Advocacy & Safety - Be "Green"

Cycling home one evening, a polite driver passed me.

I am not sure, but I thought the lone bumper sticker read, "Be Green."

I wondered if I had made an impression on the driver...

It's possible. Northern New South Wales vies with Tasmania for the title of "green" capital of Australia. Around towns like Mullumbimby there are a lot of polite drivers. A lot more than here at any rate.

chris

I once saw a similar bumpersticker stuck to one of the really big SUV. I think it was a Cadillac Escalade. Driven by a young woman, with no one else in the car but her. *shrug* Whatcha gonna do? It's almost enough to make one become part of that guerilla bumpersticker campaign where they sneak around and put stickers that read, "I'm changing the environment. Ask me how." onto the really big road hog SUVs. I like the idea in theory, but I know how big a pain it is to get an unwanted sticker off a car and I don't approve of doing property damage as part of an activist campaign. It just p@sses peole off.

Hillary Rose raises a very interesting point. Ages ago, there was a thread on the bike-oz about "non-transport greenies". I have run into abuse from that lot before as well and it really make you wonder sometimes.

These are the sort of people who advocate everyone else in the world making sacrifices in the interests of "being green" but don't want to make possibly the most effective and efficient 'sacrifice' themselves.

I have noticed the environment has largely gone off the public agenda in recent years. I think maybe some people have figured that recycling a few glass bottles a year is "their bit" and don't feel any need to do anything anymore.

Chris

Here in Atlanta, where commutes are long (avg. 34 miles), I read that a motorist can put almost 2 tons of pollutants into the air each year.

If this is true, I reckon cycling to work everyday is the single most effective thing I can do for my envirionment, and my children's.

Yeah good point Pete. However if you could ge the same politicians, and brainwashed activists, and lobbyist, to do the same. Instead they participate in emmitting pollutants themselves. About the only thing they do not do is drill for oil and cut down trees in the forests.
Greenpeace operates polluting motor boats in the ocean. Senators, Congressmen, lobbyist drive to work everyday, they cut their grass with polluting gas engine lawnmowers, they run polluting airconditioning systems, they cry about the petroleum industry when they support it everyday. They cry about dfrorestation yet they live in houses made with wood. They cry about cattle, sheep, pigs and the polluting of streams, and trampeling they do, yet they eat steak, mutton, and bacon. I could go on and on.
Bottom line is they are all hypocrits!!

I have a polite driver pass me on rare occasions.

I wonder how many people buy used vehicles with "old" bumper stickers on them?

Occasionally a vehicle will pass me that has an old looking BRAG (Bicycle Ride Across Georgia) or an old looking "Same Roads, Same Rights, Same Rules" bumper sticker.
These vehicles don't pass any more carefully or give me any more room than other vehicles.

I have long considered myself to be an environmentalist. However, I do compromise with the culture surrounding me. I drive a [4-cylinder, ULEV-rated] mid-size car about 1/3 as much as average and meet most of my transportation needs on public transit, my bicycle, or my shoes. I own and use a clothes dryer, but line-dry all of my large, high-energy items, such as towels, jeans, polo shirts, etc. My diet is not purely vegan, but includes small amounts of fish and dairy products. Although my wife loves babies, we stopped reproducing after the second one. My four-member family very happily lives in a [small-to-midsized] single-family detached home, the sprawl-inducing scourge of many urban planners. I do not pontificate about the green lifestyle, but I try to set a visible, enjoyable, positive, realistic, but certainly not saintly or overly self-sacrificing, example. I am convinced that we can learn to preserve the best aspects of the American lifestyle with less than half of our current per-capita energy consumption and resource depletion budget. To me, transportation bicycling is an important part of the plan.

How easy it is to say you are something, yet so hard to actually adhere to it. It makes people feel good to say they are "green". It makes me feel good knowing that I am "green". (Minus the 6000 mile road trip I am leaving for tomorrow.)

Living in Chicagoland, I see how hard it is to be green. People spend all winter trying to stay hot and all summer trying to stay cold. Suburbanites load up the bicycle rack on the back of their SUV and drive 40 miles to go bicycling. Then they drive their SUV additional miles to go to the grocery store and buy products with expensive packaging where the corporations try to persuade us how environmentally friendly that they are. They spend all summer watering their lawn, and then turning around and use the gas mower twice a week from the rapid growth that all that watering is causing. So many contradictions to overcome....

I just like the idea of living as simply as possible. It benefits me, somehow. I just feel better doing it.

Yet, I have a long way to go. I do lots of wasteful things. :cry:

I'm "green," but that's more because of a nasty incident with a can of paint at work today than anything else. I'd rather not go into too much detail, but I thought I'd mention it.