Image via car2go.com
I’ve never owned a car myself, because friends and family have always had one. While a student at Cornell, a couple of my friends used the Zipcar service, and that’s something I’d have used if I didn’t have the opportunity to borrow a car or share a ride with housemates for grocery shopping every other week (when I didn’t bike or bus to the store instead). But you don’t need to do any math to realize that a car-sharing service is almost certainly going to result in a reduction of carbon dioxide output, even if it’s not as environmentally friendly as biking or taking public transportation. Conservation Magazine reports on a new study quantifying the use of the Car2go service in five cities over three years:
Car-sharing is quickly gaining popularity in cities around the world. Proponents say that it’s a green way to get around town. In a report published in July, researchers calculated car-sharing’s precise impact by analyzing the car-share service car2go in five North American cities. Each car2go eliminated up to 11 privately-owned vehicles from the roads and prevented 10 to 14 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, they found.
Organikos 