The news about climate change efforts in the US hasn’t been great lately. So Possibly is launching a new occasional series to highlight advances against climate change around the world. Up first: China

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

The news about climate change efforts in the US hasn’t been great lately. So we’re launching a new occasional series called Good News Abroad.

Megan Hall: Our founder and Brown’s Provost of Sustainability, Steven Porder, is here to help us kick it off with a story from China. Welcome, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan. We’re in our, in my office, not in China, but. It’s a story about China.

Megan Hall: Yes. There you go. So what is the good news from China?

Stephen Porder: Just to set some context, China is currently the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The US is second. It was long thought that it was gonna take a very long time before China stopped growing its emissions and started declining them. But we now think that Chinese emissions will peak sometime between now and 2030 and maybe even as early as this year.

Megan Hall: And why is it good news that their emissions are peaking?

Stephen Porder: If you wanna get to zero, which is where we need to be by the middle of the century as a globe, in order to avert the worst consequences of climate change, the first thing you have to do is stop climbing up. Right? And then you have to start going back down.

Megan Hall: So why is it starting to plateau and go down? What is China doing?

Stephen Porder: China installed more solar panels last year than the US has in its entire history, and has about six times as many solar panels s the US does right now. And that disparity is gonna keep growing as they just double down.

Megan Hall: What else are they doing?

Stephen Porder: They’re also rapidly transitioning their vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. So China is the world’s biggest car market. Over half the vehicles they’re selling into that car market right now are electric or hybrid electric. And as a result of that, they don’t need as much gasoline. Right? And so that also is contributing to emissions falling.

Megan Hall: And there’s another thing they’re doing too, right? Something to do with, uh, high speed rail.

Stephen Porder: Yeah. So China has invested massively in high speeded rail in the past two decades. Since the year 2000, they’ve gone from 6,000 to about 25,000 miles of high speed rail.

Megan Hall: So what does this mean for us in the US?

Stephen Porder: Well, I think a lot of people in the US are concerned about climate change and think of us as both a leader in the fight against climate change and also sort of a linchpin for the whole world. And with the change in federal policy and a sort of a very direct series of statements from the President about climate change as a hoax, we’re not gonna fund climate change research. We’re not gonna invest in renewable energy. It feels like that’s going to cascade around the world and just make us give up all hope.

And I’m not here to sugarcoat the fact that the US change on climate change is a severe setback, but it’s also true that we’re not the only country in the world. And it does seem that China is stepping up both diplomatically and technologically and economically as the US sits on the sideline.

So it’s not good news for the US economy necessarily, but because climate change is caused by the emissions from all of us, if someone else can step into the vacuum and help drive emissions down for the rest of the world, that will make a better future for all of us.

It won’t be as good as if the US participates as well, but it isn’t that all hope is lost if the US does nothing. So it’s a glass half full kind of situation in my mind. It’s not all the way full, but it’s half full.

Megan Hall: Great. Well thanks for the half good news, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: You’re fully welcome.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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Possibly’s founder and the Provost of sustainability at Brown University Stephen Porder recently visited a supermarket chain in France that sells products other stores would have thrown away.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Here’s an interesting approach to food waste- a supermarket chain in France sells products that other stores would have thrown away. Our founder and the provost for sustainability at Brown University Stephen Porder visited one of those markets during a recent trip to Paris. He’s here to tell us more about it.

Megan Hall: Welcome, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan, great to be back as always.

Megan Hall: So before we talk about the supermarkets in France, will you quickly just remind us why we care about food waste?

Stephen Porder: There are lots of reasons. But since this show is often about climate change, let’s start there. Food production accounts for about 20% of all of our greenhouse gasses, and of all that food we produce, we throw out about a third of it before it ever gets eaten. So all those greenhouse gasses, as well as all the other effects of agriculture, we’re wasting a third of that.

Megan Hall: Tell me about this food waste supermarket chain.

Stephen Porder: So in French, it’s called Nous Anti-Gaspi, Us Against Waste. And basically what they do is they find food that isn’t going rotten, but that would be thrown out for another reason.

Megan Hall: How did you hear about this place?

Stephen Porder: Actually, it was just down the street from where I was staying. There was a produce market, and then there was this thing called Nous Anti-Gaspi. And looked like they had food there. So I looked into it. So I didn’t hear about it. I just stumbled across it. But it turns out there’s a bunch of them in Paris and around France.

Megan Hall: What is it like shopping there? What kind of stuff do they have on the shelves?

Stephen Porder: It’s basically a fully stocked supermarket.

So I’m walking around Nous Anti-Gaspi. Right now I’m in the cheese section.

It’s France, right? So there’s a lot of wine. There’s a lot of incredible cheeses,

There’s a goat cheese with honey, some seven different kinds of fresh mozzarella.

There’s a lot of produce. And then there’s your staples, olive oil or flour or sugar.

Going back here, we have a whole shelves and shelves of organic eggs,

But even stuff like toothbrushes.

Why toothbrushes would be thrown out? I don’t know. But spices…

And I have to say, like the produce is awesome. I was expecting sort of the half rotten tomatoes, you know, that you would pick through and make sauce out of. But in fact, I couldn’t really tell that there was a difference between the chichi organic produce place next door and this one, in terms of the quality of the produce. It’s just they didn’t have all the things.

Megan Hall: What is wrong with these things that they would have been thrown away?

Stephen Porder: Obviously, when you think of food waste, you’re like, oh, you know, this is past its expiration date or something like that. But when I looked into it, it turns out there’s all kinds of reasons why food gets thrown away.

It was packaged wrong, or there was a typo on the label, or it was delivered too late, and so the vendor had the right to refuse the delivery…

And so all of that is like jettisoned somewhere.

Megan Hall: What lessons could this supermarket teach us here in the US?

Stephen Porder: There are apps and whatnot, and organizations that try to deal with food waste here in the US. And my experience is that there are certain sort of dedicated environmental types who will buy ugly food and go out of their way to to a special a Co-Op, but this very much had the feel of like everybody was there and they weren’t there because they were necessarily environmentalists. They were there because it was cheaper and it was just as convenient. I don’t know. It just really struck a chord with me how regular it felt while doing something that was clearly like it just makes a ton of sense.

Megan Hall: Excellent. Well, Merci Stephen for coming in today.

Stephen Porder:  Je t’en prie

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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Megan Hall:  Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

When people talk about climate change, it’s often described as something that might happen in the future. 

But, we’ve been breaking records for the hottest day on earth all summer–

News clip: on July 3, we had our hottest global temperature ever 

News clip 2: Earth reaching its highest temperature on record for a fourth day in a row

News clip 3: July 2023 will be Earth’s hottest month on record.

Here to explain what all of this means is our founder and the provost for sustainability at Brown University, Stephen Porder.

Megan Hall Hi Stephen!

Stephen Porder Hey, Megan, how’s it going?

Megan Hall What do we mean when we say the planet has had the hottest day on record?

Stephen Porder So for about 120 years now we’ve had enough thermometers scattered around the wo

rld to have a good sense of what the average temperature of the planet actually is. And what we see in the last several weeks is that we are breaking all of those average temperature records, one one time after another. We know from climate change science, that that’s because we’re pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels. But is this really 

Megan Hall  the hottest average day? I mean, hasn’t it been really hot in the past? 

Stephen Porder  Yeah, it’s a great question. Clearly, we haven’t always had thermometers that were no thermometers, when the dinosaurs were around. So for that, we use what we call proxy data. So things that correlate with the temperature in the modern day, but that we have records for going way back in time. So for example, pollen records or ice cores, these things, what we think, based on a combination of those kinds of proxies, and computer simulations is that this July has been hotter than any time in about the last 100,000 years than all of human history, basically. 

Megan Hall  And how do we know that this is climate change? I mean, maybe it’s just El Nino or some other strange weather system, 

Stephen Porder  it is climate change, but it’s also El Nino. So as we add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, we’re wrapping an ever warmer blanket around the planet. And so the planet is absorbing more and more heat. Most of that heat over 90% is absorbed by the ocean, and a little bit is in the air. El Nino transfers some of that heat between the ocean and the air, but the total amount of heat is just going up year after year. We’re now at a place where the 1998 El Nino that everybody thought was the warmest we’ve ever had, is now colder than what we now call a la Nino year, which is the cool phase. 

Megan Hall  Do you think these hot temperatures will motivate more action? 

Stephen Porder  It’s a double-edged sword. It’s a hard issue to wrap your head around. And it’s really really tempting to kind of bury your head in the sand when it feels unfixable. I am more optimistic now than I was 10 years ago. We are making enormous progress technologically, we are starting to make some progress politically, which is where it really matters. is the world going to be warmer in 2033 than it is in 2023? Absolutely. It’s going to be warmer still in 2043? Absolutely. But by the middle of the century, we do have the capacity to sort of halt this beast. 

Megan Hall So what’s your message to people who are listening and are worried about the temperature just getting really hot and feeling hopeless 

Stephen Porder  worry, but act so that means voting. That means changing your own personal behavior? It means talking to your neighbors about this. It means talking to your faith group about this. It means talking to your colleagues and whatever job you have and talk about solutions. Don’t talk about despair. 

Megan Hall: Thanks, Stephen. 

Stephen Porder: Thanks, Megan. It’s always a pleasure.

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Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet, and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

The time has come! Our family needs a new car, and I’m ready to go electric. But, which one should I buy? 

Here to help me out is our founder and Brown University’s Provost for sustainability, Stephen Porder.

Hall: Hi, Steven.

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan, great to be with you. Again.

Hall: What qualifies you to give me advice on electric cars? I mean, you’re a professor, not a mechanic,

Porder: Totally. But I do think a lot about sustainability. And I do own two electric cars.

Hall: So you’ve done your research?

Porder: Lots of research.

Hall: Okay, here’s my situation. I’m hoping to buy a used electric car for under $25,000. Is that possible?

Porder: It is possible, but which one you buy will really depend on how you want to use it? 

Hall: What are some things I should consider?

Porder: Is it your only car? Or is it one of two in the family?

Hall: We kind of have one car that’s really the family car that does most of the driving. And then the second car is just when my husband and I both need the car, which is pretty rare.

Porder: That’s great. So that one should be the electric. And that really opens your options up because it doesn’t really matter that you have super long range or a huge charging network already in place. If you’re using that car for less than 100 miles a day, let’s say, there are lots of options.

Hall: Should I be worried about buying a used car? I mean, is the battery going to wear out?

Porder: So, the batteries are usually warrantied for something like eight years, or 100,000 miles or maybe even more? You definitely want to ask your dealer for a used car what the guarantee was on the battery. But I don’t think that should be a big concern.

Hall: What do you think I should buy?

Porder: Well, in the used car market, the first one in the market that was really successful is the Nissan Leaf. And they seem to be quite reliable. The downside to them is that their range is a little bit lower, like maybe 100 miles or 150 miles. But they’re not very expensive. A used one would definitely fit in your under $25,000 range.

Another one I would check out is the Chevy Bolt, it’s sort of a similar size has a little longer range.

Volkswagen has one as well, I’m not as familiar with and they’re a little newer, so I’m not sure how much the used market is.

And then finally there is now a Hyundai on the market knew that somewhere close to $25,000. So that’s another thing to think about.

Hall: I am sold on buying an electric car. But for people who aren’t yet convinced, give me your pitch.

Porder: Reason number one way, way, way more fun to drive. What’s the word for squealing your tires?

Hall: It’s a burnout.

Porder: I’ve never burned out before until I test drove an electric car.

Hall: I think you’d like do a burnout but whatever.

Porder: Okay, yeah, I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m losing credibility, left and right.

Number two, you wake up every morning with a full tank or full battery, you plug it in at night, you never have to think about it, you’re good to go.

Reason number three, it’s cheaper to drive. And it’s cheaper over the lifetime of the car. Because there’s way fewer parts to repair. There’s no exhaust, there’s no gas tank.

And the last one is really important. A gas car emits about seven times more per mile than an electric car.

Hall: And that even takes into account the carbon emissions that are created making the electricity that the car uses?

Porder: Absolutely, because electric motors are just way, way, way more efficient than gas motors.

Hall: So would you say if someone needs a new car, now’s the time, just buy an electric? There’s no reason not to?

Porder: Unless it’s your only car and you do a lot of long-distance driving. Absolutely.

Hall: Thanks, Stephen.

Porder: Thanks, Megan. Always happy to talk.

That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. 

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at “ask possibly.”

Possibly is a co-production of The Public’s Radio, Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society and Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative

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Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Last week, we broke down the basics of how our electric grid works. Today, we’re tackling a more specific question.

If we all switch over to electric cars, can the grid handle it? To find out I called up our founder Stephen Porder, who’s also the Provost of Sustainability at Brown University. Welcome, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: Hi Megan, good to be here. Good to hear from you.

Megan Hall: Last week, we talked about how the electric grid can’t store any energy, it basically has to make electricity in the moment to respond to our needs. Knowing that if everyone today decided to get an electric vehicle, could the grid handle all those people plugging their cars in to charge them?

Stephen Porder: So if it all happened today, the answer is no. And let me explain why. So when I plug in my electric vehicle, it essentially doubles the amount of electricity flowing into my house at that time. So you can imagine that if everybody plugs in their vehicle at the same time, that doubles the number of houses out there, right, and that’s a big increase in demand.

Megan Hall: Considering that our grid can’t handle charging a bunch of electric cars right now. Does that mean I should hold off on buying one?

Stephen Porder: Absolutely not. Our grid can handle the number of electric cars that are being built right now. And electric vehicles, on average are four times more friendly for emissions than gas vehicles. So it’s time to switch to electric cars. It’s time to also invest in upgrading electrical infrastructure.

Megan Hall: What would it take for a state like where we live in Rhode Island, or you know, the United States in general, to get to the point where we could handle most people transitioning to electric cars, what needs to happen?

Stephen Porder: Electric cars alone are one of the challenges but they’re not going to come overnight, right? We have hundreds of millions of vehicles in this country, people don’t buy a new vehicle every day. And in fact, the auto manufacturers aren’t even producing that many electric vehicles yet, this is going to be a transition that takes time. And we’re going to need to upgrade our grid infrastructure to get ready for that. And that’s part of why when people talk about a path towards fixing climate change, they talk so much about infrastructure,

Megan Hall: What can we do to hurry this transition to electric cars along?

Stephen Porder: We can do our part by electrifying our vehicles. And the utilities and the politicians have to do their part by making our grid robust enough to handle those changes.

Megan Hall: All right, so let’s say I do manage to buy an electric car, given the way the grid works now, what would you say is the best time for me to charge it? So I don’t put as much stress on the existing system?

Stephen Porder: Oh, great question. So right now, just charge it overnight, preferably after about eight or 9pm. And the reason for that is that industry isn’t really going strong at that time. People are starting to wind down for the evening. And so you know, appliances are being turned off and so forth and so on. And if you plug it in, when you go to bed, it’ll be ready to go in the morning. You won’t have to go to the gas station, you’ll be fully charged and ready to go.

Megan Hall Great. Thanks, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: Thanks, Megan. Talk soon.

Megan Hall: That’s it for today. For more information or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet. Go to the public’s radio.org/possibly or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at “Ask Possibly.”

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute of Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative and The Public’s Radio.

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Our founder, Stephen Porder, who’s also the Provost of Sustainability at Brown University, has some ideas. He just got back from living in France for a year and he noticed some differences in the ways that country approaches energy and transportation. 

Welcome, Stephen!

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan, it’s great to be back. How are you doing?

Megan Hall: I’m great. So what were you doing in France?

Stephen Porder: I was on sabbatical working with some geochemists on some of my science and finishing a book and eating a ridiculous amount of bread and cheese.

Megan Hall: That sounds lovely. What does France do that we should consider trying here in the US?

Stephen Porder: Well, I was living in Paris, which as you know, is obviously an urban environment. And the first thing that caught my eye almost on day one, was how many electric vehicle charging stations there were just on the side of the street, sort of like parking meters. So you’d go every couple of blocks, there’d be five or six cars plugged in. Those were personal cars, rental cars, whatever.

Megan Hall: Why does it make a difference? I mean, don’t people usually just charge their car at home or on the highway?

Stephen Porder: So charging on the highway still takes a long time. I just got an EV and it takes almost an hour to charge. And most people aren’t on the highway a lot, especially in cities, people are driving short distances less than four miles at a time. And then the other thing is that not everyone lives in a standalone home in a suburban setting. If you live in an apartment building, or you live in a rental, you might not be able to put a charger and you might not own the property.

Stephen Porder: But if you can pull up to work park on the street and charge there come out at the end of the day, you’re fully charged. 

Megan Hall: What’s something else France does that the US should try to copy? 

Stephen Porder: Well, I’m not sure the US should try and copy it. But France gets most of its electricity from nuclear power. And while nuclear has many issues associated with it, one thing it’s really good for is not emitting co2 during electricity production. Now in the US, we’ve been shying away from nuclear for quite some time.

But France has a point we need an electricity grid that doesn’t generate greenhouse gases. So yes, it’s great to have electric vehicles. But we also want a way to charge them that doesn’t produce any emissions. So what should we do here in the US instead, here I think the path forward is through offshore wind and solar and onshore wind in windy places like Texas, in the Midwest,

Megan Hall: If you were to give advice to the people who are designing this infrastructure plan, what would you tell them?

Stephen Porder: There’s a lot we can learn from a lot of different places. And you know, I’m no way saying that France is better than the US or perfect or anything like that.

But there are some things about what they’re doing that I think we could really learn from this problem of climate change is so vast and is going to require so much creative thinking that I don’t think anyone has all the answers. And so looking around for bits and pieces we can pull from different places is clearly going to be critical in moving forward.

Megan Hall: Now that you’re back, do you think you’re going to do anything that’s more French?

Stephen Porder: Well, I’m hoping to learn how to bake some bread because I’m definitely jonesing for French bread now that I’m home.

Megan Hall: Great. Thanks, Steven. It’s great talking to you and welcome home!

Stephen Porder: Thank you, Megan. It’s great to be back and great talking to you as always.

Megan Hall: That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. 

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet, and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. And today, I’m in Portland, Oregon. 

We drove here in our old RV from Rhode Island. It’s a really fun vehicle, but the gas mileage isn’t great.

I wondered if we created more greenhouse gases driving than flying, which is what we usually do when we visit my family. 

Here to help me answer that question is Stephen Porder, our founder and the provost of sustainability at Brown University. Hi, Stephen!

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan, you made it! Congratulations!

Megan: Thanks! 

Stephen: How was your trip?

Megan Hall: It was great! I loved staying in a different place every day. And, despite having a 1979 RV, we didn’t have any major mechanical problems. 

Stephen: I’m really glad to hear that. I’ve definitely been worrying about you. 

Megan: Well, we’re safe. We’re all fine. But, I really called you to help me figure out if we created more emissions on this trip than we would if we flew across the country.

Stephen: Right, so the four of you flew across the country, from Boston to Portland, it would be about two and a half to three tonnes of CO2 emitted. 

Megan: Okay, but before I give you the data on the trip, there’s something you should know- This is a recording of me and my husband Ryan at one of our gas stops in Nebraska.

Megan: okay, so, um, our odometer stopped working. So we don’t know how far we’ve gone.

Ryan: But it’s great for the resale value.

Megan: Our trip odometer is stuck at around 1 thousand miles. It stopped working somewhere in Iowa. 

Stephen: Well, I guess we’ll just go to Google for that. 

Megan: Alright, so I know that we used about four hundred forty six gallons of gas. 

And, if we just go off the distance on the map, we traveled three thousand, two hundred ninety five miles. 

So, what does that tell us?

Stephen: You were averaging a whopping 7.4 miles per gallon. You might even do worse than a hummer. Not sure.

Megan: Oh no. Single digits!

Stephen: Yeah, single digits. Definitely not so good.

Megan: How does that compare to flying across the country to Oregon? 

Stephen: Yeah, not so great. That’s four tonnes of CO2, versus two and a half to three flying. 

Megan: Ok, so it’s making me kind of doubt our new plan to become RV people. 

Stephen: Yeah, definitely living in a rolling house that gets seven miles to the gallon is probably not the way to lower your carbon footprint.

Megan: I will say, that although it sounds like we created some serious greenhouse gas emissions on this trip, it actually taught me more about conserving energy and water than any airplane ride.

Stephen: Why is that?

Megan: Well, everywhere we go, we have to think about where our energy was coming from. If we plugged into a campground, it was nice and quiet. And we could run all of our appliances. But if we were at a farm or something like that, we had to turn on our noisy generator. 

And then one day, we ran out of water while my daughter was in the middle of a shower. So we had to pour seltzer on her head to get the shampoo off. So yeah, it’s made me a lot more aware of the limited quantity of all of these resources.

Stephen: Yeah, once you’re off the grid, or once you’re really counting the energy you use, it makes you think hard about all the waste that you have in the system.

Megan: So I’ve learned a few things, but maybe I shouldn’t drive this thing back.

Stephen: Do me a favor. I’m gonna worry if you drive the thing back.

Megan: Okay, thanks, Steven, talk to you later.

Stephen: Be safe.

Megan: Alright! That’s it for today. For more information or to ask a question about the way you recycle, use energy, or make any other choice that affects the planet, go to “the public’s radio dot org slash possibly.” Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. 

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and the Public’s Radio.

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Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet, and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. 

Earlier this year, we did an episode comparing emissions for flying versus driving the same distance. But what if you’re driving an RV? 

We’re answering this question because my family goes out to Oregon twice a year. And like a lot of people these days, we’re ditching air travel and driving across the country instead. 

Here to help me answer this question is Stephen Porder, our founder and the provost of sustainability at Brown University. Welcome, Stephen. 

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan, how’s it going? 

Megan Hall: Good. So, let’s take a step back first, in our other episode, we said that driving creates less emissions if you have more than two people in the car. Remind me, why is that?

Stephen: Well, it’s kind of weird, actually. But when we calculate emissions for flying, we do it by seat. So four people travel on a plane, the emissions we say are four times as much for those four people. 

But when you’re driving in a car, we say, hey, the family packed into the car, we just count the emissions from the car. So it’s the same regardless of the number of people. So if you have four people in a car, that is more efficient in terms of emissions, then four people on an airplane.

Megan Hall: How does that calculation change if we’re driving a giant, old RV?

Stephen: I guess it would depend on how giant and how old.

Megan: Okay, we bought something called a Dodge AVCO. It’s from 1979.

Stephen: It may surprise you, but I am not an RV aficionado. So I don’t actually know what its gas mileage is like, my guess is not very good. 

Megan: How guilty should I feel about all of the gas we’ll be burning?

Stephen: That’s a very deep, philosophical question. I’m sure that an RV is going to use more gas than if you got into a little compact car with yourself and your family and loaded everything up, but on the other hand, you won’t be staying in hotels, right? So maybe it won’t be so bad? I’m not sure. 

Megan: But I’m assuming that I’ll still create more emissions than if we flew across the country?

Stephen: I guess I would say it’s likely. But there are four of you. So it might come out about even we’ll have to see.

Megan: How could I test this out? Should I be collecting some data?

Stephen: For sure. The first data we need is how many emissions would come from you flying across the country so we can compare?

Megan: Okay, so I used a few emissions calculators, and for a family of four flying one way from Boston to Portland, Oregon, it looks like we’d create between two and a half to three tonnes of co2. 

Stephen: Yeah, that’s kind of a lot. It’s about, I don’t know, six months worth of emissions for the average person living in France.

Megan: How do I compare those emissions to what I’ll create driving the RV?

Stephen: Okay, well, that’s easy. When you’re on your road trip. Just keep track of how much gas you buy and how far you travel.

Megan: Do I have to keep track of it the entire time? Because we’ll probably stop for gas like several times a day.

Stephen: I know you’re gonna be very busy in the RV. But it probably makes sense to do it at least a whole bunch of times. Traffic conditions, Hilliness, wind speed, all those things are going to affect your gas mileage. So in order to get a good average, you really do want to do it a lot. Maybe not the entire way. But why not?

Megan: Ok, then what do we do?

Stephen: Well, why don’t you call me when you get to Portland? And we’ll, we’ll talk about what we found.

Megan: Okay. Thanks, Steven, talk to you soon.

Stephen: Talk to you soon! Drive safely. Have a great trip.

That’s it for today. For more information or to ask a question about the way you recycle, use energy, or make any other choice that affects the planet, go to “the public’s radio dot org slash possibly.” Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. 

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and the Public’s Radio.

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