The Environment As the fairer sex we have always been a bit more in touch with nature. Yes, we love our cars but we are all contributing to the big worry that is climate change and we need to start changing our relationship with our cars.

How cars affect climate change.

Society has developed so much in recent years that it has become easy for humans to forget the fact that we are animals that need food for survival. No food = no human race. You may take your local surroundings for granted but our eco-system took millions of years to develop and it actually very delicate and sensitive to change. The plants (and animals that feed off them) local to you have developed because those plants suit the temperature and local climate. This is why you wouldn’t find a cactus growing wild in Ireland and you wouldn’t find a spruce pine in the middle of the dessert.

The suns rays travel millions of miles through space to reach planet earth. Our planet is surrounded by an atmosphere – which is basically an invisible shield made up of different types of gases. That is why spacemen have to wear those special suits when they leave the earth’s atmosphere. It is freezing cold and there is no oxygen so they can’t breathe. When the sun’s ray hit our atmosphere, the earth (as it is a giant rock) holds onto some of the heat and then the gases in the atmosphere also hold onto some of the heat. Some of the rays are just bounced back into outer space.

The gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is very good at holding onto heat. Every time you drive your car your engine omits CO2 via its exhaust pipe. Every day millions of cars around the world are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Can you imagine the amount of CO2 every car in the world is collectively putting into the atmosphere? As CO2 loves holding onto heat, now our planet is retaining more heat of the sun’s heat than we have been used to.

What are the consequences?

The fact that the earth’s temperature increases by only 2 degrees may not sound very dramatic but if you think of it, at 0 degrees something is frozen. At 1 degree it melts. 2 degrees might make the difference between putting a cardigan on or taking a jumper off.

The planets vegetation is very delicate and at 2 degrees more crops begin to fail, which means less food. Ice caps begin to melt which means no more polar bears and pengins. More water in the sea means rising sea levels. Slightly higher temperatures mean more aggressive storms.

What can you do?

Everything in life is about balance. If you eat too much, you get fat. If you drink too much you get drunk and feel awful the next day. Sugar on its own isn’t bad for you, but eating too much of it gives you diabieties. A few glasses of wine a week are fine. Getting hammered every weekend is not. Everywhere around the world people out of balance relationships with things and this spills over into cars too. Many people are becoming too dependant on their cars as a way of transport. It can sometimes be quicker and cheaper to use public transport. Our bodies have developed over millions of years and have been designed to do a lot of walking!

So, the first thing to do is re-examine your relationship with your car. Are there times when you use it and you could walk, cycle or use public transport instead? Could you take one car off the road by car pooling with work?

When you have to go somewhere don’t automatically think of the car as the only solution to get there.

Can I make a difference?

It can feel that in a planet with 500,000,000,000 people that changing your behaviour alone isn’t going to make a difference. But it can! Not only will you reduce a small amount of CO2 from the atmosphere but the biggest difference you will make is giving others a lead to follow. A lot of human’s tend to not start changing their own behaviour until they have heard of someone else trying it first. It is the norm now that people just use their cars whenever they please without giving it a second thought. If you begin to rethink when you use your car and begin to think of alternative options then maybe you will begin to inspire others to do the same.

Then hopefully we could start a trend where the car isn’t seen as being the be-all-and-end-all but as a mode of transport that sits in your driveway and you only use it when you have no other alternative option.