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Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Paradoxically there are actually some indications that the calories burned while bicycling, especially from a meat-heavy diet, lead to more carbon emissions per mile than powering an electric car with anything other than coal. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108357_electric-cars-vs-bicycles-which-has-a-higher-carbon-footprint There are still a wide variety of societal benefits to more bicycling but it's not quite accurate say "zero" impact I think.
We've made fun of that weird propaganda piece when it came out though.
That completely ignores the fact that a human being needs at least half an hour to one hour of light exvercise / physical movement daily to stay healthy at all. If you do not cycle or run, you'd need to go to a gym / fitness studio.
Also, if you care at all about CO2 emissions, eating vegan or vegetarian food is the way.
Also, driving 3 or 4 kilometers to a supermarket to get a veggie pizza needs way more energy and CO2 for the drive, thsn for the food itself. You can compute that from the fuel consumption of a car - about 180 Grams of CO2 per person per kilometer, so 1.4 kilograms for 4 kilometers each way.
Also, often the danger of cycling is stressed. That's rubbish because of the health effect of physical exercise - the most dangerous aspect of modern life is lack of exercise, and if you use a bike instead a car you are wayyy less likely to die of cardiovascular problems, which are the real killer, not accidents.
The link to the raw data is dead, and it contradicts some other research, and also is an article on something that is called"green car reports". Those are indications of maybe not the most unbiased data
"At the extremes, a vegan cyclist will produce only 5% of the emissions a conventional pickup truck will produce, while a meat-loving cyclist will actually produce 42% more GHGs than the most efficient EV. " http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2022/ph240/schutt2/
I'm sure the exact numbers are a little open to interpretation but I've seen it mentioned more than once in different places. That said, I absolutely try to commute on my ebike as much as possible
I saw this page some long time ago. I also find it hard to believe actually. One big thing to note is that even though this is on a Stanford domain, it is probably written by a student "Submitted as coursework for PH240". It is also not peer reviewed, so experts haven't challenged the methodology or results. One criticism which comes to my mind is that the manufacturing of an electric or ICE car usually emits several tons of CO2e, while the bicycle manufacturing emits around 100 kg as cited on the website. Usually the car emissions are then calculated by assuming that the car will be used for some 100 thousand kms, thus the per km CO2 emissions are relatively low. This might not be the case for someone using their car only in cities or not owning a car but using train and bus for long distances.
It's feels very absurd to see that electric car could be almost twice as efficient with co^2 emissions than vegan riding bicycle, especially considering moving the vehicle 18 times as heavy (driver included).
Would be interesting to see the data used, but looks like the source sheets have been deleted:(
I'd imagine optimizing the bike and rider's physique and diet would likely affect the results dramatically. Dutch style grandma bike is hella lot less efficient than a commuter built for higher speeds, and a rider with more time in the saddle in long term is going to be more efficient on it than a (irr/)regular commuter
You're making so many assumptions about the diet and equipment used by your statistically significant cyclist that it's almost cherry-picking, my dude. You realize that, right?
Yeah, that was literally a cherry picking example, showing that in ideal situation, something a person could in theory work for, could be a lot better than the given numbers suggested.
This was all based on assumptions because there was no data available anymore used for that mini study, just laying out thoughts there for my own amusement.
Definitely a ton if variability in what you'd actually put out depending on bike type, speeds, diet etc