A Short Morning Rant - Not Particularly 3-speed Related

 They say that inflation is hitting the country, and when I listen to the radio, what they seem to be talking about most is rising gas prices.  I find myself yelling at NPR - "get out of your damn car and ride a bike!"

I acknowledge that particular blanket solution - which is my solution for so many things - may not be completely fair.  There's probably a degree of white privilege involved in my family choosing not to own a car for eight years when our children were young.  And, while we were never truly wealthy, (I seem to remember our annual income as around $27,000 when we first had kids), we did have enough that I was able to stay home with the kids, and having one stay-at-home parent goes a long way in helping a family to do almost everything by bicycle.  So, yes, we're privileged, but one of those things we did with our privilege was to make choices that benefitted the planet,  benefitted our own personal health, and benefitted the health of our community.

I get the feeling that many privileged people are among those feigning "harm" at the increase in the cost of gasoline.  The ones complaining the loudest, I imagine, are the ones who are suffering the least.

I did vote for Joe Biden, but I'm disappointed that his plans still pander to our worst instincts.  Instead of trying to address climate change by completely rethinking how we transport ourselves in this country, he is proposing that we replace the same old shit with electrical vehicles.  Sure, that might be a little bit cleaner, depending on how the electricity is produced, but it will still be the same massive extraction of materials to produce the cars, the same traffic congestion, the same massive parking lots and big box stores.  That's not the future I want for my children - who, admittedly, are now pretty much adults.  I hope to live long enough to see a future where a personal automobile is a rare sight.  Bicycles should be the vehicle of the future, not flying cars.  

I have long been a fan of Ivan Illich's essay, "Energy and Equity",  and in it he speaks of seeking to create a society with the "minimum feasible energy."  I believe that should be our global goal, and we - the collective human race - should always ask a) Can this be done with metabolic power? and, if not b) What is the least energy intensive way this can be done?

I firmly believe that is the best way to secure a long term future with the greatest biodiversity on this planet.

I believe, of course, that a failure to pursue that course to address climate change cannot be laid at the feet of politicians.  Our society needs to change its priorities.  Any politician with a strong vision of a low energy future would not even make it past the primaries at this point. 

I left it there a few days ago.  I would add, though, that it all seems very difficult.  I would say that we should end all subsidies to the petroleum industry, and at the very least, the cost of gasoline should reflect the actual cost of getting it out of the ground (or sea bed) and refining it into gasoline.  The price of gas should also reflect the cost of our military presence in the Middle East.  (I wouldn't want to claim that protecting our oil interests are the only reason we're in the Middle East, but you can't deny that it's a big reason.) It's easy to write as if everyone could just hop on a bicycle to begin their work day, but I acknowledge it's not so simple. What about those who really and actually depend on their cars for their jobs? Who are too ill or too out of shape to bike or walk even a mile to work, not to mention those people who now have hours long commutes. What about those families who do still depend on heating oil?  Free solar panels and ground source heat pumps?  Once you start trying to retrofit existing structures you run into a lot of money.  That seems to be a big sticking point right there.  Every home, especially here in the sunny Southwest, should be passive solar, but we're on the verge of a megadrought. We don't want to build more homes.  Is there a way to retrofit what we have in a cost efficient way? Composting toilets are a no brainer, especially in drought stricken areas, but in spite of Sim Van der Ryn's publishing The Toilet Papers back in the seventies, It still seems they haven't been widely adopted.  (Our favourite, and the design we use in our house is from the Humanure Handbook. It makes me very happy, as well, that our daughter's college, College of the Atlantic, has compositing toilets in their buildings.) I believe these problems need to be addressed from the ground up, beginning at the community level, but how do you get people inspired to change their habits?  particularly in such a politically divided and acerbic atmosphere.  (I have heard stories, not confirmed, about people parking their gas-powered pickup trucks in front of charging stations for electric cars because - well, because of why? - I really don't understand that behavior.)

Still, it should be a simple matter to get more people on bicycles.  And bicycles are fun and enjoyable.  It's not as if it's asceticism.  They're not the hair shirt of transportation.  I'm much happier on a bicycle than in a car.  If I can spread that word, and that particular joy, maybe that's enough.

My good friend Paige Pinnell, who was a stalwart of various environmental causes in New Mexico, gave my daughter a copy of the Lorax at the baby shower for her.  "Start 'em young," he wrote inside. I hope the generations coming up behind me can effect the sorts of structural change in the way we live life on the planet.  I'm hopeful, most of the time, for the future, but the sight of a road backed up with cars, in a city as small as this one, sometimes brings me down and leads to one-sided rants such as this.