Mopeds and motorized lawn mowers may very well emit a dirtier stream of pollutants in their exhaust gases than automobiles. But let's not forget the fact that all three of these CO2 sources burn the same type of fuel -- gasoline -- and more importantly, there are typically hundreds more gallons of gasoline burned in any given household's automobile(s) over the course of a year, than there are gallons of gasoline burned in their lawn mower during the year.
For every gallon of gasoline used in combustion, 22 pounds of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere, where it warms the planet for, on average, the next 120 years. So it's the combination of the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, and, more importantly, the number of miles the vehicle is driven during a given period of time (a day, week, month, year), that determines how much CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere (and remains in the atmosphere), adding to more rapid rates of global warming. "If you live within walking or bicycling distance of work, you can reduce the global warming impact of your commute to zero." Denis Hayes, http://www.rambles.net/hayes_earthday.html -------------------------------------------------- From: "Bob Paolino" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: mopeds, statistics, and damned mopeds Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 14:15:32 -0400 The question of where mopeds/scooters park shifts to how much (or what kind of?) pollution they emit... In Message: 5 "Schimpff, Jeff A" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on Mon, 25 Aug 2003 18:03:31 -0500: >My disdain for mopeds lies in the fact that they emit the same amount >of pollutants as 50-100 automobiles. It's not what I want to breathe >as I'm pedaling to work, shop or play. I know that many small engines emit proportionally more polution than cars (which is among the major reasons I--and I assume most of the people on this list--use a human-powered lawn mower rather than a motorised one), but in another context.... In Message: 10 "Paul T. O'Leary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on Tue, 26 Aug 2003 00:54:02 -0500: [In reply to Michael Lemberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > PS: I wonder where you got the two percent number in the first > >place? Did you make it up? Guess?] > >Eighty percent of all statistics are made up on the spot... ...which reasonably leads one to wonder if the 50-100X assertion about mopeds is approximately correct and how measured. I would assume you'd at least want to standardise the comparison by distance. So if a moped or scooter gets, say, 150 miles per gallon of gasoline and a car gets 25 miles per gallon (of course I know there's a wide range of fuel economy numbers within the different vehicle classifications; a subcompact four-passenger gasoline-electric hybrid might get almost 50 mi/gal, my midsize car gets a gasoline-equivalent fuel economy of 33, but a subUrban assault vehicle might not get much more than 15, and I'm sure there's a lot of variation in mopeds, but just to start out the moped could be six times (assuming the 150 and 25 figures) dirtier per gallon of fuel to break even with a car per mile, so the "fact" that they are as polluting "as 50-100 automobiles" (presumably all going the same distance) would seem to mean that they would have to be 300x-600x worse in the combustion of a given volume of gasoline. And maybe they are, but does someone have an impartial source to document that? ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
