Climate Change Solutions
SLOW DOWN Cut Emissions It's Simple
What happens when you slow down to 80 km/hr as your top speed? Immediately you will cut your emissions. Because wind resistance intensifies the faster you go. More power is needed for every km speed you increase beyond the optimum of 80km/hr. There are slight variations in different cars but lets not split hairs.
In the longterm, you will cut the distances you travel. This is due to the phenomenon known as The Constant Travel Time Budget. Simply meaning we are prepared to spend a certain amount of time travelling in our daily routine but no more. Averaged over the whole population this works out at around 65 minutes per day.
With all the extra speed we have achieved, we still spend the same amount of time travelling as we did in the 1950s!
So we may assume that if we cut our speed to a max of 80km/hr we will also cut our distances travelled. This will all be done unconsciously.
The rise of better and faster means of transport has only resulted in covering longer distances and making more journeys rather than a decrease in time spent on travelling. We never got to save the time we hoped to by travelling faster!
Effects on air quality: Transport has important effects on air quality. Road traffic is connected to the emissions of PM10 (particle matter) and NOx (nitrogen oxides). As with CO2, the emission of these particulates will decrease when a lower speed is established. However, there will be an even greater decrease than for CO2. The reason for this is that at higher speeds and larger driving dynamics the emission of PM10 and NOx increase faster than fuel consumption and CO2 emission.
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