a few thoughts from No Impact Man

I'm currently reading and very much enjoying Colin Beavan's book, No Impact Man. Tracy and I were fans of his blog, even before the book and the movie came out

In his section on reducing carbon footprint and on stopping using fossil-fuel based transportation, Beavan offers these interesting statistics about cars and America:

• American adults average 72 minutes per day behind the wheel of a car (twice as much as the average American father spends with his kids).
• 17 percent of the average American's income goes toward the costs of owning and running a car.
• Americans spend the equivalent of 105 million weeks of time sitting in traffic jams.
• People who ride bikes or walk to work are 24 percent more likely to be happy with their commute than those who drive cars.

I think we'd qualify for being pretty happy with our commutes right now. And we're on our way to cutting expenses, though we've been doing a bit of investment in our bike infrastructure lately.

It's a very thoughtful book, much more than just an attention-grabbing stunt.