Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
Vermont is clean and green, an environmentally responsible state if ever there was one.
Nor is environmentalism here limited to public policy. It’s a personal commitment for many Vermonters. That’s why they recycle, carpool, turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater.
And tell you about it.
But it’s not mere lip service. Anyone who doubts that need only learn that, according to “Priuschat,” a Toyota website “Vermont has the most Prii per capita,” of any state in the country (and now, if nothing else, you know that the plural of “Prius,” Toyota’s 50-miles-per-gallon hybrid, is “Prii”).
So the state’s leading environmental official, Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz, was addressing a receptive audience late last year when she urged her fellow Vermonters “to join me in resolving to reduce our greenhouse gas contribution in the coming year.”
In that spirit of personal commitment to environmentalism, she suggested steps such as commuting by foot, bus or carpool one day a week; buying a more fuel efficient vehicle, composting food waste and more.
Among those impressed and in agreement was Jim Herold, a semi-retired architect in St. Johnsbury. But Herold noticed one suggestion Markowitz did not make, so on Dec. 20, he sent her an email suggesting her list “is short one item: voluntarily reducing driving speed to 55 mph.”
That’s what he does on the interstate highways, he said, and it not only pollutes the air less, it saves money. When Herold drives 55, he said, his fuel consumption is more than 20 percent lower.
In that Vermont spirit of individual, voluntary involvement, Herold made it clear that was not suggesting legislation or compulsion, but asked, “Why is there no use of the state’s bully pulpit … advising drivers of the possible savings from driving more slowly?”
Noting that driving was far and away the leading cause of Vermont’s greenhouse emissions, he wondered whether, if all Vermonters drove 55 mph on the interstates, “would that not make for a serious reduction?”
Well, that depends on how “serious” is measured. If all motorists zipping along Vermont’s interstates (the only roads with speed limits above 50) zipped a little less zippily, down to 55 miles per hour, the state would realize a net reduction of “some 656,000 metric tons of (carbon monoxide emissions) assuming everyone changes from 75 mph to 55 mph and about 582,000 metric tons of CO2 assuming everyone changes from 65 mph to 55 mph.”
That’s the assessment of Karen M. Sentoff, a researcher at the University of Vermont’s Transportation Air Quality Laboratory, who, with Jonathan Dowds of UVM’s Transportation Research Center checked out some calculations based on government data. (Rather than cluttering the narrative here, the data will be appended at the end).
Either way, that sounds like a lot of metric tons. But in 2012, the state emitted 8 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, the most common of which is carbon dioxide. That’s what’s making the world warmer. So the amount that would be saved is a small percentage of the total.
On the other hand, it’s a lot more than the 109,155 metric tons of greenhouse gases not spewed into the atmosphere each year because of Vermont’s wind power projects, according to Leigh Seddon of the pro-wind power group Energy Action Network.
But of course those 656,000 or 582,000 metric ton transportation savings figures are unrealistic. No matter how strongly state officials might urge it, very few drivers are going to slow down to 55 mph.
This could help explain why almost no environmental organization pays any attention to the idea. The Sierra Club once urged members to “take the pledge” to drive 55, but the issue is absent from the club’s website now. A Vermont “10 percent challenge” movement went out of business some time ago. (Ten percent is the quasi-official estimate of how much gas would be saved, though Herold and other reported better results.) The telephone of the Sacramento-based Drive 55 Conservation Project has been disconnected.
The “Drive 55” idea – perhaps because it remains associated with Richard Nixon, perhaps simply because people don’t like it – seems to have disappeared from the policy debate, derided as one of those ideas that would serve no purpose except to make its participants feel good.
Which means it’s foolish to drive 55?
No.
In the first place, there’s nothing wrong with feeling good. It’s far superior to feeling bad, especially if the person doing what makes him feel good does not delude himself into thinking he is really accomplishing all that much.
Second, driving 55 does do some good. It really reduces greenhouse gas emissions, if minimally. Each gallon of gasoline goes farther, meaning the driver’s gas bill is lower. And at least when there’s not much traffic, it’s much less stressful. (Perhaps not so in heavy traffic with cars stacked up behind and whizzing past the slower driver.)
Yes, it takes longer. But for most trips, not that much longer. Take a typical Vermont run on the interstate – Burlington to Montpelier. That’s 39 miles on I-89. At 65 mph, it takes 36 minutes. At 55, it takes 42. Six minutes. What’s everybody’s hurry?
Perhaps the real lesson behind the limited efficacy of driving 55 is that it illustrates the limited worth of all these voluntary, individualistic, efforts to combat global warming: They don’t do much good. Not carpooling, lowering the thermostat, or even buying one of those Prii.
Climate change is a collective problem that requires collective – and often compulsory – solutions. A carbon tax would be more effective than all the carpools, slower drivers and electric cars combined. Urging people to tighten up their houses to keep the heat in and the cold out is fine. Requiring them to do so (perhaps with subsidies) would be effective.
So perhaps the real problem with the voluntary, individual, “feel good” steps is that they encourage the delusion that collective, mandatory, steps are not necessary.
Even the wind towers – though they do seem to provide a discernible (if small) means of reducing the amount of goop sent into the sky – promote the delusion by convincing people that creating more non-polluting electric power sources is sufficient to reverse climate change. But most greenhouse gas is created by cars and heating systems, not electricity generation. (Leigh Seddon said if in the future millions own electric cars and heat their homes with electric pumps, wind and solar power will be more valuable in fighting global warming. Perhaps).
For the record, and for what it’s worth, Secretary Markowitz did not reply to Jim Herold’s email, nor to a phone message asking her why.
Now for the data. In 2012, motor vehicles drove roughly 72 billion miles in Vermont, 22.7 percent of which, or about 16.34 billion, were on interstates. Assume 22 miles per gallon of gas (24.6 for cars, but only about 18 for trucks). That means 74,272,727 million gallons of fuel were burned along the interstates. Karen Sentoff suggested assuming roughly 10 percent more fuel efficiency from slowing to 55 mph. Each gallon, according to the Energy Information Agency, emits 19.64 pounds, or 9 kilograms, of CO2. Thanks to Gina Campoli, environmental policy manager for the Agency of Transportation, and Jim Sullivan, a senior research analyst at the University of Vermont’s Transportation Research Center, for pointing to the right data sources. (If there are any errors of computation or interpretation here you know who to blame, and it isn’t either of them.)
