Eight Ways To Reduce Carbon Footprint of Transportation

Human carbon emissions is causing more wildfires and extreme weather events, and 14.3% of U.S. emissions is from personal transportation.

Julie Smith, 8/20/26

This is a summary of Chapter 20, Transport Nation, in the book, “2050: What’s it Gonna Be?”.  You can download the full chapter, as well as other chapters.  References are here.

Our planet is in trouble because of extreme levels of human carbon emissions. Our constantly increasing emissions are causing increased wildfires, which destroy homes and wildlife habitat, as well as the air we all breathe. Extreme storms are destroying property and killing people. In the past 50 years, we have decimated 70% of the wildlife on our planet. The underlying cause of all of this is carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.  How long are we going to let this continue In the U.S., before we take action to stop the destruction of our planet? 30% of our gross carbon emissions are from transportation, and 55% of transportation emissions is from personal transportation, which works out to 14.3% of our gross emissions. This means that there are a lot of practical actions that we can take personally to improve our environmental sustainability. We are responsible for the planet our children and grandchildren will inherit. We will leave them our legacy. So, what's it gonna be? A complete disaster on our planet and misery for all future life, or a beautiful planet that all can joyfully thrive on?

The simple truth is that we’re past peak oil with more people than ever on the planet, and we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels sooner than later.  How dumb would it be to wait until the last minute, while ensuring planetary disaster at the same time?  If we begin changing now, it will be more gradual and less painful in the long run, and we’ll minimize additional global warming.  Solar energy is now less expensive than fossil fuel, so now is the time.  More people are employed in renewables these days than in fossil fuels, by a long shot.  Switching to fossil fuels reduces air pollution, in addition to the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and over time will reduce the smoke most of us experience these days from wildfires.

It’s already getting harder and more expensive to produce fossil fuels, as oil and natural gas wells get deeper, scarcer and more remote, costing more to extract and refine.  Obviously this increases the costs of the products, so if you choose the route of complacency and resistance to change, then there’s no sense whining about the higher costs at the pump.  This is not going to improve on our planet for millions of years, so we’d better get over it.  The party’s over.  Time to wake up and get to work.

The choices to reduce emissions of personal transportation are endless, and most of us have heard them all.  It’s worth it, though, since 14.3% is a pretty big chunk of the 80% reduction in emissions that we need to save our planet. Here are eight ways to reduce carbon footprint of transportation.

1. Walk, especially if it’s less than a couple miles.  You’ll be healthier for it.

2. Bike, if it’s a few miles.  For longer trips, you can bike to the bus stop or train station, and the bus or train will usually have a place for your bike while you ride.

3. Combine errands if driving is necessary. 

4. Take advantage of city scooter and bike rentals, and free buses and shuttles.

5. Take the train or the bus, depending on what’s available. 

6. Carpool.

7. If you don’t drive that often, consider a car-sharing service where you only pay when you’re using the car.  An example is Zipcar.²

8. When you’re ready for a new car, get an EV.  They’re great.  They use a lot less energy and you can charge them at home by just plugging them in.  No more standing at the gas station breathing those toxic vapors as you gas up. Also, when you get your home on renewables, the footprint of your transportation will go to zero when you plug in at home.

When we choose any alternative to personal transportation, it increases our exercise, pretty much by definition.  Walking or biking is pretty obvious, but even if we take a bus or a train, we will probably walk or bike to the stop, and then walk from the drop-off to our destination.  Our bodies are actually meant to move regularly, and if we don’t, we don’t challenge our heart, lungs, bones, muscles and nervous systems, which in turn leads to deterioration of our basic functions from lack of use. In reality, we should be walking daily, and we should be walking an absolute minimum of 2 to 3 miles per week. 

In the U.S., 52% of all car trips are less than three miles, with 28% of trips less than 1 mile,⁵ which is easily done by walking or taking a bike.  Seriously.  When we rely on our personal vehicles to do even the shortest errands, we are failing our bodies and ourselves, as well as the planet.  It’s another way to get us outside, and research shows that time with nature lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and increases immune-system function.  It also reduces inflammation and improves mood and self-esteem.  Think about how you can replace a portion of your driving with walking or biking.  Start small and grow to longer walks.  Have fun.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average travel time to work is about 26 minutes, which works out to a round trip of 52 minutes every single day, sitting in a car, in traffic.⁶  Time we never get back, if we’re part of the sad grogs who choose to put themselves through this.  No wonder we have so much depression and mental health problems, in addition to the physical deterioration of our bodies.  Even worse, almost 10% have travel times of 1 hour each way, or two hours a day.  Think about that if you do this.  One or two hours per day of your life that you’ll never get back.  Now, if you're on a bus or train, or even carpooling, you can at least read or catch up on email.

And now it’s even worse, with idiots moving out to the boonies taking yet more land from wildlife so they can live in a much bigger house than they need, pissing away excessive energy to keep it warm or cool along with their absurd gas miles.  If you do this, your carbon emissions are likely to be at least double the national average.  The transportation fuel emissions is yet another reason to give the country back to the wildlife and keep humans who need to work for a living in the cities.  By definition, everything is far away, since it is, after all, the country.  Why not let the wildlife have it back and go visit the country from the city once in a while, instead of living in the country, taking space from wildlife and spewing CO₂ emissions every single day while languishing behind the wheel of a car for hours.  Do you have nothing better to live for?  I’ll bet the wildlife does.