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Hire a green limo or car service

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Hesitant to rent wheels on your next vacation or business trip? Need a lift from the airport? Simply want to be chauffeured around the city for the day or after your wedding reception? Hiring a green limo or car service is an easy, eco-friendly way to travel in style while minding carbon emissions. It also gives you a chance to see the sights while someone keeps his or her eyes on the road for you.

Find it! Green limo, car, and shuttle services

This isn't your parents' white stretch limo. Green car, limo, and shuttle services offer hybrid and biodiesel vehicles to those who need a lift—from the airport, to a meeting, or just around town—but would rather have someone else put the pedal to the metal. Some companies will even chauffeur your wedding, corporate event, funeral, or winery tour.

Hiring a green limo or car service helps you go green because...

  • When accelerating, a hybrid rental car will run off a battery-charged electric motor, not gasoline, curtailing global-warming-causing tailpipe emissions. With significantly better fuel economy, hybrids can reduce air pollution by as much as 90 percent.[1]
  • While at a standstill (a common taxi habit), a hybrid's engine shuts itself off and the vehicle runs on electricity. Every two minutes of idling in a standard car consumes the same amount of gas required to drive approximately one mile—a waste of resources and a contributor to smog.[2]

The livery and limo car service industry is one traditionally populated with over-sized, gas-guzzling, pollutant-spewing luxury vehicles such as the Lincoln Town Car. Compared to the fuel economy of hybrids that hover around 50 mpg, the fuel economy of a standard limo dwindles in the low teens. Aside from decreased fuel costs, a hybrid such as a Toyota Prius costs less to purchase and maintain than a Lincoln Town Car, making hybrid fleets a more viable economic and environmental choice to livery car operators.

Motor transportation is responsible for about one-third of CO2 emissions in the US, with cars and light trucks accounting for a majority.[3] Together, cars, SUVs, and minivans emit more than 300 million tons of carbon each year in the US. These emissions are equivalent to those generated by a 50,000-mile-long coal train—which would reach between Washington, DC and Los Angeles 17 times.[4] For every gallon of gas a car burns, it emits nearly 20 pounds of CO2.[5] Thus, a 3,000-mile drive in a vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon produces 3,000 pounds of CO2. Although hiring a car service that has a hybrid or other biodiesel-fueled fleet may be a short-lived experience, those miles traveled will help curb these carbon emissions.

Glossary

  • automotive fuel economy: Fuel economy in cars is important because carbon dioxide emissions are directly related to the amount of fuel burned. "Miles per gallon," or mpg, is the way most Americans measure fuel economy, while other countries may use liters of fuel per 100 km traveled.

External links

Footnotes

  1. Care2 - EcoInfo: Hybrid Cars
  2. California Energy Commission - Consumer Energy Center
  3. Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting - Related DOT Programs: Transportation and Air Quality
  4. Environmental Defense - Global Warming on the Road
  5. Ecobridge.org - Causes of Global Warming

Comments

Rebecca
09/03/2008
10:30am
Rebecca

Another green transportation-related idea: We hired a shuttle to take our guests from the hotel to the ceremony to the reception and back again. Fewer cars on the road for the environment, and a responsible way to protect your guest's safety if you're serving alcohol.

ecollection
09/05/2008
2:47pm
ecollection

love it, rebecca. "don't drink and drive. get on the shuttle!" nice way to be green and add fun to your wedding!

ceejay2005
12/08/2008
11:51am
ceejay2005

Greener, less pollution in the city u live and for your kids,

Just make sure the drivers pull the passenger seat all the way up, so there is enough leg room.
http://www.autoglassguru.com/state-CA.html

tokmik
01/26/2009
2:06am
tokmik

It doesn't really matter because you'll probably be paying the same either way. As long as I get to where I'm going.

http://marketmailing.com

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