Sustainable America via Upworthy

Oh, boy.  What looks like a seemingly insignificant activity – vehicle idling – has a major impact on our economy and on our planet’s well being.  Check out this informative infograph from Sustainable America that shows the gargantuan impacts of vehicle idling in the USA, both  economic and environmental.  If the US alone is wasting so much fuel and adding to the carbon footprint, I can’t even begin to fathom what’s happening if this issue is scaled up at a global level. Adoption of EVs can quickly put an end to this issue and should be considered as part of energy efficiency/conservation programs world wide. Take the pledge to stop idling! 

Image: Sustainable America via Upworthy.com

(Source:  FHWA Press Release)

Into Second Year, National Trend Tops 122 Billion Miles

New estimates released today show the decline in American driving continued in January 2009 with 7 billion fewer vehicle-miles traveled (VMT), or 3.1 percent less, compared to the same month a year earlier. This is the first “back-to-back” decline for January since 1981-1982.

The decline now exceeds 122 billion VMT, compared to the same 14-month period – December 2006 to January 2008 – a year earlier. A recent end-of-the-year data calibration adjusted the November 2007 data, revealing that the trend did not begin in November 2007, as originally reported, but rather in December 2007.

As it has since the trend began, the decline in rural driving in January 2009 outpaced urban driving.

Click here to read the entire press release.  Shown below is the USDOT’s report on Traffic Volume Trends Report for January 2009.

(Source: Reuters)

Denise Blackerby is hitting the road again. When retail gas prices scaled historic peaks above $4 a gallon last year, she found she could no longer make monthly trips from the Dallas area to Houston in her Ford Explorer SUV to visit her family.

 “When gas was $4 a gallon, I didn’t go anywhere. Now it’s all good,” Blackerby, who is 44 and works in the information technology industry, told Reuters as she bought soft drinks at a Shell gas station in Grapevine, a town near Fort Worth.

With U.S. pump prices now averaging below $2 a gallon, she’s making those regular Houston trips again.

As gasoline prices surged to record highs last year, drivers in the world’s top energy consumer cut fuel use at the greatest pace since 1983.

For U.S. consumers pinched by the economic crisis, falling gasoline prices have created what some analysts call a sort of “stimulus package” that has pumped billions of dollars in disposable income back into their wallets.

(Source: Austrian Times)

New research has shown that Austrian drivers cover 194 million kilometres in their cars every day.

The Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) reported the figures today (Weds). It added that Austria’s 4.28 million registered cars carried an average of 1.3 occupants each day and emitted 28,000 tonnes of CO2, consuming 11.2 million litres of fuel daily.

VCÖ official Martin Blum reminded the public about the consequences of taking excessively-short car trips.

One in every 10 car trips, he said, covered a distance of less than one kilometre. “Fuel consumption is extremely high over the first kilometre. Consumption over the first kilometre averages the same as consumption of 20-to-25 litres of fuel over 100 kilometres. A breakfast roll obtained by a car trip to a bakery is very expensive,” he added.

Austrian churches are trying to lower the cost of travel by car by encouraging Austrians to engage in less of it during Lent, which begins today.

Austria’s Roman Catholic and Evangelical Churches are calling on Austrians to drive less during Lent, which lasts from 25 February to 11 April this year.

Click here to read the entire article.