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Comment by trabant00 | Hacker News Reader

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I'm a Notjustbikes superfan and love my bike, but container ships are a marvel of efficiency and emissions per kg per km are probably better for the ship.

cyclist: 21g CO2 per km lifecycle - https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycli...

Say I can manage 100kg on a cargo bike, that puts us at 210mg CO2 per km per kg.

Container ship: 16g CO2 per tonne per km - https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/carbon-ecol...

1 tonne = 1000kg so 16 / 1000 = 16mg CO2 per km per kg

Of course, that will massively depend on diet, conditions, and whether the bike trip was taken purely for transporting goods or whether I needed a workout anyway and it's a two birds with one stone situation. Then again, the sheer efficiency of container shipping might be why I take it as given I can buy some random cheap item manufactured 10,000 km away for a few euro and thereby bring about Jevon's paradox.

I'd still take a EuroVelo route to Canada though if it's on offer!

I feel like the greatest trick they recently played on us is to focus everything on CO2...

CO2 is but a small part of the equation, container ships release other nasty things. Even for cars co2 isn't the main issue, particulates from tires and brakes will fuck you up faster than any amount of co2

> The two main pollutants from a ship’s emissions are Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Sulphur Oxides (SOx). These gases have adverse effects on the ozone layer in the troposphere area of the earth’s atmosphere which results in the green house effect and global warming.

I generally agree but it was an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.

And particulates are nasty stuff, especially considering that it's not like they tend to be biodegradable.

Well yeah, if container ships wouldn't be as horribly efficient, manufacturing everything in China, or shipping various stages of garments halfway around the world, which leads to the finished product having traveled more than those that have worked on it will in their lifetime, wouldn't be possible. The problem with container ships is not just the CO2, but also that they burn the worst of the worst fuel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Environmental_issues).

Imagine a cyclist who exists on a diet of beans, beer and dairy. Perhaps slightly lower CO2 emissions but vastly more methane and various mercaptans :D

Would want to replace the dairy with someone without an animal origin ideally. And pyroflatulence could be an aid to reducing methane emissions.

This calculation doesn't quite work because the human's food emissions also come from stuff like transport in that supply chain.

The basic grow food -> (feed to animal ->) eat food cycle is CO2 neutral by itself. You can feed a human in a carbon-neutral way.

Not sure if you’re aware but this bikes vs trucks thing is a strawman.

Nobody has ever suggested that things that require trucking should be done by bike.

I yearn for the day when I can use my swan pedal boat to go to China to pick up my aliexpress shipment.

Last mile shipping for many goods can definitely be served by bicycles.

https://scm.dk/sites/default/files/styles/2400px/public/carg...

But that's not what I implied

I know, I was making fun. Just putting bike and trucks in the same sentence and comparing their infrastructure needs is already too far for me.

But there wasn't any joke, nor any argument. You just popped up out of the blue stating a feeling you have - unrelated to the thread.

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