How Does Transpotation (automobiles) In Smaller Cities Affect Climate Change?

Environment Apr 7, 2016 by CoMoLe

Our Inquiry question is "How does transportation (automobiles) in smaller cities affect climate change?" When fossil fuels like petrol or diesel are burned they give off carbon dioxide - the main climate change gas. The amount of carbon dioxide given off is directly related to the amount of fuel burnt. Heavy cars with big engines use a lot of fuel per distance travelled, releasing more CO2 and worsening climate change. Previously our question was "How does transportation (automobiles) affect climate change?" During research, we realized that methods of transportation in smaller cities are very different than bigger cities. We thought being more specific to smaller cities related to us more because we live in one. We believe this is a great question because in smaller cities there isn't much public transportations, and it is harder to find was around without emissions contributing to climate change. (According to Environment Canada, in 2007 transportation was responsible for 27% of the total GHG emissions. Road transportation accounted for 69% of the GHG emissions within the sector.) We don't have bike lanes, subways, or streetcars like you would find in a larger city such as Toronto. We used previous knowledge and what we learned in class, to formulate and explain our question. We found that the emissions coming from transportation are one of the greater contributions to climate change. We came to the conclusion that Belleville needs to finance bike lanes and expand the public bus routes, in hope that more drivers will use the public transportation methods we provide to cut down amount of emissions coming from cars. Another solution to this issue is to encourage citizens to use eco-friendly vehicles, because they use less fuel to travel the same distance as a regular vehicle. An idea to get more citizens to buy eco-friendly vehicles would be to give them a slkight tax decrease for owning them, electric cars, including the Chevy Volt, Nissan LEAF or Tesla Model S, can help too.