Google sponsored links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz3zMzVdlX8
Can you tell the difference between the above, and this:
http://www.americandreamcoalition.org/automobility/automobility.html
This is an archived thread, you can find the full version of this thread, with images, links and more content
here.
Ready to buy? Check out these two online bike stores:
-
http://www.nashbar.com (you can find the latest bike nashbar coupons in
this thread)
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http://www.performancebike.com (you can find the latest performance bike coupons in
this thread)
Cya on the forums,
- The BikeForums Team
-
http://www.bikeforums.net
That's bicycle advocacy at it's best (or worst, depending on how you look at it). How about some cyclist advocacy?
^^^
Only if you can tell me the difference.
And why it matters. I am curious.
^^^
Only if you can tell me the difference.
And why it matters. I am curious.
Cycling advocacy: encouraging people to ride bikes
Cyclist advocacy: Encouraging those who ride (or want to ride) bikes to do so in a safe and cooperative manner
[Note: these aren't exhaustive definitions by any means, just a few words off the top of my head to distinguish the activity of cycling from the people who are cyclists.]
Why it matters [to me]: Traffic cycling in the US currently has a bad enough reputation as a dangerous activity and adding fuel to that fire by encouraging uneducated people to just jump on a bike and ride in traffic isn't going to help that image.
Now, if you combined the two messages, I'd have much less of an issue with it (depending on how it's presented of course).
Cycling advocacy: encouraging people to ride bikes
Cyclist advocacy: Encouraging those who ride (or want to ride) bikes to do so in a safe and cooperative manner
[Note: these aren't exhaustive definitions by any means, just a few words off the top of my head to distinguish the activity of cycling from the people who are cyclists.]
Why it matters [to me]: Traffic cycling in the US currently has a bad enough reputation as a dangerous activity and adding fuel to that fire by encouraging uneducated people to just jump on a bike and ride in traffic isn't going to help that image.
Now, if you combined the two messages, I'd have much less of an issue with it (depending on how it's presented of course).
Well no amount of "cyclist advocacy" is going to get folks out of their cars... And every cycling advocate I have heard from says that motorists are only going to "get used to cyclists" when more cyclists are on the road.
So as far as I am concerned, "bicycling advocacy" (that which encourages people to ride) is cycling advocacy.
You want to teach the how to ride, try to get government to bring cycling education back to public schools.
What we have now is a downward trend... bikes are bought, bikes aren't ridden, bikes are stored in garages, people get fat, cars get fat, roads become crowded, few people ride bikes.
Find a way to reduce that trend. Telling people "how to ride a bike (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQgAMkMmsfg)" isn't going to do it, and hasn't done it.
Cycling advocacy? You people call yourselves bicycle advocates, and this video portrays your bicycle advocacy views exactly. Nothing about cycling, all about anti-motoring. And inaccurate as always.
Cycling advocacy? You people call yourselves bicycle advocates, and this video portrays your bicycle advocacy views exactly. Nothing about cycling, all about anti-motoring. And inaccurate as always.
John if more people are cycling, to run errands, as identified in the video... then naturally they will be motoring less. Yet you feel this is "anti-motoring." I think your allegiance has been well identified.
And BTW even the president has stated "we are addicted to oil," perhaps a bit of "anti-motoring" is what this obese country needs. Personally I don't think it is anti-motoring any more than a book on hiking is anti-motoring.
But like I've said, your allegiance is obvious.
John if more people are cycling, to run errands, as identified in the video... then naturally they will be motoring less. Yet you feel this is "anti-motoring." I think your allegiance has been well identified.
And BTW even the president has stated "we are addicted to oil," perhaps a bit of "anti-motoring" is what this obese country needs. Personally I don't think it is anti-motoring any more than a book on hiking is anti-motoring.
But like I've said, your allegiance is obvious.
You state: "[I]f more people are cyclingcycling, to run errands, as identified in the video ... then naturally they will be motoring less.". Joseph Goebbels, great liar that he was, would have been utterly ashamed of the technical absurdity of this effort that you all appear to praise so much. The whole object of the video is to oppose motoring, with cycling mentioned as a minor sideline. Your words here indicate that not only are you bicycle advocates unable to understand the meaning of the words that you read, as mentioned before, you also cannot understand even a simple video. You make cycling into a dreary duty to be performed as part of the anti-motoring war, and regardless of the danger to those whom you affect.
that is rich, john.
It's readily apparant you are pro-motorist and anti-bicyclist. maybe you've slipped so far you cannot see it yourself.
Do you mind telling us when banning bicyclists from 'freeways' for the conveinence of motorists isn't going to be enough for your buddies over at the ADC?
Can you share the timetable for when unveil your master plan to ban bicyclists from all high-speed roads for the conveinence of motorists?
You really have a chip on your shoulder about this. I am pro-motorist and pro-bicycle--- and I even WALK places (as transportation). Can those concepts coexist exist? I certainly do not believe cars will be outlawed from the road anytime soon. I bike to work--- all year long-- no matter what the weather. I bike because I like to. There is no dogmatic reason behind it other than it keeps me in shape. I have a massive carbon footprint because I fly so much. In my perfect world we would only have planes and bikes--- but that will never happen.
How is it that you make the leap in your argument "against" John about bikes on freeways? You are likely digging up an irrelevant reference from another post.
Do you really believe that two miles is some magic distance that will change people's behaviors? When I lived in the US, I commuted 20 miles each way-- by bike. Even that took marginally more time than driving in heavy rush hour traffic.
The real issues regarding cycling advocacy really have nothing to do with building a supporting infrastructure in the US. The issues center on how car-centric attitudes are. I could write a lengthy rant at the absurdities in the US in this area-- ranging from extremely lax drinking and driving laws, extreme ease in obtaining drivers licenses, how little actual training is associated with licensing, the fact that a basic license entitles someone to drive up to a 13 ton vehicle, low gas and vehicle taxes, no vehicle safety inspections, the epidemic of speeding, the proliferation of road rage, lack of disincentives to drive fuel efficient vehicles, lack of public transportation, and on and on and on.
that is rich, john.
It's readily apparant you are pro-motorist and anti-bicyclist. maybe you've slipped so far you cannot see it yourself.
Do you mind telling us when banning bicyclists from 'freeways' for the conveinence of motorists isn't going to be enough for your buddies over at the ADC?
Can you share the timetable for when unveil your master plan to ban bicyclists from all high-speed roads for the conveinence of motorists?
that isn't a leap in argument, it's an aside.
but thanks for pointing our other flaws in America's autocentrism, filtersweep.
john's firmly wedded to an advocacy group whose work is pro-motoring, and some of us feel is correspondingly anti-bicycling.
Do you really believe that two miles is some magic distance that will change people's behaviors? When I lived in the US, I commuted 20 miles each way-- by bike. Even that took marginally more time than driving in heavy rush hour traffic.
Yes. Two miles is a grand start. Just think about people now that drive just a few blocks to a local store for bread or milk, or a 6 pack. That short convenient distance is very easy to bike to, if not walk, but for some reason in many places in America, that distance is driven. It could be quite easily cycled and the reduction in traffic on the local roads would make them feel less crowded for the longer trips that one has to take, such as your commute to work.
2 miles is a minor step, a first step if you will. Likely the bikes exist... now how to get folks just doing this minor step?
The real issues regarding cycling advocacy really have nothing to do with building a supporting infrastructure in the US. The issues center on how car-centric attitudes are. I could write a lengthy rant at the absurdities in the US in this area-- ranging from extremely lax drinking and driving laws, extreme ease in obtaining drivers licenses, how little actual training is associated with licensing, the fact that a basic license entitles someone to drive up to a 13 ton vehicle, low gas and vehicle taxes, no vehicle safety inspections, the epidemic of speeding, the proliferation of road rage, lack of disincentives to drive fuel efficient vehicles, lack of public transportation, and on and on and on.
Agreed... which is why this first small step has to be taken by motorists... to get beyond the absurdities of using an auto for such small trips. Once that little first step is taken, people may venture further.
Imagine if just 10% of all trips were shifted from auto to bike... the reduction in auto traffic alone would be fantastic.
that isn't a leap in argument, it's an aside.
but thanks for pointing our other flaws in America's autocentrism, filtersweep.
john's firmly wedded to an advocacy group whose work is pro-motoring, and some of us feel is correspondingly anti-bicycling.
Exactly... in fact if John considers our pro-cycling attitude "anti-motoring," then obviously his pro-motoring attitude is just anti-cycling. So I guess "effective cycling" to John Forester is "driving."
There are other ways of decentralizing the auto without even mentioning biks. Around here, it is impossible to live further than walking distance of a grocery store--- or post office. Most city centers are pedestrian only. There are all sorts of green buffer zones, and agriculturally zoned land that can't be developed for 100 years. These are packaged as quality of life issues, and have nothing to do with cycling, anti-vehicularism, or anything else. The fundamental cultural value from the 1950s remains to this day: a car is a LUXURY --not a necessity or a right.
that isn't a leap in argument, it's an aside.
but thanks for pointing our other flaws in America's autocentrism, filtersweep.
john's firmly wedded to an advocacy group whose work is pro-motoring, and some of us feel is correspondingly anti-bicycling.
Joseph Goebbels, great liar that he was, would have been utterly ashamed of the technical absurdity of this effort that you all appear to praise so much.
It is my opinion that people who trot out Nazis to try to make their points (particularly about things like riding a bike...hmmm...genocide or bike riding...genocide or bike riding...gosh, it seems so similar to me) are intellectual lightweights grasping at straws and rhetorical "shock" to compensate for their lack of validity.
The instant people start using Nazis in their rhetoric, I quit listening. Said person has just demonstrated how utterly ridiculous they are.
There are other ways of decentralizing the auto without even mentioning biks. Around here, it is impossible to live further than walking distance of a grocery store--- or post office. Most city centers are pedestrian only. There are all sorts of green buffer zones, and agriculturally zoned land that can't be developed for 100 years. These are packaged as quality of life issues, and have nothing to do with cycling, anti-vehicularism, or anything else. The fundamental cultural value from the 1950s remains to this day: a car is a LUXURY --not a necessity or a right.
I have seen this mentality exemplified in Finland... and it is quite amazing and frankly I think somewhat difficult for those that have not seen something like this to imagine. It is a very different paradigm. I don't know about Norway, but in Oulu Finland, people were given priority over cars and it is quite evident.
I think the reason cycling advocates are always so angry with Forester is they think he is an advocate for cycling, and then are disappointed to discover he isn't. Advocates for cycling think cycling is a social good that should be encouraged and accomodated by society. Forester doesn't hold those views. He's an advocate for very limited aspects of cycling. He doesn't care why people ride, he doesn't care who rides, or how many people ride. He doesn't care about whether cycling has wider social implications. He only cares about where they ride (on normal roads) and how they ride ("vehicularily").
Well no amount of "cyclist advocacy" is going to get folks out of their cars... And every cycling advocate I have heard from says that motorists are only going to "get used to cyclists" when more cyclists are on the road.
So as far as I am concerned, "bicycling advocacy" (that which encourages people to ride) is cycling advocacy.
You want to teach the how to ride, try to get government to bring cycling education back to public schools.
What we have now is a downward trend... bikes are bought, bikes aren't ridden, bikes are stored in garages, people get fat, cars get fat, roads become crowded, few people ride bikes.
Find a way to reduce that trend. Telling people "how to ride a bike (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQgAMkMmsfg)" isn't going to do it, and hasn't done it.
+ a billion.
It is my opinion that people who trot out Nazis to try to make their points (particularly about things like riding a bike...hmmm...genocide or bike riding...genocide or bike riding...gosh, it seems so similar to me) are intellectual lightweights grasping at straws and rhetorical "shock" to compensate for their lack of validity.
The instant people start using Nazis in their rhetoric, I quit listening. Said person has just demonstrated how utterly ridiculous they are.
Don't be so silly. I mentioned Joseph Goebels because he was a master propagandist, in a discussion about propaganda. As I said, by his standards, your bike advocacy propaganda in the subject video was utterly incompetent. But, for that matter, I could have mentioned Edward Bernays in the same way. However, Goebels is on record for his opinion, and I have read that record.
I don't believe I am being silly.
I do believe I am sick of listening to people invoke Nazis to make points. Maybe I have Nazi overload thanks to this White House and Faux News.
But using Nazis as metaphors and rhetorical devices is cheap, fallacious, and intellectually dishonest. You use the example not just for the record...but also to caricaturize and even lampoon the opposition...in this case genec and the video. Nazis as a rhetorical device is an effort to invalidate the opposing argument (or validate your own) by simple virtue of a terrible and arbitrary/fictitious attribution.
You could indeed have mentioned Edward Bernays...or you could have simply made your point about the propagandistic (in your view) elements of the video, and sought to prove that point. However, you chose Goebels for the attribution. It's "dirty pool" to use an old saying. It also makes me disregard you and your arguments because you resort to such rhetoric. And by the way, I'm not one of those who are inherently against your arguments (until possibly now) because I don't/didn't know enough about them. However, now my motivation to learn more is dead...why should I care about the opinions of someone who tries to make a point through bad rhetoric? Now I also wonder how many straw men and appeals to authority you use on a daily basis.
Cheap, dishonest, and intellectually weak.
I don't believe I am being silly.
I do believe I am sick of listening to people invoke Nazis to make points. Maybe I have Nazi overload thanks to this White House and Faux News.
But using Nazis as metaphors and rhetorical devices is cheap, fallacious, and intellectually dishonest. You use the example not just for the record...but also to caricaturize and even lampoon the opposition...in this case genec and the video. Nazis as a rhetorical device is an effort to invalidate the opposing argument (or validate your own) by simple virtue of a terrible and arbitrary/fictitious attribution.
You could indeed have mentioned Edward Bernays...or you could have simply made your point about the propagandistic (in your view) elements of the video, and sought to prove that point. However, you chose Goebels for the attribution. It's "dirty pool" to use an old saying. It also makes me disregard you and your arguments because you resort to such rhetoric. And by the way, I'm not one of those who are inherently against your arguments (until possibly now) because I don't/didn't know enough about them. However, now my motivation to learn more is dead...why should I care about the opinions of someone who tries to make a point through bad rhetoric? Now I also wonder how many straw men and appeals to authority you use on a daily basis.
Cheap, dishonest, and intellectually weak.
You have got your logic all backwards. Had I stated that Joseph Goebels, whose name arouses angry emotions in you, would have given professional approval to the propaganda video being discussed, I could understand your anger at the thought that somebody as notorious as Goebels would have approved of the video. However, I stated the exact opposite, that the video did not meet Goebels's standard of effectiveness. Since I stated that Goebels, whose name arouses anger in you, would have thought the video ineffective, I find it much less reasonable for you to complain. After all, he of whom you dislike even the mention, and presumably disapprove of (as do I), would dislike that of which you approve. I don't find it worth complaining when my enemy dislikes those things of which I approve; I expect that to be the normal situation.
Cycling advocacy? You people call yourselves bicycle advocates, and this video portrays your bicycle advocacy views exactly. Nothing about cycling, all about anti-motoring. And inaccurate as always.
I'm sorry, but can you please be so kind as to tell me who "you people" are and then point me to where "those people" actually claimed to be bicycle advocates?
BTW, what was so wrong with the Nazis that you guys keep bringing them up?
So, to paraphrase the two sites; the only advantage motoring has over cycling is the amount of time saved in covering a specific distance, but under certain conditions we all know this is not true; cycling has numerous other advantages over motoring, but sometimes the amount of time required is unrealistic.
Dance dance dance...and I shan't even bother to illustrate conundrum you came close to tap dancing your way into...close but not quite, though it would have been a funny thing indeed to find you defending genec without meaning to as you tried to explain yourself away...
interesting that john, a fella that appears to never bicycle anymore, would consider the clif bar campaign to encourage bicycling one of his 'enemies'
When I do errands less than 2mi RT I walk half the time. Always walk with errands less than 1mi RT.
Of course nothing wrong with cycling those short trips, but I like some variety.
One thing for sure though, whether walking or cycling 2mi or less I'm not going to need to eat these 250 calorie bars.
Al
Here is a bit of cycling advocacy done by the City of Tempe, AZ:
http://media1.tempe.gov/transit/high/timtrafficcone.wmv
Al
When I do errands less than 2mi RT I walk half the time. Always walk with errands less than 1mi RT.
Of course nothing wrong with cycling those short trips, but I like some variety.
One thing for sure though, whether walking or cycling 2mi or less I'm not going to need to eat these 250 calorie bars.
Al
yeah, gotta save those for a tough drive...
You state: "[I]f more people are cyclingcycling, to run errands, as identified in the video ... then naturally they will be motoring less.". Joseph Goebbels, great liar that he was, would have been utterly ashamed of the technical absurdity of this effort that you all appear to praise so much. The whole object of the video is to oppose motoring, with cycling mentioned as a minor sideline. Your words here indicate that not only are you bicycle advocates unable to understand the meaning of the words that you read, as mentioned before, you also cannot understand even a simple video. You make cycling into a dreary duty to be performed as part of the anti-motoring war, and regardless of the danger to those whom you affect.
I don't see anyone here that's any more anti-motoring than you are apparently anti 'bicycle advocate'.
I also don't see anything wrong with being 'anti-motoring' as you define it. Anyone with half a brain can see that motoring's day's are numbered. It's ridiculous to think that this perpetual growth in motor traffic can be sustained. Any efforts to reduce our dependance on it can only be a good thing.
No-one's advocating an immediate removal of all private motor vehicles from the road overnight, but a gradual process of reduced dependance. Maybe you should update your thinking to this century - pro-motoring advocates such as yourself are going to find yourselves increasingly marginalised as time passes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz3zMzVdlX8
Can you tell the difference between the above, and this:
http://www.americandreamcoalition.org/automobility/automobility.html
That's an awesome ad. Great advocacy.
I guess now both Trek and Clif Bar are seeing the light as to what might actually motivate people to ride their bikes. There are probably other companies, too.
The one I work for is selling its products as helpful for carbon emissions because they make it so people don't have to drive or fly, but they can't work bike advocacy into it because you wouldn't have to ride a bike either.
But anyway, the green message and the fat message are good ones. And the difference between a message like Clif and the one at ADC is that one is a message of hope and progress and encouragement to do something new, something good for yourself and your community, and the other is kind of a grouchy conservative message that is getting very tiresome and old and doesn't quite resonate as well in an era where we seem to be watching the arctic melt, the polar bears starve, the forests burn up, the water run out, and everybody in the US getting fat as a house.
Cycling advocacy? You people call yourselves bicycle advocates, and this video portrays your bicycle advocacy views exactly. Nothing about cycling, all about anti-motoring. And inaccurate as always.
John,
There is a lot here about cycling in the video. It shows the disadvantages of a automobile too, and so they should be pointed out. We think of cars as these fun things that "free us" to do whatever we want. But they don't tell us about the death traps that they become to many (~40,000 people a year). Our church is contending right now with the death of the father of four kinds from an auto accident. The California wildfires show us that there is something really wrong with the way we plan our communities, and with the contributions that our lifestyles with automobiles have made to global warming.
Originally, when cars were first developed, the auto industry (Mr. Ford) had to sell people on getting off their horses, and out of their wagons, and into a car. They did that by showing how much more efficient a car is at getting from one place to another, effortlessly.
But that was in a day when people still walked, when roads were still not going everywhere you needed to go, and when bicycles, wagons and horses could go faster to those close-by places. Now, cars dominate, and roads go everywhere. People cannot bicycle or walk without being in danger of being run down by these vehicles we now call cars, the auto-mobile. It occurs to me that they were named this because they were "auto..." ..."matically" "mobile." But in being "automatically mobile," we lost some things. Many things were lost, actually. "Community" is one. We don't talk to each other, even our neighbors, now. Why? Well, we never see each other face-to-face. We can only wave as the people who should be in our lives, our neighbors, drive by. We still have our neighborhoods, where people live close to each other. But we have largely lost our sense of community, where people who do live close to each other share common values, and "communicate" with each other. The automatically mobile society, with the automobile at its center, is largely responsible for this loss of community values, and community communication.
The bicycle can help bridge that gap. I ride my bike four days a week to and from work. I drive on Friday (staying out of the hospital, as riding on Fridays has landed me there twice before). I find that when I ride through a neighborhood, I can stop and talk to people. Last summer, I talked to some of the school kids who were walking home from school several afternoons. Yesterday, I met a fellew who was walking two black lab retriever puppies, and got my face licked by one welcoming puppy in its exuberant greeting. A few years back, I took my bicycle to my old childhood neighborhood, and found that one of my childhood friends now owned his parent's house, and that it was a museum to Coca Cola memorabilia. He had hundreds of posters, bottles, machines, nic nacs, etc. displayed in his house. I talked with Nicky for about an hour, then he told me that Mrs. Oaks was still in her house across the street. I went over, and the house still looked like it did some 45 years earlier, except that the willow tree Dale and I used to climb was much larger. This was my first time through the old neighborhood on a bicycle since the 1960s.
I had gone through in a car several years before, but did not find a convenient place to park, and so just drove through. I saw my old house, but did not stop to talk to anyone. That's what automatic mobiles do to you--they isolate you from your surroundings into an artificial environment where not only communication is inhibited, but also the sights, sounds and smells of the area are replaced by what is piped in from outside.
I own a 2005 Honda Pilot SUV. It has about 10,000 miles on it. I own a Rans Stratus recumbant bicycle. It has about 7800 miles on it. I use the Pilot to go places, and do things, that I cannot with the bicycle, such as scuba diving in Puget Sound, or backpacking into the Columbia Gorge. But I use the Stratus to do things I cannot with the Pilot, like watching the geese raise their young just off the bike path to work, or photograph a garter snake near the bike path, or talk to the neighborhood kids as a bike the wooden bike path near my home. Both have their place, but the bicycle should be predominant for those short trips, like the video shows.
The other thing that being automatically mobile has contributed to is an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, and the other diseases associated with a lack of human mobility. Years ago, I was teaching some older folks who were in home health how to lift a fallen patient in a patient transfer course. I had two people helping one person to get up. But they were having extreme difficulty doing this. One person was behind a seated patient who had fallen, and the other was helping from the front, pulling on the person's arms as the rear person lifted from behind, under the patient's arms. They couldn't do it. I said, "Hold it, let's do a test." I had them stand up. They couldn't without pushing down on the ground with their arms. I wanted them to do a half-squat. That involved going down into a "seated" position with the legs bent 90 degrees, and then back up. I wanted them to do that three times. Easy right? No, they could not do it once. So I told them that if they couldn't lift their own body weight with their legs once, there was no way they could lift a patient from ground level. Their legs were not strong enough to lift their own body weight off the ground!
This is what being automatically mobile has done to us. It has made us into a population of very weak people.
Bicycling can foster better health, and that is what the video was showing. That health is not only personal, but global as well.
John
John,
The California wildfires show us that there is something really wrong with the way we plan our communities, and with the contributions that our lifestyles with automobiles have made to global warming.
The energy required to sustain the lives of 6.6+ billion people on this small planet, regardless of what we use for personal transport is mainly at fault. And I don't see any way to remedy that, short of drastically reducing the human population. The fact that some tiny fraction of the population can manage to use walking or bicycles for some of their short-trip transportation is hardly relevant to this issue.
And as far as the CA wildfires showing that there is something wrong with the way we plan our communities, that's silly. First, the wild fires would be burning out in the wild regardless of how the communities are planned. And regardless of how the communites are planned, at some point there has to be an edge between the wilderness where the wild fires start and spread, and where the communities, however they are planned, begin. And unless you build cinder block walls several hundred feet high at those edges (though other more practical methods can mitigate risk at the edges) , the hot/large embers are going to fly into the communities, regardless of how they are planned. And the buildings in the communites, regardless of how they are planned, are going to catch fire, unless you encase them in steel, cement, brick and similar noncombustible materials.
The energy required to sustain the lives of 6.6+ billion people on this small planet, regardless of what we use for personal transport is mainly at fault. And I don't see any way to remedy that, short of drastically reducing the human population. The fact that some tiny fraction of the population can manage to use walking or bicycles for some of their short-trip transportation is hardly relevant to this issue.
And as far as the CA wildfires showing that there is something wrong with the way we plan our communities, that's silly. First, the wild fires would be burning out in the wild regardless of how the communities are planned. And regardless of how the communites are planned, at some point there has to be an edge between the wilderness where the wild fires start and spread, and where the communities, however they are planned, begin. And unless you build cinder block walls several hundred feet high at those edges (though other more practical methods can mitigate risk at the edges) , the hot/large embers are going to fly into the communities, regardless of how they are planned. And the buildings in the communites, regardless of how they are planned, are going to catch fire, unless you encase them in steel, cement, brick and similar noncombustible materials.
The problem here is short-term profits verses long-term planning. These conditions were known, and modeled, several years ago:
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2007/Oct07/californiafires.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071024103856.htm
The paper is titled Emissions pathways, climate change, and impacts on California by Christopher B. Field, et. al. Here is one quote from the June 23, 2004 paper:
Fig. 3. Statewide change in cover of major vegetation types for 2020–2049 and 2070–2099, elative to simulated distributions for the 1961–1990 reference period. ASF, alpinesubalpine forest; ECF, evergreen conifer forest; MEF, mixed evergreen forest; MEW, mixed evergreen woodland; GRS, grassland; SHB, shrubland; DES, desert. Increasing temperatures drive the reduction in alpinesubalpine forest cover and cause mixed conifer forest to displace evergreen conifer forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the North Coast. Mixed conifer forest in the South Coast expands because of increased humidity and reduced fire frequency.Because of drier conditions and increased fire frequency in inland locations, grassland displaces shrubland and woodland, particularly in the PCM simulations, whereas warmer and drier conditions under HadCM3 cause an expansion of desert cover in the southern Central Valley. (see: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0404500101v1?view=abstract )
Automobiles have allowed us to colonize, or develop communities, in areas previously inaccessible, and which had fires in previous years. Now, with drought (another predicted event), these areas were very vulnerable to fires. There are some places we should not build upon. This would include ridge tops with that great view, but which can be horrible places to be when a fire comes.
As with the rest of the nation, my heart goes out to those who have lost so much in California. Their experience is not unique. This country has allowed the development of areas which should not be developed, such as the Tillamook Spit, and the City of Bay Ocean Park, a community on the Oregon coast in the early 1900s, and now does not exist. Here is that story:
http://oregoncoast101.com/articles/ghosts_from_a_dream.htm
John
The energy required to sustain the lives of 6.6+ billion people on this small planet, regardless of what we use for personal transport is mainly at fault...
The fact that some tiny fraction of the population can manage to use walking or bicycles for some of their short-trip transportation is hardly relevant to this issue.
It's not a tiny fraction, it's the majority.
The energy required to sustain the lives of 6.6+ billion people on this small planet, regardless of what we use for personal transport is mainly at fault. And I don't see any way to remedy that, short of drastically reducing the human population. The fact that some tiny fraction of the population can manage to use walking or bicycles for some of their short-trip transportation is hardly relevant to this issue.
And as far as the CA wildfires showing that there is something wrong with the way we plan our communities, that's silly. First, the wild fires would be burning out in the wild regardless of how the communities are planned. And regardless of how the communites are planned, at some point there has to be an edge between the wilderness where the wild fires start and spread, and where the communities, however they are planned, begin. And unless you build cinder block walls several hundred feet high at those edges (though other more practical methods can mitigate risk at the edges) , the hot/large embers are going to fly into the communities, regardless of how they are planned. And the buildings in the communites, regardless of how they are planned, are going to catch fire, unless you encase them in steel, cement, brick and similar noncombustible materials.
So how wild are these fires now that 2 people have been arrested and another shot and killed during arson investigations of them?
i'm sorry, the insistence americans should perpetuate consuming 30 percent of the world's petroleum output becasue of our birthright, and continue to foster an auto-centric society because that's what we've been building up over the last fifty years is sheer folly.
There's a global imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emmisions; for 5 percent of the worlds' citizens to consume 30 percent of the oil annually, to make 40 percent of trips of two miles or less, is pathetic. anyone, like jhon, that thinks the status quo should be perpetuated because that's the way it is, is NOT a bicycle or bicycling advocate. he's sucking tailpipe just like the rest of auto-addled america.
The US needs to change our course regarding personal automobile use, not stay the course.
So how wild are these fires now that 2 people have been arrested and another shot and killed during arson investigations of them?
Whether the ignition of a wildfire is manmade or natural is irrelevant. What makes a wildfire wild is that it burns vegetation in wilderness, be it forest or brush, regardless of how it was started. I suppose a controlled burn in wilderness is not necessarily a wildfire, but it is if it gets out of control, even though it started as a controlled burn.
Whether the ignition of a wildfire is manmade or natural is irrelevant. What makes a wildfire wild is that it burns vegetation in wilderness, be it forest or brush, regardless of how it was started. I suppose a controlled burn in wilderness is not necessarily a wildfire, but it is if it gets out of control, even though it started as a controlled burn.
It's called rhetorical sarcasm, not meant to solicit a reply. ;)
No need to go a;; "Professor Head" on me here bub... or as some might see it, go pedantic.
It's called rhetorical sarcasm, not meant to solicit a reply. ;)
No need to go a;; "Professor Head" on me here bub... or as some might see it, go pedantic.
Sorry, I missed it. That's the problem with discussions done in writing rather than in person - all the subtleties normally conveyed in conversation by facial expression, body language and voice tone are lost.
Sorry, I missed it. That's the problem with discussions done in writing rather than in person - all the subtleties normally conveyed in conversation by facial expression, body language and voice tone are lost.
And don't forget smell!
"Pull My Finger" wouldn't be nearly as fun without it.
The problem with the fires in the West these days, and I'm including places like Idaho, are that our forests are not healthy like they once were and so the trees do not survive. The trees are stressed. One sign of the stress (not cause but sign) is the infestation of bark beetles. They are able to infest because the forest is stressed. There is less water for the forest as the warm season lengthens. The trees are drier. They ignite in a fire now and are killed when previously they used to survive. Then, because the climate has already changed, the trees do not grow back because their optimal growing conditions no longer exist. It's not as much a problem in the chaparral we have, but it's a growing concern in the West.
Desertification is not a slow chipping away at the forest. It happens in an instant, in a catastrophic wildfire. I predict this is how we will lose the Amazon rain forest. In an instant in a single, enormous, catastrophic wildfire. It will not grow back.
Positioning cycling advocacy as if it were strictly some kind of pathological opposition to cars is illogical. The problem is traffic congestion. Cycling is an answer. It's an answer in Southern California as much as it is in Mumbai where congestion is partially caused by bicycles. A bicycle simply takes up less space and uses less resources. It is the most energy efficient means of transport ever devised, actually. People of an engineering mindset, such as JF, ought to be singing its praises rather than praising the inefficient automobile that has made possible such delights as cardboard tomatoes and tasteless strawberries.
Positioning cycling advocacy as if it were strictly some kind of pathological opposition to cars is illogical. The problem is traffic congestion. Cycling is an answer. It's an answer in Southern California as much as it is in Mumbai where congestion is partially caused by bicycles. A bicycle simply takes up less space and uses less resources. It is the most energy efficient means of transport ever devised, actually. People of an engineering mindset, such as JF, ought to be singing its praises rather than praising the inefficient automobile that has made possible such delights as cardboard tomatoes and tasteless strawberries.
Amen, Diane and Bek. the problem is traffic congestion, the problem is global warming, the problem is being able to have a liveable world for our children and grandchildren. not to mention all the animal and plant life decimated by our nearsightedness. we need to wake up. and fast. cycling is part of that answer. maybe a tiny one, but a part. the time is past that we didn't need to think about these things, didn't need to act.
Hmmmm a few Johns are posting at the moment.
While I think that some of these other objectives are worthwhile and can be addressed somewhat with cycling, they are not synonymous with cycling advocacy. They can be used to garner more resources towards cycling and attract more cyclists, but I think that it can also be a distraction from basic cycling advocacy and result in some unrealistic (and undesirable by some reasonable standards) demands.
I am no wild fire expert, but my understanding is that the severity of this year's wild fires is due to US policy regarding fighting all forest fires without the understanding that small fires are part of the natural cycle.
I also think that there are a lot of environmental doomsayers that--naturally since I called them "doomsayers"--overstate the probability and consequences of various environmental "disasters". Mind you, I am not stating that there are no consequences. But that our response as a society should be proportional to the problem and in consideration of other societal problems such as poverty, health care, education, and so on.
I am no wild fire expert, but my understanding is that the severity of this year's wild fires is due to US policy regarding fighting all forest fires without the understanding that small fires are part of the natural cycle.
That's the lesson from the big Yellowstone fire in the 80s, but I don't think it played much of a role in southern CA fires. On hot and ultra dry days, Santa Ana winds can drive fires toward the west very quickly, even through areas that completely burned just a few years earlier.
just wait for the mudslides.
however, increasing the viability of bicycling in the USA, and vigororous support for bicycles in the transportation mix does not merit the criticism jhon forestor heaps onto it. what a gashuffer.
Mudslides don't increase the viability of bicycling. They do increase the viability of hoofing it. I should know. I got trapped in my house for several days several years ago because of severe mudslides.
After I ran out of food, and without any TV to occupy the time, no Internet back then, and classes at the university passing me by, I hoofed it off that god-forsaken mountain, sometimes nearly sinking up to my thigh in mud. A few times I was afraid I might get into serious trouble.
I walked passed cars buried to their wheel wells in my apocolyptic journey back to civilization. It was months before they were able to repair the road.
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