Natural Environment Blog

You read a lot these days about low emission cars made by Honda, Toyota and other big manufacturers, and environmentally-friendly driving etc., but is driving sustainable at all?

Is it possible to live as nature intended us to in some ways at least, i.e. in complete harmony with the environment – whist simultaneously moving around the planet in metal boxes?

This all depends on just how purist your theoretical natural environment position is. But it’s certainly possible to have a car with absolutely zero emissions.

All-electric cars are becoming more practicable almost by the day. Recent news in the UK that various service stations around the country will now incorporate charging stations for electric cars means that the previous 100 mile a day limit is fast becoming a thing of the past. It seems likely that a decade or so from now, there really would be no need for petrol-engined vehicles whatsoever. That’s a quite a different thing from saying it will actually happen of course.

The reality is that zero emission motoring for all is still very many years away. But let’s look on the bright side – it is coming.

Until then, hybrid cars look to be the most balanced option, particularly those of the companies which have pioneered green motoring like Honda. Now hybrids certainly aren’t completely sustainable for the purists amongst us, but they’re certainly a giant step in the right direction. The people who choose them are still making an important sacrifice in their lives; namely, money. Hybrids remain more expensive to buy than conventionally-fuelled vehicles, so the people with a green conscience who make the monetary sacrifice are to be commended.

Hopefully, it won’t be too long before the additional mpg offered by hybrids makes them a “no-brainer”. And better still, the availability, speed and cost-efficiency of electric charging will make zero emission cart the next no-brainer – albeit a little further down the road.

This article was contributed by Celia Roche on behalf of http://www.honda.co.uk

Chris over at Fly.co.uk recently informed me of an infographic on their website. The infographic shows some interesting statistics on world carbon dioxide emissions.

For example, according to the infographic, in 2009, China produced 6,200 million tonnes of CO2 compared to 5,800 for the United States. One only needs to look at the population of these two countries to see that something appears to be out of whack.

China has over 4 times the population of the US and yet, the US emits almost as much CO2 as China. Unfortunately, this gap is bound to widen as China becomes more and more prosperous.

As one would expect, the infographic has an airline/transport spin (no doubt due to the fact that its on a flight website), so there are some interesting statistics in that area.

A copy of the infographic is below. Due to its size, I’ve resized it to fit on this blog.

You can view the full-sized infographic here.

Did you know that in 2007, arctic summer sea ice reached its lowest extent on record?

Did you know that carbon dioxide levels are at their highest levels in 650,000 years?

And did you know that the global average sea level has risen 4 to 8 inches over the past century?

Well, if you’re into these kinds of statistics, you’ll probably be interested in NASA’s climate time machine. It’s an interactive tool that allows you to see how things have changed in recent years regarding the earth’s climate, sea levels, ice levels, and carbon dioxide emissions.