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If there’s one thing that almost everyone can agree on, it’s that sitting in rush-hour traffic is not fun. Yet, three-quarters of Americans drive themselves to and from work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Beyond being a daily headache, commuting actually has a major impact on the Earth’s atmosphere and environment.The impact of driving to workCommuting to work accounts for nearly all of an individual employee’s job-related carbon footprint. A look at the CO2 emissions resulting from commuting by car shows that individual choices can have a big impact.The average American commute is around 15 miles each way. Here’s how that translates into CO2 emissions in each year in different types of personal vehicles: Small car (35 MPG fuel economy): 2.1 tons Midsize car (20 MPG fuel economy): 3.9 tons Full-size car/SUV (14 MPG fuel economy): 5.7 tons While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is introducing policies to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles, the transition will not happen overnight. A New York Times report found that in 2021, fewer than 1% of the 250 million cars on U.S. roads were electric. So, getting even a small percentage of commuters out of cars and into cleaner, smarter modes of transportation can have a measurable positive impact on air quality.Less cars – more bikesBut in many cases, it may be possible to avoid using the car altogether. In many countries, even short journeys which could often be made on foot or by bike are usually made by car. In England, for instance, around 60% of 1-2 mile trips are made by car.From our perspective, the really low-hanging fruit is the journeys that people could walk (or skate J). There's an immediate contribution that we could all make to reducing our personal carbon emissions by walking more of those short journeys, whether it be to school, to the shops, to work, or to the station.Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize because of its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure – such as roads, airports, and the vehicles themselves - and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles. One way to reduce transport emissions relatively quickly, and potentially globally, is to swap cars for cycling, e-skating, e-biking, and walking – active travel, as it is called.This research has shown that urban residents who switched from driving to cycling for just one trip per day reduced their carbon footprint by about half a ton of CO₂ over the course of a year, and save the equivalent emissions of a one-way flight from London to New York.If just one in five urban residents permanently changed their travel behavior in this way over the next few years, it would cut emissions from all car travel in Europe by about 8%.If we all choose the fastest mode of travel in a city, the whole city gets slower - and more congestedIf using a car remains the easier and quicker option (on an individual level), people will keep using cars and cities will remain congested. By trying individually to win, we all lose.To encourage people to use more sustainable alternatives to car transport, cities need strong policies that steer people away from using their cars. So far, these have included low-traffic neighborhoods and congestion charges that try to make car drivers pay for the congestion they are causing.Elsewhere, systems have been implemented that attract people to transport modes, such as safe lanes for cycling, that typically have better environmental and social outcomes. These systems emphasize individualistic attitudes but target societal costs to those most responsible for them.Ideally, we should create policies that help us act in the interest of our community. In the meantime, policies that push people away from their private cars could bring us closer to what would be optimal for the collective —- even if we are all acting in our own interests.Obsessing over electric cars is impeding the race to net zero: More active travel is essentialGlobally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020.  Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars sold were electric, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet.The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years.Tackling the climate and air pollution requires curbing all motorized transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible.Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions. This is partly because electric cars are not truly zero-carbon. Mining the raw materials for their batteries, manufacturing them, and generating the electricity they need for fuel produces emissions.What deters many people from cycling or e-biking is safety. Accident rates for cyclists are still considerably higher than, say, for car drivers (although accident rates for motorbikes are even worse). Therefore, an important prerequisite for cycling is the availability of safe cycling infrastructure, including segregated cycling lanes.Cities urgently need to create (more) safe cycling networks or free up some streets altogether for cycling and walking only. A recent German study using bicycle counters in 106 European cities showed that the 20 cities that had considerably increased their cycling network (on average by 11.5 km) during the COVID-19 pandemic and this saw an increase in cycling of 11%-40%, compared to those that did not. How much CO₂ can be saved by active mobility in cities?  This study has done incredible research to answer this question. The most striking finding is the difference between people who cycle at least once a day and people who don’t really cycle at all. The difference was about 84% in terms of their daily carbon footprint, which is quite significant. If you take this and scale it up, for example, to a person over a course of a year, if a person switched modes from car to bike just for one trip a day, that would save about half a ton of carbon. Half a ton doesn’t seem very much, but if you scale up this to Europe, for example just one in five people would do this over a course of a year, then you would reduce the carbon emissions from car travel by 8%. And that’s quite significant.And that’s why the study is important.Climate change, as we saw in this paper, can have huge benefits from promotions of active travel. But, in addition to that, when you get people out of their cars, and onto bicycles or walking or public transport, you get them to be more physically active, and we know that more than a third of Europeans are physically inactive.And we also know, that almost 400k people die every year from air pollution.When you take away cars from the streets then there is an opportunity to use this space for creating public spaces, which have multiple health benefits.Active mobility has the potential to mitigate climate change effects by: Reducing daily carbon footprint by %84 when cycling in cities Cutting down significantly live cycle carbon emissions Being recognized by policymakers as a key strategy to address climate change. For many of us, taking action to reduce the emissions from our daily transport can be tricky on an individual level, but even just cutting out one or two journeys could make a difference while pushing those in charge to make it easier for us to switch to greener vehicles.By doing our bit we may one day live in the healthy, green cities so many of us dream of. 

World temperatures are rising because of human activity, and climate change now threatens every aspect of human life.Left unchecked, humans and nature will experience catastrophic warming, with worsening droughts, rising sea levels, and mass extinction of species.The world faces a huge challenge, but there are potential solutions.What is CO2 and why can it affect the climate? How is carbon dioxide reduced in the atmosphere? Everything you need to know about this gas.What is CO2, carbon dioxide? Carbon dioxide is Earth’s most important greenhouse gas: a gas that absorbs and radiates heat. Unlike oxygen or nitrogen (which make up most of our atmosphere), greenhouse gases absorb heat radiating from the Earth’s surface and re-release it in all directions—including back toward Earth’s surface. Without carbon dioxide, Earth’s natural greenhouse effect would be too weak to keep the average global surface temperature above freezing.By adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, people are supercharging the natural greenhouse effect, causing global temperatures to rise.According to observations by the NOAA Global Monitoring Lab, in 2021 carbon dioxide alone was responsible for about two-thirds of the total heating influence of all human-produced greenhouse gases.Another reason carbon dioxide is important in the Earth's system is that it dissolves into the ocean like the fizz in a can of soda. It reacts with water molecules, producing carbonic acid and lowering the ocean's pH (raising its acidity). Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the ocean's surface waters has dropped from 8.21 to 8.10. This drop in pH is called ocean acidification.What are the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions?The respiration of any living organism consumes oxygen, produces CO2, and releases it into the atmosphere, including plants (however, the latter absorb more CO2 than they emit, thanks to chlorophyll photosynthesis).Then there are the emissions caused by human activities, which have increased CO2 in the atmosphere by about 50 percent over pre-industrial levels, that is, before 1850.To give an idea of magnitude, emissions from the 2010-2019 decade averaged 56 billion tons per year. At current emission rates (six and a half tons per person per year, on average) before 2030 temperatures could rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which is the limit to which the Paris Agreement, signed by 195 states, aspires. Source: IPCC (2014) based on global emissions from 2010. Details about the sources included in these estimates can be found in the Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere comes from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. In 2019, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Ipcc), 34 percent of emissions from human activity were accounted for by the energy sector, 24 percent by industry, 22 percent by agriculture, deforestation, and land use, 15 percent by the transportation sector and 6 percent by the construction sector.The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in parts per million (ppm): suffice it to say that at the turn of the century, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 290 ppm (parts per million), today it is about 410-420 ppm, and it is expected to reach 550-630 ppm in 2050 if steps are not taken aimed at decreasing it.Why can high concentrations of carbon dioxide affect the planet's climate balance?Before we look at why carbon dioxide is harmful to the environment, let’s first consider why it’s helpful to the environment.The greenhouse effect keeps our planet at a balmy 15°C – a temperature ideal for humans and other species to live and thrive in. Without gases such as carbon dioxide to create the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average temperature would be -18°C. The world would be covered in ice, and life wouldn’t be as we know it.The greenhouse effect is a good thing when it’s in balance. Here is where the problem lies.The problem is that carbon dioxide is tipping the greenhouse effect out of balance. Before the 1700s, the Earth was happily regulating the greenhouse effect – absorbing solar energy and emitting greenhouse gases at a steady rate. Then, the Industrial Revolution happened. Emissions of greenhouse gases, predominantly carbon dioxide, have been steadily increasing and kicking the greenhouse effect out of balance.What does this mean? Essentially, there are too many greenhouse gases absorbing the sun’s energy, which means our planet is slowly warming up. We know this as climate change. And there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. Between 2000 and 2020, the Earth’s emissions more than quadrupled from the previous decade. Experts predict that if our greenhouse gases continue to rise as they have done over the last half-century, the world will be 4°C warmer than before the Industrial Revolution by 2099. These rising average temperatures could cause: Ice caps melt and oceans warm, causing sea levels to rise. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy downpours, and wildfires Changes to where different wildlife populations can live and survive. Disrupted access to food Increased spreading of diseases such as malaria. Which country produces the most carbon? The US emits the most: 5,800 million tonnes every year. Next is China, over 3,000; Russia, over 2,000; Japan, 1,200; and India, 1,000 million tonnes. Other major emitters are Germany, 800; Canada, 600m; the UK, 500m; and Italy, 47m.How can CO2 emissions be reduced?There are several ways to reduce CO2 emissions. Currently, the ecological transition, that process of transforming our economies under the banner of environmental sustainability, is focusing mainly on these goals: Replace fossil sources of energy with renewable sources (photovoltaic, wind, hydro, and others), benefiting energy demand and industry. Make mobility, and thus the transport sector, more sustainable, with an increase in electric vehicles and a gradual reduction in endothermic-engine vehicles powered by gasoline or diesel. This transition must be accompanied by a rapid replacement of fossil sources of electricity generation, necessary to power their batteries, with renewable ones. The use of biofuels also appears to be growing in recent years. Maritime transport and aviation are two sectors on which interventions are currently more limited but several strategies are in place to make them more sustainable in terms of emissions, especially through the use of alternative fuels. In agriculture, efforts are focused toward rationalizing the use of pesticides and fertilizers. Where the latter are necessary, lower-carbon ones produced using renewable energy can be opted for. Carbonic fertilization has also been experimented with in greenhouses, taking advantage of CO2 recovered from some industrial activities. Increasing overall efficiency and recovering energy and nutrients are key strategies for reducing the emission intensity of farming systems. Then there is the efficiency of buildings, that is, improving their energy performance. What is carbon neutrality?Carbon neutrality, as defined by the Ipcc, is achieved when the greenhouse gases emitted by humans are equal to those removed from the atmosphere over a certain period of time.Carbon neutrality is achieved either through actions to reduce CO2 emissions or through offsetting actions, for example through reforestation. This is also why we talk about net zero, or zero emissions. Every country, city, financial institution and company must adopt plans to net zero emissions by 2050.So on the one hand there are various human activities, each of which has a carbon footprint, that is, an amount of greenhouse gas emissions associated with it directly or indirectly. Greenhouse gases, however, are many: in addition to carbon dioxide, or CO2, there are also methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases, and each has a certain influence on climate that depends on its concentration, its permanence in the atmosphere and its global warming potential (GWP). To count the carbon footprint, greenhouse gases are equated with CO2 and then measured in tons of CO2 equivalent.A new way of sucking carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in the sea has been outlined by scientists.The authors say that this novel approach captures CO2 from the atmosphere up to three times more efficiently than current methods.The warming gas can be transformed into bicarbonate of soda and stored safely and cheaply in seawater. Carbon dioxide removal by ClimeworksThe new method could speed up the deployment of carbon removal technology, experts say.While the world has struggled to limit and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in recent decades, several companies have instead focused on developing technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.Climeworks in Switzerland is perhaps the best known. Over the past ten years it has developed machines to suck in the air from the atmosphere that filter and trap the carbon dioxide molecules.Final ThoughtsUnfortunately, there is no switch that can change this at the click of a button; we don’t have thousands of years to wait for nature to absorb the flood of CO2. By then, billions of people would have suffered and died from the impacts of climate change.Therefore, the first step in the direction of sustainability is energy efficiency: making processes more efficient and reducing energy waste will help our economy become less and less dependent on fossil fuels and more quickly embrace clean sources.We can avoid much of that damage and suffering through a combination of decarbonizing our energy supply, pulling CO2 out the atmosphere, and developing more sustainable ways of thriving.

Neither steps forward nor steps backward. This is the verdict on Italy's environmental sustainability. Italy, by 2023, is already in burnout. This is energy depletion, and more, called Overshoot Day, the day when the natural resources available to sustain a country end before the current year can actually be said to be over. The point of no return in Italy has already arrived: this year it falls on May 15, the same day as the Bahamas and Chile, and that is not good news.At one time the most commonly accepted definition of sustainability was that of the United Nations Brundtland Commission, in 1987: "...meeting our needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Yet we have passed the tipping point where we cannot sustain our own needs while forgetting those of future generations. Evidently, within half a century, consumerism, commercialism, and capitalism have destroyed the ecological balance, and humanity lives on credit.The first time it fell was in 1972 and it was December 14, practically the end of the year.Not even by design in that very year the report "the limit of Growth," prepared by MIT in Boston, had been published, which said the earth has finite resources, and in that very year fell the first Overshoot day, that is the first year in which we managed to consume the planet's resources that reproduce within the year.By now we know, today is a date that falls with regularity. The one for the planet is in July but the one for individual states falls according to which resources are consumed quickly by individual states. The record still belongs to Qatar, which exhausted its resources on February 14. But Italy also plays in a very good position. Il 15 Maggio 2023 l’Italia raggiugne il suo #overshootday. Significa che se tutti agissero come noi italiani avremmo bisogno di ben 2,7 pianeta Terra per soddisfare i livelli di consumo della popolazione mondiale. L’Overshoot Day…https://t.co/eJgLud8FL1 https://t.co/qezNBfHeq1— Prassede Colombo (@PrassedeColombo) May 14, 2023 Why overshoot days are not uniform across countriesOn the GFN list, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe are just some of the countries in the Global South that do not have an Overshoot day. On the other hand, Qatar and Luxembourg exceeded their annual renewable natural resource quota in less than two months, marking their individual overshoot days on February 10 and 14, respectively.What is the point of all this? It comes down to a formula. Countries whose per capita ecological footprint is less than the global per capita biocapacity (currently 1.6 gha) will not observe an overshoot day and can boast an "ecological reserve." The reverse, on the other hand, causes a country to be in an "ecological deficit" situation. Its totally unsustainableTake a look at each country overshoot dayFor Canada USA and United Arab Emirates Earth Overshoot day is March 13 https://t.co/HkCvgart5Z pic.twitter.com/JFOA8W9UEP — GO GREEN (@ECOWARRIORSS) July 28, 2022 Geographical and topographical differences lead to an imbalance in the availability of natural resources in a region. Developed, high-income nations deplete their rations at a faster rate, importing needed materials and living off the backs of low-income nations. This means that while most countries in the global South experience overshoot dates only toward the end of the year, the consumption habits of the global North cancel out their extended reserves, and Earth Overshoot Day continues to climb the calendar. We’d need 5.1 Earths ? if everyone on the planet lived like residents of the #USA ??. If everyone lived like people in #Australia ??, we'd need 4.5 Earths ?. How does your country compare? Find out here ⤵️https://t.co/kowF86pv5Y#MoveTheDate pic.twitter.com/Yojnrvlpxh — Footprint Network (@EndOvershoot) July 28, 2022 WWF indicated that we may soon require the resources of five planets to meet our needs if the global population squandered natural resources at the rate of the average American. "The deficit is growing larger and larger, yet there has been no real shakeup of the political system. Any delays in the annual date were accidental, not intentional. We observed an improvement during the oil shocks, the pandemic and the financial crises." - Véronique Andrieux, WWF director, France.Today is the day when Italy runs out of biocapacityBiocapacity is all that set of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, including co2 absorption that the territory is able to regenerate over 365 days.Italy now, before the middle of the year, after 4 1/2 months, has already exhausted its resources for 2023, thus consuming those of the following year.It's a reasonably well-known term by now, hopefully, Overshoot Day, which reminds us how resources and the ecological crisis is not just a climate crisis, it's not just a matter of greenhouse gas emissions, co2 emissions, co2 absorption capacity, but there are a number of services that in the ecological footprint are measured; The biologically productive land for example that a population needs to support daily activities.We are not at the level of Qatar and Luxembourg - which in February already touched the bottom of their resources- in March it was the turn of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada, but we are still very high in the ranking of countries that consume their resources most rapidly, and among them, the food sector is one of the key ones, almost 31 % of the ecological footprint, comes from there.One figure out of all to understand why food is so impactful: almost 80 percent of the fields we cultivate are used to feed animals, which we then use to get protein.GFN's Laetitia Mailhes states: "If we could cut meat consumption in half, we could move the overrun date by 17 days. Limiting food waste would shift the date by 13 days." Transportation makes another 25 percent. And yet another is food waste. Just think that halving food waste would allow us to gain as many as 13 days on the calendar.Seven more years remain between now and 2030: it seems like a short time to think about solving the climate and social problems that human beings are already facing.The choice is between doing nothing and waiting, or trying to improve, at least for ourselves.The clock is ticking, and foundations such as Earth Overshooting Day punctuate it from year to year, certifying how inexorably the one available is dwindling.