Commuting

I have to shift my paradigm. I keep thinking about how long my commute is and favouring driving over riding to save time (and lives). This is what Valentine Michael Smith might have referred to, before he got so wily, as "wrongful thinking".

I really, truly, hate being yet another one-person-in-a-car consumer dumping pollutants into the atmosphere and consuming non-renewable resources just so I can get to work faster. Warmer in winter I can justify, and even dryer in the rain, but just plain old faster? Give me a break. It's really my biggest beef with my employer. I chose to live and work downtown so I could walk/ride everywhere I need to get, and then my employer decided to consolidate staff in a suburban location. My commute grew from .28km each way to 30km each way. I alternated riding with taking public transit for about 18 months before I decided I'd had it with being tired and hungry and cold all the time (it was a cold spring), and I finally snapped and bought a car.

Today I went to Tailpipe Tally to see what the environmental impact of commuting using my car is. Assuming I drove every workday (weekdays less vacation and statutory holidays), in a year I would drive 13,800 kms just for commuting, consuming an estimated 1,211 litres (320 gallons) of gasoline and pumping into the atmosphere:

• 2.8 metric tons (6208 lbs) carbon dioxide
• 42 kg (93.2 lbs) carbon monoxide
• 2.3 kg (5.1 lbs) nitrogen oxides
• 1 kg (2.1 lbs) hydrocarbons

I feel like I'm participating in the extermination of all life on the planet, just because I'm too damn lazy to get up an hour earlier to ride 30km to work. Even though I enjoy riding way more than driving. What's up with that?

Something's gotta change...