going will.

We are willing to make this sacrifice for the greater good, and see our decision as a triumph of principles. 

We are staying.

That brings me peace, even if I do miss my family.