The Giving Hands

This post is written for the “Save the Ocean” group-writing project by Guilherme, a Web Designer and works freelance in northern Italy. His past work life includes also developing software prototypes for Sony Ericsson mobiles, teaching Photoshop, compiler design and photography. He is happily married to Anna, and in his free time he enjoys cinema, traveling, cooking and eating.

Year after year, carbon dioxide levels accumulate in the atmosphere, energy burn in the technological era we live in increases global temperature, which melts ice and raise ocean levels, and increases water temperature causing habitats to change and species of all kinds of animals lose a very delicate balance that was reached by millions of years of evolution.

Consider this: the simple change of temperature by a couple of degrees on a habitat can be responsible for alter reproductions cycles of a species, which can be outnumbered by its predators, eventually determining its extinction. Different from human societies as we’ve built them, animals don’t conquer territory per se, they need to feed and reproduce, so the extinction of a species is also bad for all its predators that may starve to its own extinction as a worst case scenario.

Eventually humans, that are on the top of the food chain will be affected. If not by lack of food, consider that all the predators of a species of insect that carries humans parasites disappear. Not good for us! While bears and lions are no longer a fear for us, invisible parasites are still fiercely feared by us and with plenty of reason.

So, even if for the most selfish reasons, helping to keep this delicate balance in nature is as important to us as any other species, but we belong to the only species who is in control of the degradation process earth is going though. The question that remains is, what can we do as individuals to help this.

Two of the most critical problems in this degradation process are pollution and global temperature changes, which are both related to combustion and gas emissions that happen in many places, including the engine of our very cars.

Image credit: Tommy Wong.

Having a car that is fuel efficient is a great help for the environment, now, let’s also take a look on how we can increase fuel efficiency by changing habits, instead of changing cars:

Car pools and public transport

Naturally, cars are build in a way in which there is a lot of weight overhead that has to be carried no matter how many people is being carried. Using buses and trains, or sharing cars with neighbors and work colleagues help save combustion emissions.

If you want to know by how much, follow me on this: How much fuel does your car spend when you carry three more people instead of you alone? How much more fuel would have been spent in four people drove their own cars by themselves? Instead of a small percentage more, it would be four times more, so would be the emissions and the energy spent.

Energy, just as matter, doesn’t disappear, so every joule burnt eventually becomes other kind of energy and most of the energy burnt in an engine becomes heat on the atmosphere.

Drive calmly

Besides helping you avoid accidents and have a less stressful life, driving calmly can help you save fuel and consequently produce less emissions and disperse less energy on the environment.

Inertia is a physical property of matter that says objects tend to remain either still or in movement, changes to these states spend energy, and the more quick you change state, the more energy (a.k.a fuel) you spend. So accelerating calmly helps you save fuel. Added to inertia, air buoyancy increase exponentially, so as you increase your speed you spend much more fuel.

Actually, very simple measures that can help you live better and interact with other people can also be helpful to the environment, so using your car wisely is a win-win situation.

January 2008 is “Save the Ocean” month here at The Giving Hands. Click here for more information on how you too, can save our oceans, and remember to subscribe to The Giving Hands for your daily updates!