We’ve all heard stories about the havoc Mother Nature will wreak on us once her carbon levels are too high: The oceans will rise meters and flood out cities. Plants will wither and die under the scorching sun. And the worst part is, everything we do as a global system, importing/exporting, flying, driving, using electricity, eating, creates carbon. If we were to reduce our carbon emissions to zero globally, we’d be officially living in prehistoric times. So that’s not an option. But we could certainly reduce it. An upside to reducing carbon is almost always reducing expenses as well. We see many corporations “going green” simply because consumers love it and it usually means they’re saving money in the process.

Most people, or a lot of people regard climate change or global warming as a serious issue. There’s many different variations, and theories and beliefs as to why the world is getting hotter, or if it is the warmest it’s ever been, Medieval Warming Period, blah blah, etcetera. At any rate, 2012 was the hottest year on record for the continental US. It may or may not have been warmer thousands of years ago. All that aside, quit complaining and ride your bike more.

Well why is it getting warmer? Experts say it’s a combination of things. But mainly it’s industrial and agricultural pollution, cars and methane released from cow farts. And partly because of the cyclical explosions on the sun. Solution: Eat less beef and ride your bike more. Pretty simple. Surely we’ve all heard or seen a movie, presentation, advertisement or newspaper article on how we NEED to stop global warming. We have people like Al gore, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt getting on their soapboxes and gently guiding us with their suaveness  and celebrity toward a world of decreased atmospheric carbon. It should be mentioned that those four people’s carbon footprint is likely bigger than that of Tokyo.

I digress. The Twin Ports area is exceptionally bike friendly in my humble opinion. We have a wonderful path from 60th avenue east all the way to the Aerial Bridge. Aside from climbing up the avenues, most cross streets are pretty flat and make room for bikes. Commuting to downtown or one of the hospitals is a breeze. If you happen to live in the upper Hillside, the DTA has bike racks that’ll get you back up the hill without pulling a hammy. Canal Park, Downtown, Park Point, the LakeWalk, east Duluth, Superior and even the Bong bridge has a bike path! That’s not counting the Munger trail or the myriad of other trails littered throughout the region.

There’s roughly 7 billion people on the planet. Anywhere from 8% to 12% of them drive cars. A Huffington Post article from 2011 puts the number of cars passing 1 billion. That’s a lot of cars, and a lot of gasoline and a lot of carbon. If you drive your car 12,000 miles a year at 25.5 miles per gallon, you will use 470.6 gallons of gasoline. Which will emit 17.68 pounds of CO2 per gallon. If you do the math it comes out to 8,320 pounds of carbon per year per vehicle. Give or take. A billion cars multiplied by 8,320 is about 8,320,000,000 pounds of CO2 per year. If I can borrow from Al Gore for a moment: Ride your bike more or the ocean is going to swallow your home. Do your part. Quit talking about it. Be one less car.