We may not be right about our estimates of the worst polluting commuters, at least I wasn’t, with the airplane topping my list. A study conducted by Mikhail Chester and Arpath Hovard of the University of California, Berkeley, has revealed that all our assumptions aren’t correct and it is the train not the plane that causes maximum damage.

Steam Train

Steam Train

The study took into consideration aspects that we never thought of before, comparing 11 modes of transportation on an equal footing. The comparison is well drawn as it considers the pollution created by factories whilst manufacturing the commuters, the distance traveled in the lifetime and even the number of passengers on each commuter in a lifetime.

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