January 2025 Newsletter: Sustainable Modes of Transportation

Fourth Edition

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Ecomorphosis Newsletter. As a small business owner, I appreciate your continued support. Feel free to forward this on to anyone who you think may benefit from our services, or would be interested in the contents of this email.

This month, we're going to focus on Sustainable modes of transportation. As a reminder, if any of these alternative modes of transportation interest you, book a Home Sustainability Audit with Ecomorphosis and I'd be glad to go in depth with you about your options. We can talk about transportation the entire 90 minutes if you would like.

The Most Sustainable Transportation Methods:

Pictured above, is me, riding my bike through the pharmacy drive through. Or should we call it a ride through? Bicycles are technically legal road vehicles. Though it is not always easy to ride them on the road.

Walking,

Biking,

Public Transportation.

In that order. Why are these methods so sustainable? Besides the initial manufacturing of the bicycle, walking and biking only require metabolic energy that you exert from the food you eat. While these aren't fully net zero impact, they have a much lower impact on the planet than other modes of transportation since there are no fossil fuels consumed to utilize these modes of transportation. Great for the planet and your health.

However, there are many places around the world, but especially in the United States, where walking and biking are simply not practical to get to all the places you may need to go. It is no secret that many communities are not walkable. There may not be any sidewalks, and even if you can bike a short distance to your destination, often times it is extremely challenging to do so with lack of bike lanes, hills, and inability to meet the speed of other vehicles making it unsafe to bike on the road.

Public transportation is often a more practical solution for those wanting to reduce their carbon footprint in the United States. Public transit is more sustainable thanks to space and energy efficiency. While subway systems are usually contained to the larger cities in America, most average cities at least have a public transit system with a fleet of busses. To understand why busses are more sustainable than driving individual cars, check out this in depth Scientific American article.

Scientific American Article

If you are curious about how to integrate more walking, biking, and taking public transit into your life, Ecomorphosis would be glad to help you figure out your options.

Vehicles

Let's be realistic, in greater Cincinnati, owning or leasing your own vehicle is one of the most common modes of transportation that people choose. Considering our country has been built around this system, it's understandable why. There are a lot of reasons our communities were planned this way, and we won't get into why here, other than to say having 1 person driving in a vehicle is less than ideal than public transit. But until there are better transit systems in place, one thing you can do if you drive a vehicle is to consider switching out your Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to a hybrid or full electric vehicle (EV). The reason that plug in hybrid electric (PHEV), or EVs have so much potential to be more environmentally friendly than their ICE counterparts are due to:

1. Lower or zero tailpipe emissions (which then concentrates the emissions to the power plant where the energy is generated, thus making it easier to reduce the emissions at that one source)

2. Potential to be powered partially or solely with renewable energy

If giving up the car isn't an option (I get, I really do.), but you're curious about hybrid (gasoline-electric) or all electric vehicles (EV) we can help you with that too. I have personal experience with hybrid and full EVs. Navigating the pros and cons of purchasing or leasing these vehicles, the tax incentives available, and then the charging infrastructure can be overwhelming. Let Ecomorphosis do the research, and you can feel more at ease to make that decision for yourself.

Click the photo above to check out our recent Facebook post about different vehicle fuel types available.

Between your 2025 tax return, a tax credit for next year, or selling an old vehicle, you may have more money available to purchase one of these vehicles than you think you do.

Additionally, there is an ever growing charging infrastructure, as well as electric and hybrid vehicle used car market. It is becoming more realistic to purchase an electric vehicle. If I can find charging stations to get from Cincinnati up to Dayton and back with my ~70 mile all electric range, I can teach you how to do so with even greater ease.

How you may incorporate more sustainable transportation into your life is going to look different whether you live on a farm in rural Ohio, or in an apartment downtown, so trust Ecomorphosis to help you come up with personalized solutions. Our Home Sustainability Audits also cover reducing waste, reusable swaps, recycling, energy efficiency and more for only $99.

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