Back to the Future to Mitigate Global Warming: Are Firms like Postmates Part of the Answer?

As I have noted several times in past blogs, progress in reducing greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere has not been sufficient to deal with the problem.  This weekend the Seattle Times published an article about Chinese coal usage that was downright depressing. And today, the U.S. climate change assessment came out, painting a scary picture of the impacts of climate change on the U.S.

But every once in a while, new businesses come up with innovative ideas that provide a bit of optimism.  In this case a service called Postmates, a delivery service with a large bicycle fleet.

The idea of this service is sort of like Amazon on steroids:  instead of huge warehouses, whole cities becomes warehouses. 

A tricycle in an Amazon Warehouse

And just as some Amazon staff use bicycles to gather items in their vast buildings, Postmates cycle around major cities picking up a wide variety of items to be delivered to customers within an hour.  Like take-out food, medicines and pharmacy items, or anything else.  Including delivering a gift to a friend or transporting a package between any two locations in a city.

Postmate courier delivering items

What I like about Postmates is that most of their deliveries are by bicycle and that they are operating in a number of major U.S. cities (e.g., San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, and DC).  I understand from their website that they are in rapid expansion mode now.   The reduction in car usage resulting from their service has to be substantial, thus lessening emissions of CO2 and particulates in these urban locations.   So instead of driving around to pick up a meal or an item, a bicycle courier can do this for you with no greenhouse gas emission.

Perhaps Postmates should open a branch in Beijing. 

If you are interested in this company, they have a fun app (Android or IOS) to get items delivered from your favorite local places or to pick up an item you want transported to another location in your city.