Innovations in carbon footprint math
So “moronic state legislator of the day” is a cheap and easy excuse for a post, but this is a new-to-me innovation in the increasingly fantastical world of Republican Science. In Washington, an atrocious omnibus transportation bill has been proposed, and one of the trivial but dumb provisions is a bicycle tax to pay contribute to the transportation budget. (See Ben Scheindelman here).
A Washington bike shop owner expresses his understandable concern about this provision, noting that (in addition to the harm to Washington businesses selling bikes) this is a poor idea because it disincentivizes an environmentally friendly form of transportation.
Bike Tax supporter Ed Orcutt (R-Kalama) explains why this assumption is not accurate:
Also, you claim that it is environmentally friendly to ride a bike. But if I am not mistaken, a cyclists has an increased heart rate and respiration. That means that the act of riding a bike results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider. Since CO2 is deemed to be a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride.
Following that logic, there needs to be a tax on foodstuffs made with beans or cabbage, due to increases in methane production.
That, or a set of laws requiring motorists not to breathe.
The GOP should abandon the elephant, use this symbol instead.
Is goatse copyrighted or something?
Isn’t our current election coverage difficult enough to get through?
There was a time, not all that long ago, when I would have assumed that ol’ Ed was trying to make a funny. Man, those were the good old days.
All those walkers and joggers should be taxed to pay for wear and tear on the sidewalks and the huge carbon footprint their breathing causes. Toll booths on the sidewalks, that’s the ticket.
The democratic experiment has failed.
Interestingly, I draw the opposite conclusion. It seems clear to me that the effort to elect the “most qualified” candidate is a useless exercise. Moreover, following the old Aristotelean classifications, elections are aristocratic practices. So rather than elections, we should just establish a 500 seat Congress (give or take) and fill the seats via national lottery. There really is no reason to think that the people selected this way would be any less qualified than the people we currently have, and indeed, there have been several studies (using things like deliberative polls and the like) showing that the deliberations of randomly selected people, at least if they have access to relevant information, are no worse than deliberations by apparent experts (and in many case better, since the diversity of cognitive skills often helps to develop novel interpretations and solutions of problems).
But you’d have to get people to actually do it. I can’t imagine them giving up their lives and leaving home to go and do that often-boring, tedious job. It would be like jury duty–everybody would be searching for ways to exempt themselves from it, except for the type of blowhard that now runs for office.
Legislators don’t just vote, they also write laws. We already know from term-limited state legislatures what happens when you have a legislature dominated by completely inexperienced nobodies – legislation is written by lobbyists. Congressmen chosen by lot would likely be even worse, and we’d be ousourcing our legislation to gigantic corporations even more than we already do.
That’s an old line, going back to some of the earliest online discussions of “carbon footprint.” It’s a dumb attempt to sound smart, trying to question the calculations and evidence without actually thinking about what they mean.
By the same token, anything that causes rapid breathing and accelerated energy use by people should be taxed: exercise, sporting events, sex…
. . . mouthbreathing
The folks pushing this line care more about finding a “gotcha” than they do about thinking. It’s trivially easy to explode this “argument”: the carbon in the CO2 we exhale has to come from somewhere. Where does it come from? The food we eat. Where does that carbon come from? CO2 in the atmosphere.
There are certainly complexities about the carbon footprint associated with cycling—emissions associated with the extra calories consumed, emissions associated with having a greater life expectancy because of regular exercise—but that conversation requires far more thinking than these idiots can handle.
Yes, absolutely.
But what really strikes me about this line is that it’s *old*. This isn’t a new quip or approach: it’s a hoary chestnut, debunked repeatedly and vigorously over and over again.
Repeating it at this point is studied, deliberate ignorance. And this, my friends, is what we’re dealing with.
The middle school class clown disruptively ignorant genre to be specific. Willfully ignorant – loud and proud of it.
Unfortunately there are no parents to send a note home to.
“Ignorance is a condition. Stupidity is a strategy.”
Trees are the world’s worst polluters, Reagan proved that.
These people have the functional scientific IQs of a 5 year old and the civic motivations of a 2 year old. “I want my tax cuts/deregulation/environmentally destructive/middle class crushing/lower class killing laws enacted now!!!!!!!!!!!”
We need to grow more ketchup.
kids do need vegetables
Anything to resist the tyranny of Agenda 21.
OFF TO THE MARSHY GOLF LINKS AND BATTLE, MEN!
THE UN OVERLORDS WON’T GIVE US ANY MULLIGANS!!!
I kind of wish Obama would propose a “breathing tax” just to see the reaction.
Lighten up, guys.
It was nothing more than an easy troll.
…by an elected official.
Had said official been other than Republican, you’d be losing bowel control right about now.
Go team.
Maybe so, but a distressingly high number of upstanding citizens would love to see bicycles banned altogether from our roadways. I base this on the torrent of frothy reactions I’ve heard over the years every time a proposal is put forward to make urban cycling easier and safer.
This tax idea derives from the same attitude.
Bicycles are for children. If you’re an adult, and not poor, you should be driving. Period.
Bicycles are unsafe at any speed for roadway travel.
So–would you like that debunked medically, statistically, economically, or with straight Newtonian physics?
Or are you capable of grasping any of the above?
i suspect you already know the answer to your second question
straight Newtonian physics
If you tell Jennie his car has more kinetic energy than a bullet, he’ll come in his pants.
But nobody will ever know (including Jennie). He is all alone in the basement, locked in a closet, with the world’s smallest micropenis and balls the size of BBs.
I make more money than you do, and I bike to work every day. As a result, I’m also in better shape than you, and will have a longer life expectancy.
But have fun driving your oh-so-adult car, chump.
Isn’t that really what you mean, Jennie Dear?
Carbie, you get on my bike.
I’ll get in your car.
We’ll see who can be more childish. I’ll even spot you the helmet.
The Mayor of Toronto is on record stating that cyclists have no right to expect safe roads, and “it’s their own fault at the end of the day” if they are killed by cars.
This is kind of rich coming from Tantrum Lord McWhinesalot.
Do you know what happens when we just ignore the catapulting of the propaganda?
This mess didn’t make itself, yanno?
Seriously, bicycles as a method of travel by full grown adults? What is this, 1980s China?
We can’t all be fat, dumb, and lazy, Jennie dearest. But I comfort myself knowing you pick up the slack.
Have fun with your widdle bike, child. Some of us are grownups and use grownup means of transit.
N
I guess Hoverround is pretty ‘adult’.
Much like Depends.
Some of us are grownups and use grownup means of transit.
Yes, yes, you are a badass in that medicare scooter. Or you will be soon enough.
This is basically the apotheosis of ‘what liberal are against, updated daily’
Silicon Boob is just pissed, because he never was able to handle anything beyond a child’s trike – with additional training wheels on that thing.
His parent’s knew he was “special.”
But I suppose they’re a bit ashamed now of the little sociopath they raised!
If Velocraft made an adult size and road safe Big Wheel I would be tempted to ride it to work.
Sometimes dreams do come true.
Come out here and try getting around the block on my bike, porky. I’ll bring the oxygen tank.
Block?
I’d be surprised if he can get a full rotation of a pedal before he’s wheezing.
The sad thing is, no matter how deep Carbon Man goes in debt for a giganto-pickup, it still won’t compensate for the gherkin he’s packing in his pocket.
It will to him. And let’s face it, when you think it through, that’s the only one that will ever matter.
the gherkin he’s packing in his pocket
Cornichon, s’il vous plait.
YOU spoke French!
More like a very small haricot verts.
It will, however, convey him in style to the gun store, where a veritable salad bar of gherkin-compensation lies spread out before one.
Pretty apparent the only cyclists ’round here are the adults.
Some of us got over playing with trucks when we grew up.
I do have fun biking to work, thanks. I feel better, am in better shape and have more energy. And the exercise means I can drink more at night.
So yeah, enjoy sitting in stop-and-go traffic, inhaling all those tailpipe emissions you love so much!
Yes, let’s talk about who’s tough, who’s an adult.
Let’s talk about my partner, who’s doing this 1400k ride this summer. After having a stroke in 2008.
But driving a big truck makes our troll feel like a big, strong man and that’s all that matters.
I am both jealous and in awe. 5 days. Holy crap. That is made of awesome.
They had some rather epic weather on the last LEL four years ago, including tornadoes. A few riders got frostbite. In July.
So, yes, awesome and bit nutty. I’m going to be volunteering at the ride–feeding and caring for 1000 riders is a big job.
+1/daaaaaaaaamn.
Dayum! I thought I was doing good riding a century.
Holy shit, I want to do that in a few years.
Five days?
I am in awe.
Cyclists are the single most fit athlete on the planet. That he can do this ride is a testament to his determination
I think so, too. He says he just likes to ride his bike. :)
(And a little plug–anybody in the U.S. who wants to get into long-distance non-competitive cycling events like this–200k and up–should start here.)
Have you ever met an actual adult? I see no signs that you have ever experienced adult supervision. That micropenis of yours obviously needs a hell of a lot of compensation.
So your argument against riding bikes is that children also enjoy riding bikes so it’s immature?
Other things adults should never do – draw or paint, eat chocolate, play sports, go to the zoo, watch cartoons… Damn! I have to throw out my Superman undies!
Ever see a kid behind the wheel of a car? Seems to me they’d like to drive too, if they could.
Seriously, logic as a method of debate by full blown wingnuts? What is this, never?
This is probably going to freak you right the hell out but we have COPS ON BIKES!! Yes. Yes we do. Full grown adult human peoples who are COPS fer gawd sakes on bikes!!
Loomis may need to start an AM and PM edition of these.
Two Wheels Good
Four Wheels Better
Win.
Outstanding.
+1
-2
Well, yea, for the sentiment but you have to give credit for cleverness.
Sounds like the fellow is in support of a carbon tax. I imagine he’s already filed his bill to raise the gas tax then?
I could support there being some tax on sales of bicycles to help support building and maintaining facilities that assist cyclists and pedestrians. So maybe an additional shoe tax, too. But this should be on the scale of a a few dollars at the most.
Damage that vehicles do to the condition of roads has been investigated and is known. Loaded semi trailers create about a thousand times the damage to roads as cars do: 28 tons versus two tons, a 26x multiple yields 1,000 damage. Car and fuel taxes amount to say $1,000/year on average (for sake of discussion). No semi truck pays a million dollars a year in taxes – so maybe freight truck taxes should be increased substantially, while we’re at it. Boosting truck taxes and fees would have the effect of shifting more freight transport onto rail and water modes, where possible – both of which are vastly more fuel efficient than trucks.
So, if we use weight as a scalar, the cyclist weighs about five percent of the car, which would net a $20/yr cycling tax. But the damage isn’t on a linear basis, so the actual fee might truly be in the range of $5. Of course, most cyclists travel only a fraction of the miles per year that motorists do – hundreds of miles versus thousands of miles, so the impact of bicycles is even more limited. So a $1/yr tax might be appropriate.
If we were to try to capture some of the externalities of transport and commuting, we’d see that cycling leads to cleaner air, less obesity, better physical health, less absenteeism, and less congestion. All these factors have positive dollar values for public health, productivity, and environmental services. Start counting that up and we may decide that it is cost effective to start paying people to ride bicycles to work.
As for the CO2 emissions of cyclists, that is patently absurd, as the carbon is short cycling, and nets to zero on a yearly basis, between food and cyclist. Numerous studies have proven that the bicycle is the most efficient mode of travel – more than walking, more than horses, and certainly more than cars. You need to have fully loaded heavy passenger trains before the energy balance starts to threaten and surpass the efficiency of cycling.
Maybe that tax should be assessed into the sales price of a bike, so a $10 tax would be justified. I doubt that would deter too many bike purchasers. Cyclist remove any free-rider stigma they might have. Bike stores or manufacturers could pick it up themselves and use it as a marketing point.
It’s my understanding that the civil engineering rule of thumb is that road damage is proportional to the load per axle raised to the fourth power. In your example the car has a load of one ton per axle. The semi (assuming five axles) has a load of 5.6 tons per axle. This gives a factor of 983x the damage from the car. A bicycle, with, say 100 lbs. or 0.05 tons per axle would cause 1/160,000 of the damage of one car.
In this case, “axle” is shorthand for “two wheels”, so bikes are only 10,000 times better.
Okay. I’ll gladly pay a dollar per year for my bike, on that system.
I was approximating. But the point seems to hold. You should see the looks I get when I tell state transportation commissioners and state reps that they should multiply the tax, license, registration and tolls for heavier commercial trucks. Any marginal increase (50% to 2x, say) to any of those would be an immense win at this point.
Somehow, we can tolerate swings of twenty cents a gallon per week in fuel costs, but a five cent increase in fuel tax would cause the collapse of civilization.
As for the CO2 emissions of cyclists, that is patently absurd, as the carbon is short cycling, and nets to zero on a yearly basis, between food and cyclist.
Well, if they’re American, they’ll probably eat the food anyway, and if they don’t bicycle they’ll instead get fatter, capturing the carbon in their body rather than metabolizing it and releasing it back into the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the benefit only lasts as long as they live, though. Death will ultimately release the carbon back into the atmosphere through either cremation or decomposition.
Of course, it’s an absurdly tiny amount compared to using a motor vehicle for the same trip.
Truly, Americans are the Great Global Carbon Sink.
Back to the original issue: the Virginia legislature (both houses) has just passed a transportation bill that doubles the annual car registration fee only for hybrid cars. That’s right: since we don’t buy enough gas & therefore don’t pay our, um, fair share of the state gas taxes, we’re going to be penalized for having made a sensible eco-decision about our car purchases.
I guess the legislature will work on the bicycle tax next year, when they find that their stupid hybrid penalty doesn’t cough up enough bucks to fill the potholes.
It’s a straight Pigovian play. If you want less of a negative externality — in this case, say, Prius-driving liberals — you tax it.
Coming next: taxes on NPR and Trader Joe’s.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the GOP seems to be of the opinion that the only thing that should ever be taxed is labor. And yet they also want to eliminate the minimum wage and unions. One wonders how theyever expect to balance the budget by taxing a shrinking section of the economy.
Actually, I don’t wonder about that at all.
Taxes on exercise?
How about a tax on “thingie?
First Official I think he’s talking about taxation.
Politician Bravo, Madge. Well done. Taxation is indeed the very nub of my gist. Gentlemen, we have to find something new to tax.
Second Official I understood that.
Third Official If I might put my head on the chopping block so you can kick it around a bit, sir…
Politician Yes?
Third Official Well most things we do for pleasure nowadays are taxed, except one.
Politician What do you mean?
Third Official Well, er, smoking’s been taxed, drinking’s been taxed but not … thingy.
Politician Good Lord, you’re not suggesting we should tax… thingy?
First Official Poo poo’s?
Third Official No.
First Official Thank God for that. Excuse me for a moment. (leaves)
Third Official No, no, no – thingy.
Second Official Number ones?
Third Official No, thingy.
Politician Thingy!
Second Official Ah, thingy. Well it’ll certainly make chartered accountancy a much more interesting job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmgcylAxjfY
Classic.
Let’s play numbers. Total human respiratory CO2, assuming we sit on our arses typing nonsense all day:
1-2 x 10**9 tonnes per year
If we all rode a bike for an hour a day, at double the respiratory output, that’s an extra 5%. So extra CO2 from biking:
0.05-0.1 x 10**9 tonnes per year
Compare to other human-caused output:
29 x 10**9 tonnes per year
Maybe 0.3%. A fucking rounding error. Quelle surprise.
“that’s an extra 5%”
By which I meant 4%.
In principle, there’d be more CO2 produced because humans get their carbon in the form of food, and the food industry gives off quite a lot of carbon dioxide between the farm and the plate. So if people eat more to compensate for the extra exercise they’re doing, you’d get extra carbon dioxide from that.
But yeah, whatever the actual number would be, it’s really not that much CO2.
Um, one flaw with your analysis: fitness
A fitter person has a higher VO2 capacity, the ability to use oxygen more efficiently. So you’d have a slightly higher carbon output at all times.
Except, you know, for the carbon you are not putting out by not driving because you can’t ride and drive at the same time.
I find Mr. Orcutt’s logic impeccable, and would wholeheartedly support a tax to disincentivize him from exhaling so much hot air.
OK, let’s have a tax on things that increase CO2, proportional to the amount of CO2- I am totally fine with that. Johnny Bike can pay 2 cents a day. Exxon-Mobil, 100 million dollars a day.
“Exxon-Mobil, 100 million dollars a day.”
Which will end up being paid by Johnny & Joanie Bike, Bus, Train, Car and Shoe.
Which would mean that every man woman and child would immediately strive to stop using all petroleum products as rapidly as possible. It the wrong way to go about incorporating externalities into the system, but it would work.
This is why I find the whole argument against carbon taxes so noxious…pardon the pun.
People will pay. Or they won’t. If they won’t and they need to get around, they’ll find ways that involve less carbon emissions.
It’s really that simple.
If you visit Mr Orcutt’s web-site, you are greeted by this gem:
“I have spent time talking with residents of the 20th District about the needs of their communities, and what they told me is my agenda: more jobs, not more taxes.”
Haha. He quickly did his best to meet their demands by proposing a useless tax.
Bravo! How do these people get elected?
Late to this party but since the legislator is apparently ignorant with respect to funding of roads (follow the link above), let me just state for the record that nearly all funding for the roads cyclists use comes from property taxes. Unless one is a homeless cyclist, cyclists are paying more than their fair share for the roads they ride. The amount of cycling done on state and federal ways (sic) is in the noise. Cyclists are riding on city and county roads and those roads are not being funded by state and federal gas taxes; they are funded by property taxes.
Many (not all) city and county primary roads are, in fact, classified as state highways and receive funds from the Highways Trust Fund. But your point is still fully valis.
That means Zebra’s about to shoot him in the head with a pink laser and the Roman Empire never ended, right?
But your point is still fully valis.
It’s not often you see an Internet Tradition being born right in front of you.
“No, actually, Mr Krauthammer is making a very valis point”.
[...] this isn’t the case for all politicians. Via djw at LGM, I present to you Washington State legislator Ed Orcutt in support of a state bike tax to [...]
Reading the jennie troll attempts on biking being for kids I just thought of a piece of anti-bike trollery that would totally snag me:
The high rate of biking in the Netherlands is symptomatic of their dissipation and weakness as a society and is the same attitude that is causing the country to be overtaken by muslims and will turn into Eurabia. (For an added bonus, you can add about how “we” had to “save their ass in world war two” and “they’d be speaking a less ugly form of German if it weren’t for us”)
What do you think? Has Mark Steyn already done something like this? He’s Belgian so you’d think he’d be up for Dutch-trolling, right?
Ed…the U. of Idaho is on the phone and they want their degree back.
Y’know, this might actually pass muster if you proposed a licensing fee on bicycles for public safety reasons. There’s an argument to be made there in terms of the hazards cyclists pose to pedestrians (before you cyclists jump ugly on me, I ride about 3,000 miles a year on the streets of NYC, so I know what I see) and to motorists.
But this argument? Someone took a crap to get it.
“hazards cyclists pose to pedestrians…and to motorists”
I used to ride several thousand miles per year in Toronto until road rage got the better of me, and I’d say the hazard was the other way around. Maybe it’s city-specific.
It works both ways, frankly.
For pedestrians, we can start with bike messengers, who in downtown NY can be deadly. They know what they’re doing, but the pedestrians often don’t realize this and panic.
As for motorists, right turns across busy bike lanes on a crowded street where you have to keep an eye out for pedestrians AND cyclists can be a nightmare.
I’m not suggesting it’s a lopsided or even equivalent danger: motorists constitute a far greater danger to cyclists than vice versa, to be sure, and pedestrians do their fair share of really dumb things.
It comes down to education and if a licensing fee or tax was imposed to assist with that, I’d be all for it.
Wow. How is this guy… I don’t even. He’s raising taxes, shouldn’t Republicans be up in arms?
He’s also apparently pro-big-government also?
Sigh. I pay federal, state, and local taxes on my income and real estate. If I lived anywhere besides Oregon I’d be paying sales tax as well. I also buy a lot of goods that were shipped by truck to a point-of-sale or my home and they paid fuel and excise taxes. At least some of that goes to the general fund and eventually helps pay to fill a pot hole or two. It so happens I also own several registered vehicles that get some miles a year and hence pay at least some gas tax. I don’t use studded tires. Whenever possible I telecommute, take public transportation, or ride my bike to commute. A few times a week I walk, run, or ride my bike for recreation and exercise (as opposed to, say, riding a two stroke dirt bike around the woods like I used to back home when I was a kid). I challenge anyone to explain, in detail, with actual numbers, how I am not paying my fair share or how my use of my body to get myself around and stay in shape is worse for the environment or economy than driving an overpowered gasoline vehicle for those same miles. What a load of bull! Do not let them get away with this kind of backward assed reasoning!
[...] the fun with a big bowl of popcorn. •You may have already heard that Repubs in Washington state want to tax bicycle sales. One supporter of the tax argues that bike riders breathe out carbon dioxide, [...]