This week we were asked to reflect on our carbon footprints- and immediately my mind jumped to the 16+ hours on a commercial jet it took me to get here. I have a friend from Norway in my Agroecology class who is opposed to airline travel from a climate perspective so he t0ok a boat from Norway to Europe and then trains all the way to Bishkek. My carbon footprint from that trip alone is pretty astronomical and is going to take some work to combat. While I tend to take public transportation (or my chevrolegs) everywhere, people always pass me on electric scooters and I am so curious what the impact of those scooters are. Bishkek is electrically powered through hydropower and coal from what I have gathered, but I have a hard time accepting that battery powered scooters are really much better than a car. So naturally I googled this and the first results were from scooter companies boasting green energy and environmentally friendlessness but scroll down a bit more and you get this: “Researchers at North Carolina State University found that traveling by scooter produces more greenhouse gas emissions per mile than traveling by bus, bicycle, moped or on foot.” So, I feel like I was correct that public transportation (and my shoeburus) are better.  I think Bishkek could stand to benefit from a bike share as an alternative to the scooter craze, but if this really took off I’m afraid the sidewalks (the bike paths are on the sidewalks) would become quickly overcrowded.

A bit of a subject change, but one of the side affects of all the car pollution and coal powered heating is the thick, heavy quality the air takes on. Everyone warned me it gets worse in the Winter, but by the time winter hit my lungs were getting pretty accustomed to the air as it was (and the steroid inhaler I was taking everyday probably), so I got cocky. Flash forward one week and I wake up with a sore throat and dreams of fires the air feels almost tactile with how convoluted it gets. I’ve only been breathing this way for a week, but what does a lifetime do to your lungs? Well I googled it and naturally its all bad.