Fifty Plus (50+) - Cycling, Longevity and Environmentalism

This article is pulled from "Salon" dated 7/18/06:


Bikers, they ain't no good

If we were to take Wharton Business School professor Karl Ulrich seriously, we would have to rip our eyes out after reading his new working paper "The Environmental Paradox of Cycling."

http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/documents/ulrich-cycling-enviro-jul06.pdf

Here's the gist. Bicycling and other means of human-powered transportation consume less energy than driving, which is good for the environment. But all that healthy exercise makes cyclists live longer, which means they end up ultimately consuming more energy than they would have had they not biked. Which is bad for the environment. After much careful calculation (during which one imagines the professor cackling in contrarian glee and alarming his graduate students) Ulrich ends up determining that there is no net gain to the environment from biking.

Ulrich founded the carbon-offset provider TerraPass and is reputed to be an avid bike commuter. Even he concedes that his analysis is a "bizarre Swiftian argument." He is not out to banish bike lanes from the land, but merely to "correctly place human-powered transportation, and physical activity generally, at the center of a basic societal tension between the quest for longevity and the environmental costs of increased population."

Basically, what this boils down to is what I like to call the Nick Cave theory of human behavior: "People, they ain't no good." We're just bad for flowers and all other living things.

But hold on there for just a second. There are holes in this argument that you can drive a biodiesel-powered Hummer through. First and foremost: Isn't it likely that biking is a kind of gateway drug for enlightened resource consumption? I see it happen here in Berkeley all the time. First you start biking around town, then you put solar panels on your roof and start worm composting your newspapers. Suddenly, you find yourself raising organic free-range chickens in your backyard and hosting weekly meetings of your local Peak Oil Awareness encounter group. (And it should go without saying that you only wear clothing woven from all natural fibers. Lycra-clad bikers beware: Synthetic fibers are EVIL. You really are destroying the world.)

Ulrich grudgingly concedes this as a possibility near the end of his paper: "Those who adopt the bicycle as a means of transportation could potentially develop an increased awareness of the environmental impact of their actions and may over their lifetimes reduce energy consumption substantially in their other, non-transportation activities."

But that's a pretty wishy-washy stance. We can do far better! For those who would rather not look at their bicycle and see the specter of drowning polar bears, I give you Paul Higgins, a research fellow at U.C. Berkeley currently working as the legislative fellow for climate change in the office of Sen. Mike DeWine, R, Ohio. In an article published in Environmental Conservation, "Exercise-based Transportation Reduces Oil Dependence, Carbon Emissions and Obesity," Higgins proposes that if "the revenue saved through decreased health care spending on obesity is redirected toward carbon abatement" we could reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions by around 35 percent. Who needs Kyoto? Just get on your bike!

Ulrich: Cyclists live longer, thus consuming more energy, bad for environment. Result: Bikers lose all will to live.

Higgins: Cyclists aren't fat, thus lower healthcare costs, providing money for carbon abatement. Result: Bikers save the world.

Could you ask for a better glass half-full/glass half-empty dichotomy?

But there's one other thing Ulrich ignores. How many bikers, having been told that their beloved mode of transportation is a waste of time, will be impelled into fits of murderous rage and start blowing up SUVs? Wouldn't the resulting population decrease compensate for the energy consumed during their longer lives?

-- Andrew Leonard

The thing the good researcher fails to quantify is that regular bike rides (to steal a phrase from novelist Tom Robbins) increases the world production of "syrup of wahoo," while being stuck in automobile traffic decidely does not. Syrup of Wahoo, in Robbins' words, is "a kind of emotional extract produced by the simultaneous boiling down of beauty, risk, wildness, and mirth." I'm taking it on faith that increased syrup of wahoo makes us more likely to appreciate our planet and us less likely to destroy it.

I once had the misfortune of replying to my medical insurance provider’s request to determine who the responsible party of an accident. I was clueless, as I had an ingrown toe nail removed.

I quickly determined that the toe nail was a result of living and walking and getting older. I have no intentions of stopping that process anytime soon and was forced to write them a lengthy letter telling them that this was “no accident.”

Some of these studies just beg for common sense!

I agree that the good professor would do well to take into consideration lower medical costs due to a healthier population and a better quality of life for the cyclist. Somewhere there has to be a net benefit. None the less, what do you say we continue to pedal and be happier and healthier than our peers? Now that is no accident!

"Exercise-based Transportation Reduces Oil Dependence, Carbon Emissions and Obesity," Higgins proposes that if "the revenue saved through decreased health care spending on obesity is redirected toward carbon abatement" we could reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions by around 35 percent. Who needs Kyoto? Just get on your bike!

So is this an argument to take all my old steel bikes to the dump and then loose three grand + on a Carbon Fiber bike? Do CF bikes count towards sucking excess CO2 out of the atmosphere? Now if we can only convince volcanos to keep their big fat mouths closed, then we could really put a dent in excess greenhouse gasses.

Keep in mind that if the dear professor really does commute to Wharton, he's riding in some pretty heavy auto emission each day. That's sure to cloud his thinking. I mean the basic premise that consuming energy over one's life as not desirable is so unbelieveably stupid. The real question is what are the outcomes from the energy consumption. Hence, I live longer; so, ask me what I do with those additional years and what the net gain or loss is of all my activities during that time. I'll bet he doesn't have a way to even describe an adequate range of desirable outcomes. This is just another study done to show students how to conduct research. It falls short in not addressing the central issue of what the ultimate outcomes should be for the consumption of energy.

There has been a similar argument made regarding health costs for smokers - it turns out that the end-of-life medical costs are relatively constant regardless of the malady that claims your life, and since smokers don't live as long as non smokers, they actually end up consuming a smaller portion of the healthcare system. If a govt. entity wants to sue a tobacco company to recover medical costs for taking care of smokers, they might be faced with an invoice rather than a checque.

So ?

Wharton Business School professor Karl Ulrich
can go F*ck himself and the car he rode in
on...

Maybe I missed it but the professor seems to have left a huge amount of energy out of the equation, namely the energy spent by society to accomodate cars. Highway 401 near me is 14 lanes wide in some places, but the bike path along Poplar Plains that I take home is about 3 feet wide. Which one required more energy to build?

.............................. This is just another study done to show students how to conduct research....................................

More likely just a study designed to give the professor another helping of government pork. I don't mind if folks want to spend their day answering questions that need not be asked but I mind very much having to pay for it.

Dogbait

So ?
It means WMD are actually a good thing for society, but only if used on population centers. Bubonic plague is another winner too.

I think it's interesting that a mainstream (or semi-mainstream) media source chose to cover this "research project."

More likely just a study designed to give the professor another helping of government pork. I don't mind if folks want to spend their day answering questions that need not be asked but I mind very much having to pay for it.

Dogbait

My grandpa would have slapped the nearest steer on the a** and said, "What comes outa here is the same thing, but at least it was honestly come by." And then he'd laugh and get back to work.

(EDITED) Here is what I emailed the ironically named Prof Ulrich:


Dear Professor Ulrich

I am responding to your call for dialogue about what you claim is "the environmental paradox of bicycling". With all due respect I completely disagreed with the article, when someone posted a link to it on www.bikeforums.net. While you did state some of the assumptions and limitations in the text of the article, I fear that people who are looking for excuses to maintain their sedentary and wasteful lifestyle won't read the fine print and critically evaluate and reject your thesis, but instead will blythely jump to a Limbaughian and wrong conclusion that bikes don't help the environment.

There are two main flaws I see in your paper.

Firstly, you made no effort to evaluate the externalized energy costs of driving versus cycling. It takes an awful lot of diesel to build and maintain a 14 lane freeway, like Highway 401 near my home in Toronto, or a multilevel underground parkade like the one at my office.. Every time I bike to work that's one fewer cars competing for that space and increasing the demand for more of the same.

Secondly, you bypassed the acknowledged significant energy cost of car manufacturing, by making the extremely dubious assumption that cyclists and drivers would experience the same level of car ownership, and that cyclists would simply leave their car home more. Even if that were true, a cyclist would need to replace her car less often than a driver due to high mileage or crashes, so fewer cars would be built for cyclists. However, beyond that, many cyclists also use their bike as a means to go car free or car light. In my case I sold my car to bike commute, although I can still access my wife's car, so we've halved our ownership.

I confess I did get one moment of enjoyment out of the article, when I realized that the people who may use it as partial justification for continuing to drive guilt free in their TerraPass be-stickered SUVs won't get the most ironic subtext...basically you're telling them it's OK to be gas hogs because they're all going to die early.

I hope you will take the time to incorporate these comments in the next draft

Regards

The longer people live, and the healthier they remain, the lower the birth rate. Much of western Europe has made this transition and is now in negative population growth. To me, a smaller number of people living longer, healthier, more satisfying lives is a VERY attractive alternative to teeming mass living in a third-world country.

Interestingly Prof Ulrich is the founder of Xootr scooters and Swift bicycles.

But John, when there are more of those teeming third worlders and less of us, who will mind the earth and provide for needs? Negative growth may (or may not) be good for those in the West, but not ultimately for the Whole Earth.

Firstly, you made no effort to evaluate the externalized energy costs of driving versus cycling. It takes an awful lot of diesel to build and maintain a 14 lane freeway, like Highway 401 near my home in Toronto, or a multilevel underground parkade like the one at my office.. Every time I bike to work that's one fewer cars competing for that space and increasing the demand for more of the same.

cooker,

But just think about all the people who were employed to build the roads, the parking garages, the automobiles, the road building equipment, the asphalt, the cement, the traffic lights, and then think about the police officers to patrol, the highway workers to maintain, and ....! It took hundreds of thousands if not millions of gainfully employed people to produce these things. Do you want those people to have nothing or nearly nothing and to live in poverty with nothing gainful to do?

Because of their efforts to improve and expand the infrastructures of our nations, the ultimate impact (whether we count it as a negative or a positive) is that as a world we have accelerated the continued advance of technology. For instance, my wife works for a very large computer and services related company. They have a world wide presence. They gainfully employ well over 1/2 million people world wide. Because of advancement in technology, 65% of the employees work from their homes. This has an impact on energy consumption.

The expenditure of that energy you mention to build the roads has gone for a very good thing, the advancement of technology. It has many benefits and not just in our immediate back yards. Not only does it allow us to freely debate this issue unfettered across international borders, it allows the men and women who sit in call centers in India, be gainfully employed as they help us make our airline reservations, among other things. Those call center employees in India are thankful for the energy expenditures we have made in North America.

Ride your bike to work and enjoy yourself. But as you pedal, reflect upon the economic impact Canada would experience if suddenly all the technology and infrastructure that you see as you pass along the way to work, were removed. Who knows? You might not even have a bicycle if we lost it all.

But as you pedal, reflect upon the economic impact Canada would experience if suddenly all the technology and infrastructure that you see as you pass along the way to work, were removed. Who knows? You might not even have a bicycle if we lost it all.

The notion that to be anti-car/anti-big oil is to be anti-progress is a faulty one. Warfare has also led to lots of scientific advancements, so I guess we need a lot more wars too, to really improve our quality of life.

(EDIT) just hopping on the bike now, so I will respond in more detail when I have some free time later in the day.

cooker,

But just think about all the people who were employed to build the roads, the parking garages, the automobiles, the road building equipment, the asphalt, the cement, the traffic lights, and then think about the police officers to patrol, the highway workers to maintain, and ....! It took hundreds of thousands if not millions of gainfully employed people to produce these things. Do you want those people to have nothing or nearly nothing and to live in poverty with nothing gainful to do?

Because of their efforts to improve and expand the infrastructures of our nations, the ultimate impact (whether we count it as a negative or a positive) is that as a world we have accelerated the continued advance of technology. For instance, my wife works for a very large computer and services related company. They have a world wide presence. They gainfully employ well over 1/2 million people world wide. Because of advancement in technology, 65% of the employees work from their homes. This has an impact on energy consumption.

The expenditure of that energy you mention to build the roads has gone for a very good thing, the advancement of technology. It has many benefits and not just in our immediate back yards. Not only does it allow us to freely debate this issue unfettered across international borders, it allows the men and women who sit in call centers in India, be gainfully employed as they help us make our airline reservations, among other things. Those call center employees in India are thankful for the energy expenditures we have made in North America.

Ride your bike to work and enjoy yourself. But as you pedal, reflect upon the economic impact Canada would experience if suddenly all the technology and infrastructure that you see as you pass along the way to work, were removed. Who knows? You might not even have a bicycle if we lost it all.

Hmm, unless this was meant to be a tongue in cheek post, it seems to be a rather shortshighted arguement.

cooker,

Not only does it allow us to freely debate this issue unfettered across international borders, it allows the men and women who sit in call centers in India, be gainfully employed as they help us make our airline reservations, among other things. Those call center employees in India are thankful for the energy expenditures we have made in North America.
.

Boy, now there's something to be thankful for.

"Yes sir, and thank you for waiting. I can help you to understand how to tell if your $28 printer cartridge is empty or is it defective, but since the warranty on your printer expired last night at midnight, I must charge you the small fee of $30. Or you can receive a new printer, warrantied until something goes wrong, for $60, plus shipping."

W.P.

I believe Cooker's analysis is a sufficient rebuttal to the article.
you made no effort to evaluate the externalized energy costs of driving versus cycling

An easier, and truly simple method in the understanding of what's good or bad about the human existence and human impact on the Earth's enviromental qualities can be summarized by examining the effects of consumption of resources and the qualities of life consuming these resources provide.

I recently attended a large bicycle ride, and couldn't help but notice that most of the vehicles used by cyclists to get to the start of the ride were larger, less economical styles.

Currently, corporate public-mind-programming campaigns continue to make "feel-good" enviromentalism very chic. Here's some food for thought ----- http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/

I recently attended a large bicycle ride, and couldn't help but notice that most of the vehicles used by cyclists to get to the start of the ride were larger, less economical styles.



+1

I think the belief that cyclists are knee-jerk environmentalists is misplaced, sadly.

I think the belief that cyclists are knee-jerk environmentalists is misplaced, sadly.

Agree. $3 a gallon for gas and are the roads clogged with bikes? Bicycling is basically a recreational activity in th USA. I am waiting to get run off the road by an electric car.

You'll see above I posted my email to Prof Ulrich critquing his paper. He sent a prompt and polite reply estimating the impact of the factors I mentioned, and arguing that even with those corrections cyclists' longevity would still mean more lifetime energy consumption. The crux of the argument is that our food production and other non-transportation related consumption is so energy dependant that simply living uses a lot more energy than driving.

There are still many unaccounted-for factors in his analysis, so I'm not convinced, but I appreciated his willingness to debate.

The longer people live, and the healthier they remain, the lower the birth rate. Much of western Europe has made this transition and is now in negative population growth. To me, a smaller number of people living longer, healthier, more satisfying lives is a VERY attractive alternative to teeming mass living in a third-world country.

As I grow older and further from my child-raising years, I am more and more sympathetic to this view :)

In actual fact, it all depends where your priorities lie - if you are only interested in the economics of the situation, then extending lifetimes without increasing retirement ages is not a good idea, and there is no benefit to extending life beyond retirement age.

If your priority is minimizing the footprint that mankind has on the planet, then we our priorities should be decreasing birth rates and lifespans.

As soon as you stop balancing different priorities, you run into trouble.

Let me see if I can make myself a little clearer. Please hang with me:

Cooker mentions the expenditure of energy in the form of big highways and big parking facilities. My point is that the expenditure of energy usually produces jobs. Gainfully employed people are good for society. Unemployed people are a drain on society.

Yes, technological advances have often come at the expense of war. I believe most of us, if not all of us, regardless of political affiliation, abhor war. Usually, technology which is bad for society is corrected over time. I believe we all want and desire technology to be used for good. Yet consider just one of the evils of technology, a computer virus. The only real way to eliminate it is to eliminate computers.

Will P is disappointed in corporations which outsource work to other countries. I believe we all share his feelings on the principle that jobs seem to be stripped from our home country. We are frustrated by the quality of service, and by the language barrier. But place those facts aside. The people who take our calls in India are employed and earning a good living. They are people who are happy because they have an opportunity to succeed. I contend that the larger the percentage of the world's population who are employed successfully, the greater chance there is for global peace and prosperity. Prosperous people do not make war upon each other. Successful employment, generally speaking, requires the expenditure of energy.

Expenditure of energy, therefore, can be seen as a positive, instead of a negative. We need to always look carefully at both sides of the coin. I'm all for conservation and sound environmental policies. The cleaner the world is, the better it is! But I'm also an advocate for the full and gainful employment of all individuals. The more people who successfully work in the world, the better it is!

I am waiting to get run off the road by an electric car.
:eek:
:D
Very funny, and insightful.

The longer people live, and the healthier they remain, the lower the birth rate. Much of western Europe has made this transition and is now in negative population growth. To me, a smaller number of people living longer, healthier, more satisfying lives is a VERY attractive alternative to teeming mass living in a third-world country.

I agree with the sentiment (except perhaps the unintended slur). However I think the relationship between higher life expectancy and lower birth rate is due to differences in infant mortality, not adult longevity. In areas where half the kids die in childhood, people may see it as an emotional insurance policy to have lots of babies. In developed countries you can be more confident that if you tie your tubes or snip the Vas after two kids, they'll both survive to adulthood.

Let me see if I can make myself a little clearer. Please hang with me:

Cooker mentions the expenditure of energy in the form of big highways and big parking facilities. My point is that the expenditure of energy usually produces jobs. Gainfully employed people are good for society. Unemployed people are a drain on society.

Yes, technological advances have often come at the expense of war. I believe most of us, if not all of us, regardless of political affiliation, abhor war. Usually, technology which is bad for society is corrected over time. I believe we all want and desire technology to be used for good. Yet consider just one of the evils of technology, a computer virus. The only real way to eliminate it is to eliminate computers.

Will P is disappointed in corporations which outsource work to other countries. I believe we all share his feelings on the principle that jobs seem to be stripped from our home country. We are frustrated by the quality of service, and by the language barrier. But place those facts aside. The people who take our calls in India are employed and earning a good living. They are people who are happy because they have an opportunity to succeed. I contend that the larger the percentage of the world's population who are employed successfully, the greater chance there is for global peace and prosperity. Prosperous people do not make war upon each other. Successful employment, generally speaking, requires the expenditure of energy.

Expenditure of energy, therefore, can be seen as a positive, instead of a negative. We need to always look carefully at both sides of the coin. I'm all for conservation and sound environmental policies. The cleaner the world is, the better it is! But I'm also an advocate for the full and gainful employment of all individuals. The more people who successfully work in the world, the better it is!

Mankind made a lot of progress and created a lot of jobs before we learned to exploit coal and then oil for industrialization. I believe we can have the benefits of modern technology and widespread employment without burning through our carbon resources as fast as possible and maybe wreaking immense and irreversible environmental harm. A lot of people have sedentary jobs, drive 45 minutes each way in an SUV, and another 45 minutes on weekends to go big box shopping and then work out in a gym while sipping a Perrier and nibbling on Chilean apples. Would their quality of life really be a lot worse if they lived 2-5k from work in a semi-detached home, or low rise apartment, commuted 20 minutes each way by foot, streetcar or bike, had two half days off a week to labour in a community organic garden (hey, no need for a treadmill now!), shopped for fresh produce daily at the corner market 50 m away, and drank pollution free local rainwater?

We create a lot of public works jobs in asphalt because we think it benefits society, but if we decide to no longer subsidize car and gas industries with our wallets and lungs, those public works jobs could be in rail construction, health research, environmental industries and many other not so polluting endeavours. In fact, we need to start now re-tooling our economy into a post-growth, post-petrol model because it's coming whether we like it or not. Something like half the world's population eats because of oil and gas, and we don't have a plan to cope with the end of that resource. Let's start to cut back our frivolous uses of oil and gas now, so we can keep feeding those people while we figure it out.

PastorBob, I would respectfully disagree. Two assumptions are inherent in these two sentences:

"I contend that the larger the percentage of the world's population who are employed successfully, the greater chance there is for global peace and prosperity.

Your contention is that the global capitalist world-economy is the best model for ensuring human happiness & that therefore more people working for wages will mean a 'better world'. This is the American contention at present as we are the declining hegemon in the system. We are now at the transition stage into the 4th hegemonic cycle (Holland of the 17th cen, England/Britain of the 19th cen & the US in the 20th cen are the 1st 3) of the capitalist world-system that has been profitably creating more and more productive wage-earners. While many more people around the world have more material possessions, I am unable to acknowledge that such a system has brought us any closer to global peace as a hoped-for world condition.


"Prosperous people do not make war upon each other. "

I would contend that wars are made by the strong against the weak(er); the more prosperous fight to retain their prosperity by any means, including, if necessary, war. The strong achieve their position of being able to start & win wars by competing successfully against everyone else using any methods available BEFORE the wars are started.

Revolutions are started by the weak against the strong. Only very occasionally do such revolutions succeed but too often involve putting new wine in old wineskins as the 'winners' replace the 'losers' in the same power structure as existed before the revolution.

Its all intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

Where can I get some of that Syrup of Wahoo?

Some people study and study until they know absolutely everything about nothing and that appears to be the case with Prof Ulrich.

"..............and then the wheels came off"

Mankind made a lot of progress and created a lot of jobs before we learned to exploit coal and then oil for industrialization. I believe we can have the benefits of modern technology and widespread employment without burning through our carbon resources as fast as possible and maybe wreaking immense and irreversible environmental harm. A lot of people have sedentary jobs, drive 45 minutes each way in an SUV, and another 45 minutes on weekends to go big box shopping and then work out in a gym while sipping a Perrier and nibbling on Chilean apples. Would their quality of life really be a lot worse if they lived 2-5k from work in a semi-detached home, or low rise apartment, commuted 20 minutes each way by foot, streetcar or bike, had two half days off a week to labour in a community organic garden (hey, no need for a treadmill now!), shopped for fresh produce daily at the corner market 50 m away, and drank pollution free local rainwater?

We create a lot of public works jobs in asphalt because we think it benefits society, but if we decide to no longer subsidize car and gas industries with our wallets and lungs, those public works jobs could be in rail construction, health research, environmental industries and many other not so polluting endeavours. In fact, we need to start now re-tooling our economy into a post-growth, post-petrol model because it's coming whether we like it or not. Something like half the world's population eats because of oil and gas, and we don't have a plan to cope with the end of that resource. Let's start to cut back our frivolous uses of oil and gas now, so we can keep feeding those people while we figure it out.

Don't ya just love being around such up-beat and positive people? Man I feel guilty for all of the destruction I've caused, burning up so much carbon all these years. Hell, I feel guilty for being an American, for living, for everything.

Honey! turn the central air down a notch, it's a bit stuffy in here.

and then work out in a gym while sipping a Perrier and nibbling on Chilean apples.

Could you point me to that gym? I want to go there. :D

Around here, they are mostly treadmills and weight machines.

+ 1 - Phew! too much worrying and not enough pedaling!

Don't ya just love being around such up-beat and positive people? Man I feel guilty for all of the destruction I've caused, burning up so much carbon all these years. Hell, I feel guilty for being an American, for living, for everything.

Honey! turn the central air down a notch, it's a bit stuffy in here.

Not sure what your point is.

I guess that one of the nice things about being 66yo is that I don't feel I have to change the world any more. I just need to survive from check to check, ride my bike, go to the doctor and sing my music.

I have learned, sadly, that I just don't have a lot of influence on what and how things happen. Sure I vote, but it is always choosing between the least of two evils. What I write or say never seems to influence anyone, anyhows!

Anyone know how to spell cynic? :D

Prosperous people do not make war upon each other.



Without getting into a debate of the merits of the Iraq war in general, please square this statement with our current situatuion.

W.P.

In fact, we need to start now re-tooling our economy into a post-growth, post-petrol model because it's coming whether we like it or not. Something like half the world's population eats because of oil and gas, and we don't have a plan to cope with the end of that resource. Let's start to cut back our frivolous uses of oil and gas now, so we can keep feeding those people while we figure it out.

Precisely.

W.P.

If Karl Ulrich is reading this thread, he's probably laughing his head off. There's nothing quite like a hornet's nest started by a college professor with too much time on his hands.

I guess that one of the nice things about being 66yo is that I don't feel I have to change the world any more. I just need to survive from check to check, ride my bike, go to the doctor and sing my music.

I have learned, sadly, that I just don't have a lot of influence on what and how things happen. Sure I vote, but it is always choosing between the least of two evils. What I write or say never seems to influence anyone, anyhows!

Anyone know how to spell cynic? :D

That's what I mean.

That's what I mean.
I still have no idea what you are trying to say. You slagged one of my posts and essentially called me names ("stuffy" - I guess I should be devastated!) but I don't have a clue what you actually believe or intend to do. Do you disagree with something I said?

If only the Diego brothers were here to sort it all out.

Some cultures have existed thousands of years without disturbing their respective enviroments.

It's the market place that creates the need for consumption and increased "economy" in every endeavor.

Simply put, if people were not making a profit, many of the abominations to the Earth's enviroment would not be proceeeding. In almost every case, the modern world is about who has the most, not who has enough.

We are all very lucky to be living in a very special time. Most of us will live long enough to see the world powers go all "spastic" over the last of the petroleum reserves. Very interesting times.

I still have no idea what you are trying to say. You slagged one of my posts and essentially called me names ("stuffy" - I guess I should be devastated!) but I don't have a clue what you actually believe or intend to do. Do you disagree with something I said?

Yes, mostly. Okay, so let me spell it out for you:

Don't ya just love being around such up-beat and positive people?

In my opinion you have a rather cynical view of this wonderful modern world so many of us are able to enjoy. Perhaps you would have been happier living in the 18th century without (hardly any) industry, paved roads, modern plumbing, modern materials, automobiles, airplanes, medical advances, airconditioning, modern chemicals, central heat, etc. I don't know about you, but my life has gotten better and better as the years have gone by, and I attribute that mainly to the many industrial innovations you seem to abhore. I'm optimistic that we'll all survive the horrible conditions we've created by (amoung other things) consuming gobs and gobs of carbon based fuels, and when economics dictate, we'll find good alternatives and hopefully enjoy even a better standard of living.

Man I feel guilty for all of the destruction I've caused, burning up so much carbon all these years. Hell, I feel guilty for being an American, for living, for everything.

This was sarcasism. Many would believe that because I, along with so many others from the industrialized world have enjoyed the benefits of those things, that you apparently find objectionable (roads, steel mills, nice cars, airconditioning, factories, power plants, you name it, I should be ashamed of myself, and my selfish ways.

Honey! turn the central air down a notch, it's a bit stuffy in here.

It's hot in Utah right now, and I want to be more comfortable. This thread has sure drifted away from bicycling. Bring on the aluminum alloy, carbon fiber and all that modern stuff.

Back in 1977, when I was a young bike racer, I rode the Canadian National Road Championship in Edmonton. I was struggling up one of the climbs in too big a gear, but before I slid off the back, I happened to hear Hugh Walton (one of the top riders at that time) telling another rider an economist joke:

So an engineer, a chemist, and an economist are stuck on a desert island, and the only food they have is in cans. The problem is, they don't have a can opener. So the engineer says, "we can use my glasses and focus the sun's rays on the can and after about three hours we should be able to get the can burned open." And the chemist says, "No, no, I have identified various elements on this island that we can combine in order to dissolve the metal -" but then the economist cuts in and says, "No, you're both wrong. Instead, let's assume we have a can opener..."

Anyway, around this same time I was riding my bike to Simon Fraser University (located at the top of a 1200-ft climb, so everybody on the way to the campus would pass by me in their cars), I heard from a friend that one of the professors had used my cycling up the hill example to demonstrate something along the lines that I was using up as much energy as anyone driving a car. Now the only problem I could see with this was that in order to replenish the energy I used, you just had to plant another crop or raise a couple of steers. To replace the energy used by everybody in their cars, you'd have to kill a dinosaur and wait about 65 million years...

- L.

So an engineer, a chemist, and an economist are stuck on a desert island, and the only food they have is in cans. The problem is, they don't have a can opener. So the engineer says, "we can use my glasses and focus the sun's rays on the can and after about three hours we should be able to get the can burned open." And the chemist says, "No, no, I have identified various elements on this island that we can combine in order to dissolve the metal -" but then the economist cuts in and says, "No, you're both wrong. Instead, let's assume we have a can opener..."



Good one. As the old saw goes, "If all the economists who ever lived were laid end-to-end they would not reach a conclusion."

...Man I feel guilty for all of the destruction I've caused, burning up so much carbon all these years...

Well done for assuming responsibility for your actions. If only more people would. I find cycling a good way to make amends, among other things. But that's just me.

Some cultures have existed thousands of years without disturbing their respective enviroments...

Agreed. We don't have to impose on the environment where we can conform to it. Cycling enables us to do just that. I just hope its not too little too late :(



We are all very lucky to be living in a very special time. Most of us will live long enough to see the world powers go all "spastic" over the last of the petroleum reserves. Very interesting times...


Reminds me of 'Mad Max' :p

If only the Diego brothers were here to sort it all out.
I don't know where you geniuses get off thinking that the environment, world politics, the state of the economy, and America's God-given right to burn fossil fuels are within your grasp, so let me give you a heads up. Stick to flipping burgers and restocking grocery shelves, because Mister, that's about as far as it goes with you. Oh sure, you can go on and on about your GED degree, and the occasional PBS Special you've watched while you were stoned out of your mind on roofies, angel dust, and what not. But that can't hold a candle to those of us who've spent time in the classrooms of the finest colleges and universities, where drugs and alcohol are never a part of the curriculum. Because once you've entered the gates that take you to the Ivory Tower of wisdom, buddy, no one could last a day, let alone four years, if drugs and alcohol were involved. Oh sure, the occasional prostitute may venture onto campus and turn a few tricks behind the dorm. But once play time is over, it's time to crack the books. And yeah, sometimes those books may be the penal code of one of our 50 great states...American States, where smoking-related cancer, automobile accidents, heart attacks and the occasional spontaneous combustion fatality add up to a greener earth. Think about that the next time you hop on your beatnik bike to go over to the socialist Co-op and buy some organically grown wheat grass juice. The sight of you coasting home with a grocery sack full of that crap makes me sick to my stomach. But that doesn't mean I won't give one iota less effort when it comes time to protect you within the letter of the law. Because Bucko, that's my job as a cop and a citizen.