Air Date: Week of September 21, 2007

Carpooling reduces carbon emissions, and now you can find a ride online, reports Living on Earth’s Mitra Taj.

Transcript

[CAR STARTING]

TAJ: When it comes to the carbon-emitting activity of driving, an Internet start-up is betting we care as much about our warming planet as we do our destinations.

Goloco has teamed up with the online social networking site Facebook to help passengers and drivers find each other. Members throughout the country post information about upcoming trips, look at where others are going, arrange rideshares, and lighten their carbon footprints.

The Department of Transportation says 86 percent of Americans drive to work alone. And for every mile driven, the average passenger car sends nearly a pound of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Goloco hopes to make carpooling—not just to work but to shopping centers, sporting events, and concerts—fun. Members can check out the pictures, interests, and riding histories of their potential car mates before working out the details of the ride.

Sharing the 56 miles from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode Island with Rima—a Beirut native who likes jazz and watching South Park—will save the driver $13 and spare the atmosphere 50 pounds of CO2. After every login, Goloco tells members—known as oLos-- how many pounds of carbon dioxide they’ve saved to date.

By sharing rides and getting closer to one another; oLos get closer to slowing climate change.

That’s this week’s cool fix for a hot planet. I’m Mitra Taj.

 

Links

Goloco Website