Take an individual that bikes everywhere. What other changes can he make in his life that would reduce the demand of "digging out carbon"?
As it turns out, he's relying on rubber wheels for his bicycle, he's relying on synthetic clothing for comfort, and numerous in his life products are made with plastic. What are the highest impact changes he can make?
I realized this additional perverse thing about trying to improve the world by riding a bike, as an individual:
In our market economy designed to get people to consume cars, your foregoing car ownership actually just makes it a little more comfortable for all the car owners out there sharing the road with you. You reduce traffic for them, reduce the wear on the infrastructure, you drive down the price of cars and gas, and you free up a parking space.
Of course this is all on the infinitesimal scale of your own individual influence on the world, its ecosystem, and the economy you live in, but so is your actual reduction in fossil fuel consumption if you give up driving.
Point is, there needs to be something a lot bigger than your individual choice as a consumer. We need an economy that prices in the environmental impact of cars, and I’m pretty sure we need the state for that.
The other ironic thing about bikes is all the technology that enabled cars was invented for bikes. Chains, inner tubes, spokes the quality of the steel.
Sometimes I think the worst mistake we made with cars was making the refueling process so easy. If people still had to lift buckets of gasoline to fill their tanks, they'd have a much better idea about the massive quantities of fuel that are needed for small amounts of car use.
Rubber, synthetic clothing, plastics, do not get used up and ejected directly into the atmosphere. There is some energy use in manufacture, probably some chemistry that may emit some CO2. But it is absolutely dwarfed by the massive amount of gasoline fuel ejected directly into the atmosphere by driving.
The store in a bike frame is probably the most carbon intensive part of a bike. For every pound of steel, two pounds of CO2 is currently emitted in manufacture (but this will probably go to zero in the future).
For a 20-60 pound bike frame, that's the equivalent of only three gallons of gasoline. Three gallons. Because as a gallon of gasoline combusts, it picks up extra oxygen atoms and ends up being 20 pounds of CO2.
Think of a 20 pound plate for weight lifting, and that's a gallon of gasoline once it's burned.
All the other stuff in life--rubber, clothing, plastics--are almost a rounding error compared to the daily commutes we make in cars in the US.
Lesson: get on that bike as soon as possible, and if you can't, at least get an EV.
Get fewer of his calories from animal products, for one thing
- not necessarily go vegetarian/vegan, but cutting down by 50-75%, and switching to grass-fed, organic meat (which doesn't require petrochemical derived fertiliser in its production) makes a significant difference.
But be mindful that not all plant calories are equal, especially those that are air freighted (more of a problem in NW Europe which airfreights a lot of fresh fruit and veg in from African countries than the US).
Take trains not planes wherever possible, and avoid long haul flights entirely if you can: one return long-haul flight can undo all the good of a year's worth of biking.
Take an individual that bikes everywhere. What other changes can he make in his life that would reduce the demand of "digging out carbon"?
As it turns out, he's relying on rubber wheels for his bicycle, he's relying on synthetic clothing for comfort, and numerous in his life products are made with plastic. What are the highest impact changes he can make?