And all this time you thought you were doing Mother Earth a favor by commuting to work. 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5595169
Just because I care about my impact on our enviroment; I’m trading in the Cannondale for a Hummer, going to McDonalds for dinner and then, on my way home, stop by the local convienence store for a pack of cigs…
The theory makes sense but I’d prefer to ride to work and live a few years longer and waste some extra fuel. Selfish, I know.
I propose Professor Karl T. Ulrich to be put to sleep now, in order to save energy.
That my friend is the first time you’ve made me laugh in a long time! I like the little bit of SAC that lingers within you!
He is one of those professors who makes you challenge all your embedded assumptions. A bit of an odd duck, but he was a very good prof when I had him.
He is one of those professors who makes you challenge all your embedded assumptions. A bit of an odd duck, but he was a very good prof when I had him.
That’s one of those thing like the estimates that if smokers stop smoking, it will untimately raise the cost of health care nationwide, since they will live longer and more likely end of with Alzheimers or other long term debilitating disease and end up using MORE medical resourses. So, we should all smoke and the cost of health care will fall.
maybe, just maybe, if i run a few of these professors over in my big ole ford excursion while i am cussing at myself for not riding into work that particular day, i can equal it all out! but, why ruin a good paint job with CRAP!
Following this logic, cyclists who drive (like me) are the worst enviromental offenders since we live longer but still drive our cars.
And all this time you thought you were doing Mother Earth a favor by commuting to work.
http://www.npr.org/....php?storyId=5595169
Just because I care about my impact on our enviroment; I’m trading in the Cannondale for a Hummer, going to McDonalds for dinner and then, on my way home, stop by the local convienence store for a pack of cigs…
The same logic applies, and I believe was found to be true, for cigarette smoking. They have increased health risks, creating increased health costs. However, due to a shorter life span, they are actually cheaper to insure, because they miss out on nursing homes, new hips, heart surgery, etc.
I dont have to worry about all that stuff, because all the males in my family die young of cancer. I am above the system and their “averages”!
this wasn’t as clever as i thought it would be.
biking is just used as somethign that makes you live longer, and i imagine that many other thigngs could be used instead (don’t married people live longer? it seems i heard something like that).
meanwhile, there’s nothing about driving a car that actually helps.
i thought this would be something along the lines of air pollution slowing the effects of global warming, but it seems to just be more like smartalec math.
-charles
A university actually paid for this research? No wonder the cost of education just keeps going up, small price to pay I guess since he is saving the planet!
I propose Professor Karl T. Ulrich to be put to sleep now, in order to save energy.
That’s a rather Modest Proposal. Instead, perhaps the cyclists who are living longer could promise to consume, say, children during the extra days of their lives rather than depleting more conventional valuable agricultural resources. That’s win-win because then those offspring would themselves stop depleting the earth.
I propose Professor Karl T. Ulrich to be put to sleep now, in order to save energy.
That’s a rather Modest Proposal. Instead, perhaps the cyclists who are living longer could promise to consume, say, children during the extra days of their lives rather than depleting more conventional valuable agricultural resources. That’s win-win because then those offspring would themselves stop depleting the earth.
Yes, I agree. Eating more babies is always the answer!
So roughly, I have to ride my bike to work everyday for 35 years to live 1 year longer. Over that 35 years I will save roughly 4500 gallons of gas. I doubt I would use 4500 gallons of gas or its energy equivalent in that extra year I’m alive.
ezrahallam,
Now you have violated the first rule of professorial research, that you are now applying logic to the research conclusion and questioning its validity. This is a sacriledge! How dare you challenge a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
I would think that the U of P would be embarrassed to discover their faculty conducting such research and reaching such conclusions that clearly don’t stand up in the real world. But we must remember the university environment is not the real world but a cloistered utopia many of whose residents regard the real world with disgust and disdain.
Ezra,
Here in the Great State of Iowa, the numbers are a little skewed because of our corn produced
Ethanol. You will acturally have to ride 1.67 million miles. ;-).
Get pedaling.
What surprises me here is that no one has commented on this stink nugget of a professor’s name- Ulrich… He’s some kind of relative to Jan, and is just trying to get all of us to not ride over the winter so that everyone else gets fat like Jan. Doping didn’t work, so maybe getting everyone else fatter will…