Sometimes it helps to stop and think about the contribution each of us makes to life on earth and the state of the planet. We are quick to judge others – particularly big companies and industries for their more obvious pollution – that we fail to check our own footprint. A carbon stock take was in order, so Sunday Times (Singapore) journalist Linda Collins thought she would check out whether she was wise to “Ditch the car and save the planet”.  Maybe it will encourage a few more of us to measure and manage our energy use and emissions.

By Linda Collins in Sunday Times Singapore (2 December 2012)

Next year I will mark 20 years of living in Singapore without a car. It will have been 20 years getting around on public transport.

Sure, I have saved money doing this instead of buying a car. But it has also meant years of inconvenience, waiting in wind and rain for buses; years of tousled hair, rumpled clothes and sensible shoes; years of social snubs when I haven’t flaunted that four-wheeled badge of “success”.

Amid this, I have been driven by one thought – at least I am doing my bit to save the planet. Cue smug mission statement: I believe individuals, as consumers and citizens, should take responsibility for contributing to a better environment.

And yet, has going without a car for so long actually done anything to help “save the planet”?

I did some calculations to see if I might have contributed to being part of the solution instead of part of the problem of global warming – the 0.8 deg C rise in the earth’s temperature within the past 100 years.

Many (not all) scientists attribute this to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. (The others reckon it is just Mother Earth belching it naturally.) By driving cars which use petrol, say the Al Gore camp of boffins, we release heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In my back-of-the-envelope calculations, I worked out how many kilometres I have travelled in Singapore over the past 20 years by bus – in my case, more convenient than the MRT. I then multiplied that by the carbon emissions emitted if I had used a car instead. It helps that Singapore is a small island and I am an unadventurous person with a tragically regular weekly routine.

For about eight years, my main travel was by bus between Holland Village and Kim Seng Road, and once a week to Orchard Road and back. For the rest, it has been from home in Clementi to work in Toa Payoh, and once a week to local shops by bus.

Allowing for one month a year away overseas on holiday (here I allow myself some excitement), over 20 years, my bus travel amounts to 79,720km. That is a huge distance not undertaken by a gas-guzzling car.

A large passenger car emits an average of 258g of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometre, going by the US’ Environmental Protection Agency figures. So if I had used a car during those 20 years, I would have pumped out a massive 20.5 tonnes of hot air in and around Singapore.

Just think, 20 tonnes of that nasty colourless CO2 stuff that could have been wafting around the PIE and gradually rising above HDB blocks, above the Singapore Flyer, above Marina Bay Sands and then higher, above the planes descending into Changi, above Singapore, Asia even, to wherever bad gas goes when it won’t die.

Important but boring scientific note: Many gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are involved in creating global warming but scientists say that carbon dioxide is one of the main baddies (except they use some other term). So surely, in my small way, I have done my fair share, haven’t I?

Not so fast. What about all that air travel I have made over the years, visiting relatives in New Zealand? I entered some figures in the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s carbon footprint calculator, and a round trip direct flight from Singapore to Christchurch generates about 1.3 tonnes of CO2. One trip a year for 20 years equals 26 tonnes.

Oh dear. The inconvenient truth – I have saved the planet from 20 tonnes of CO2 by going carless, but I have contributed 26 tonnes by flying. It was almost enough to make me want to go out and buy a car (well, a hybrid one at least). Do they give out carbon credits retrospectively? If so, perhaps I could put that towards the deposit.

On the other hand, perhaps I am being too hard on myself. The air travel was for the essential reason of seeing family, and even in the more recent days of Skype, there is only so much screen-to-screen contact a relationship can handle.

And what is a wannabe tree-hugger to do? After all, those climate-change scientists seem to be forever jetting off to conferences here and there without a qualm, generating hot air on many levels, I might point out.

Meanwhile, there was still one figure I had to account for – the carbon emissions from the buses I travelled on. I had been reluctant to do this, wanting to cling to the moral high ground of not being one of those car users who often travel in solitary but “un-eco-friendly” splendour. But the fact is, buses do use fuel and the residue of that stuff goes somewhere.

Happily, the result was a greenie victory for me. Bus company SMRT, on a website for its Go Green campaign in 2010, says that when travelling by bus, your carbon footprint is 73g per passenger kilometre. So my 25km bus journey to work in Toa Payoh from Clementi results in 1.825kg of CO2 emitted, against a choking 6.4kg by car.

Bottom line: Over 20 years, using a car to get around in Singapore would have resulted in 20 tonnes of carbon emitted. Using a bus emitted 5.8 tonnes. I’ll be keeping my ez-link card for a while yet, then.

Helping my numbers look good is the fact that Singapore’s buses appear to be very energy-efficient, probably due to things like frequent fleet upgrades, diesel use, adopting engines that comply with high eco-standards, and those go-faster stripes down the side. (I made that last one up). Most Internet carbon footprint sites attribute buses with higher CO2 output than Singapore’s. Carbon Independent, for example, puts London buses at a dirty 90g a kilometre, on just fuel alone.

Kudos, then, to Singapore’s public transport planners, for being smart and doing the numbers. Targeting fuel efficiency in buses in high- population cities is very sensible. I am a living example of how this can work.

Just think, thanks to me, you are breathing a little easier. Well, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. But I am doing my bit for the planet, one bus trip at a time. Now, if only we all could do something about that non-greenie globe-trotting.

Source: www.sph.com.sg