I like to think that I am not alone in celebrating a long day of biking with a cookie or five. The energy spent biking feels like it will offset any caloric indulgence. Just as cycling seems to cover a second helping of dessert, it also feels like it might atone for our environmental sins. The disposable coffee cup, the throwaway water bottle, surely the fossil fuels saved by pedaling offset any of the smaller choices we make. But, research by Daniel Thorpe suggests it may not be so simple. Other choices made throughout the day can completely offset the environmental benefits of biking, and then some.
Thorpe, a graduate student at Harvard, focuses on climate change and environmental issues. He’s especially interested in the verifiability of eco-friendly options. At a time when nearly everything from bamboo sporks to window cleaner is being marketed as "green," a little math can reveal some startling truths. One of those, Thorpe says, is that biking may not be the ultimate environmental contribution. “There’s no free lunch on issues of energy and environment. There are always difficult tradeoffs.”
The tradeoffs in this case have to do with the production of energy. Thorpe looked at the fuel needed for biking versus that needed to power a hybrid car. He chose to represent two dietary extremes, a paleo-eating cyclist, and a vegan-eating motorist. The numbers suggest that “the gasoline needed to drive a kilometer in a Prius has similar climate change impacts to the food for the bike ride, if the food was from an average paleo diet.”