By: Felicity Feinman
Hi! My name is Felicity Feinman. I care about the environment and also drive a car that releases greenhouse gases on a weekly basis.
I know I’m not alone in this conflict. Many of my friends haven’t bothered to get a driver’s license at all and there’s a litany of statistics showing that millennials as a whole are moving away from the open road and towards ridesharing, public transit and a good old fashioned walk.
I could accomplish the first two jobs using public transit, but it would take about three times as long. The third trip is the hardest one for me to give up. For me, visiting the forests, mountains and ocean of stunning B.C. motivates me to fight even harder to stave off the climate crisis and preserve this natural gift. Many of my favourite places just aren’t accessible by public transit.
So, when many of my friends don’t even know whether the gas is on the left or right, how did I end up with a classy sedan parked in my driveway? The answer is pretty boring—three years ago, I needed it to get to work.
I leased a white Toyota Corolla that I thought would keep me safe from my own tendency to brake too late while also telling the world “I’m fun! I didn’t pick a dark colour.”
Now, that lease is ending in January 2020 and I’m faced with a choice. I don’t need a car to get to work any longer. Can I justify buying a new car and ignoring my personal contribution to the climate crisis? What are my transportation options?
Now that I’m in a situation where I can take the bus to work, I use my plucky little compact car to:
- get me to the bouldering gym, which I visit about twice a week
- help with more ambitious grocery trips
- drive me to the beautiful wilderness that surrounds Vancouver, where I hike, paddle and generally frolic
I could accomplish the first two jobs using public transit, but it would take about three times as long. The third trip is the hardest one for me to give up. For me, visiting the forests, mountains and ocean of stunning B.C. motivates me to fight even harder to stave off the climate crisis and preserve this natural gift. Many of my favourite places just aren’t accessible by public transit.
In Vancouver, we’re fortunate to have the Evo car share option. The fleet of Evo Toyota Prius cars are parked all over the city and by paying an hourly or daily rate, you can use them on an ad hoc basis.
I do see downsides to this option. In my hiking adventures, I’m often tempted to drive up an old logging road to get to a legendary trail and I would not be comfortable navigating potholes in an Evo. From what I’ve heard from friends, the Evo system also frequently requires walking a few blocks to find a nearby car share, which is a little inconvenient.
However, I love that Evo is a more affordable way to drive a more sustainable vehicle. I’ve put 35,000 km on my Corolla in three years. According to the Offsetters Car Emissions Calculator, if I had been driving a Prius that whole time, I would have reduced my emissions from 2 tonnes of CO2 to 1.293—not a negligible difference.
There is a zero emissions option on the table for city transportation called the bicycle. Once I am no longer paying a car lease and insurance, I look forward to saving up for one of these handy machines. However, I would only use it for certain routes as the bike infrastructure in Vancouver is a far cry from more advanced European metropolises like Copenhagen.
Another low emissions choice would be to purchase an electric vehicle. Quite frankly, this is out of my budget range, but I know these cars are getting more affordable every year. I can’t wait until an EV is in my price range, but I don’t see it as an option in the near future.
Through my work on the Youth Advisory Board for Waterlution, I’ve been grateful to meet other young Canadians who are asking questions about how we can live in harmony with our natural environment. One of these Canadians was a witty, empathetic, beautiful soul named Danielle Moore.
I loved reading Danielle’s take on the climate crisis through her touching blog—the Cautious Optimist. Danielle encouraged all of us to approach the future with pragmatism, a light heart and also deep compassion.
Danielle’s blog changed my perspective and when she passed away so tragically, I was filled with sadness and anger, but also gratitude for the short yet meaningful impact she made on my life.
I was motivated to continue learning skills that would help me thrive in a carbon-riddled world, in the same way that Danielle had documented on her blog.
In her post to launch the blog, Danielle listed “repairing things like bikes [and] cars” as one of the skills she would like to learn. I never got the chance to ask her, but I would imagine Danielle included car repair on this list because she recognized the pragmatic need to use a car at least occasionally in a country as large as Canada where we have only just begun to transition to EV infrastructure.
So, with all of this in mind, I found myself on a sunny Saturday at a badass female-owned auto shop in North Vancouver called Leah’s Automotive to learn how to repair my car. Yes, I’ve been driving a car for three years that I don’t know how to repair.
With the expertise of a professor and the coolness factor of Beyoncé at Paris Fashion Week, Leah taught me and 10 other womxn how to check the tire pressure and oil levels, what you need for a long road trip and what the heck a timing belt is.
I don’t have the answers to these big questions. As Danielle so eloquently highlighted, one way or another, we will survive this climate crisis and we’ll do it by teaching and helping one another. I hope hearing my worries and musings about living a more responsible life has left you feeling less lonely.
The class was organized by the Bad Academy—a local initiative to teach womxn skills that are traditionally considered “dirty” or “unfeminine”. Something tells me Danielle would have loved that.
As you can probably tell, the class left me with a lot to think about. What does it mean to take individual responsibility for the climate crisis? Should this even be our focus when we also need radical systemic change?
I don’t have the answers to these big questions. As Danielle so eloquently highlighted, one way or another, we will survive this climate crisis and we’ll do it by teaching and helping one another. I hope hearing my worries and musings about living a more responsible life has left you feeling less lonely.
I would love to hear how you navigate the transportation question in your own life. Have you made any big changes recently? How soon do you see yourself living a zero carbon lifestyle? Or are you already there? If so, please share your secrets and if not, know that you’re not alone. I’m right there with you, listening to my podcast on the bus and saving up my pennies to get a bike.
To learn more about The Cautious Optimist Legacy Project, visit: https://waterlution.org/the-cautious-optimist-danielle-moore-legacy-project/