Green Thought Thursdays: Slow Change in Speed

This is a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet. It is about changing speeds slowly while driving!

Driving a car burns fuel. Even in an electric vehicle uses fuel, and most of the fuels used by cars and trucks around the world are fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon into the atmosphere which is one of major causes of global climate change. So, every time any of us take our vehicle on the road, we are contributing to climate change. Not good. And something that makes a car or truck use even more fuel is if it is made to speed up or slow down quickly. Driving with abrupt accelerations and decelerations can use up fuel 10% to 40% faster! Not good at all!

Keeping a motor running at below 2,000 rpm will increase fuel efficiency when accelerating and coasting to a stop will increase fuel efficiency when decelerating. Photo: YourMechanic.

A solution is to gently and slowly use the gas pedal and break pedal whenever possible. By increasing or decreasing speeds gradually, a car is able to use fuel much more efficiently. So, we should all try and pay attention to gradually speeding up when we need our vehicles to move, coasting and gently breaking when we need our vehicles to stop, and being tolerant of when other drivers adopt these driving styles. Not only will this style of driving save fuel, it will also save money!

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have any other solution ideas?

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Green Thought Thursdays: Combining Stops

Once a week, I am offering up a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet.

This week the green thought is about combining stops while driving!

When we combine multiple stops in a single outing, we will keep the car engine warm and save fuel! Photo: West Milford Messenger.

Driving a car burns fuel. Even in an electric vehicle uses fuel, and most of the fuels used by cars and trucks around the world are fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon into the atmosphere which is one of major causes of global climate change. So, every time any of us take our vehicle on the road, we are contributing to climate change. Not good. And one thing that tends to use more fuel is to make individual trips to individual destinations. Doing this means that a engine starts off cold each trip, and cold engines are inefficient engines.

A solution is to combine trips. Longer excursions with multiple stops let our vehicle’s engines warm up to their most fuel-efficient temperature, and then not cool down as much before we start them again. This means that the engine will use a minimum amount of fuel for the distance we need to go and the stops we need to make. So, we should all plan our errands one after the other in a single outing. Adopting this strategy will help us all save fuel, save money, and save the planet!

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have any other solution ideas?

Thank you for visiting my blog! Please check back next week for another Green Thought Thursday!

If you are interested in other ways to connect with me, here are a few options:

Follow this blog!

Subscribe to my YouTube channel – A Birding Naturalist

Follow me on Instagram – abirdingnaturalist

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