This past summer, to encourage participation in the annual Bike-to-Work Week, riders received prizes through a raffle. One prize was two round-trip tickets on Frontier Airlines for travel within the continental United States.
Part of the reason to encourage bike commuting is the environmental benefits of getting cars off of the road. To reward these commuters with airline travel, our dirtiest travel method, seemed out of place to bike commuter Rick Fuller. In fact, he put up his own money to offset the carbon emissions of the winner’s plane travel to make his point.
In a Denver Post interview Fuller said, “I’m not against plane travel. I understand how our economy works. I just believe it is sending a mixed message to give away airline tickets for biking to work."
Airplane travel is a notorious greenhouse gas polluter. Although the actual emissions per person / per mile are on par with driving the same distance alone in an SUV, scientists estimate that releasing those gases at altitude means that their impact is between 2 and 5 times more severe. Flights cause between three and seven times the greenhouse effect as train travel.
Fuller, who bikes to work almost every day, realizes that carbon offsets are a bit of a band-aid approach. Conservation always has a more significant impact than trying to make up for pollution after the fact.
From the Denver Post:
BLOCKQUOTE Bike to Work Week is all about helping people to understand how much energy they consume and to make choices to reduce their carbon footprint. /BLOCKQUOTE
Photos via flickr by richardmasoner & Miss Shari.
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