Although this guy is a lot more in your face, he echos so many conversations I have had with people over several years. People who's commute is less than three miles over flat land in coastal southern california still think that I am crazy for commuting back and forth to work and couldn't imagine a life without daily use of their SUV.

Exactly, when my heart flat lines I don't care what happens from then on, and why should you? Of course there is global warming, we are still defrosting from an ICE AGE. Before the ICE AGE things where really HOT do you see a cycle here?

Humans aren't all that important in the grand future of this rock we live on. When its time for us to be eradicated the human race will be gone making room for the next superior species. This is the way things work. Ever hear of a little group called the dinosaurs? A million years from now some 4 headed purple thing will be analyzing the fossil of a little folder bike and wondering what life must have been like.

I'm not saying don't try to save the planet but don't point at someone else and think your better because you use less carbon in your day to day life then them.

You don't have any children do you?

You never know, there were cockroaches in the Jurrassic, and their descendents are almost unchanged. The dinosaurs left us the birds, who are doing okay to this day. Certainly, 10 million years from today humans as we know them will not be on top. But I'm kind of hoping that they will look very similar and celebrate their human ancestors.

Good point, you never know that might be what happens. It would be interesting to see if the new species would buy human sprays to keep us away or put out human feeders because we are so cute and adorable (using your cockroach and bird theory).

Who deleted the pictures of the dead dogs? Not that I liked seeing them... It wasn't pleasant.

So, what would be the best gun, and how do you carry it on your bike?

Ya got me. I somehow have managed to go through life without ever shooting a gun.
I've always liked my father's beretta. Either that or his SKS.
Neither of which would be easy to carry on a bike.

Your dog is killing the polar bears.

Your dogs food is causing strain on the earth and since a healthy dogs diet consists of meat products thats doubly bad.

See, I have been paying attention to you hippies for quite a while now!! I'm inside your heads.

Dreadlocks and dogs are not going to save the earth my friend!!!!

Every time a dog farts a polar bear cries.

I know this isn't quite the focus of this topic, but did anyone notice how he sounded like Kermit the frog at 00:14? From watching Glenn Beck I noticed that he will often make bone headed comments likes these constantly, so I'm not really that surprised https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxq40OB0mkw

I think he is a fat disgrace.

How can anyone pretend to be in control of anything if they cannot control the energy in = energy out equation that several of us manage to do everyday.

When he gets down to 1 chin I will listen.

As Michael Crichton so ably wrote in his novel Jurassic Park, the earth itself is no danger whatsoever. What is in some danger (and the true extent is beyond our ability to calculate at this point) is the biosphere that allows us breathe, eat, and drink.

What we've missed along the way somehow is a respect for that environment. In our headlong rush to "live a better life" (and, IMHO, having missed the boat badly on what actually constitutes "better"), we have become and basically have been destroyers--******* of the very thing we are so completely dependent upon rather than feeling ourselves a part of it.

The real thrust of the novel, Jurassic Park (and what Spielberg missed pretty badly on in his rush to create a blockbuster), is a very simple premise: just because we can do something does not mean that we should.

By cycling as my primary mode of transport, I'm not trying to "save the world" (I do not have that power). I am, however, trying to minimize the damage I do to it as I go along. I forget who here has the signature, "Stomping as lightly as I can," but it sums up very well what I try to do in all things in my life. But that's just me.

I'm not a hippie you moron.

I wasn't having a go at you, I was just pushing the thread down the pro/anti gun-while-cycling direction, which is always good for a bit of a laugh.

...I reckon slinging an AK-47 across your back would probably be the single best road rage deterrent.

No worries. I was not annoyed.

An SKS or AK-47 would be awesome.

Despite being a liberal I think my next hobby will involve a pistol and a firing range. That is after a firearm safety class.

psych 101:

change = anxiety = resistance = no-change .

if a person is subjected to being "uncomfortable", or perceived "un-eased", and is aligned with publicized b/s like this (how many pro-bicycle/public transport ads vs car ads are viewed?) the result is evident in a unified embracement of "same as it always was".

i think when the price of gasoline hits $5 per gallon, the resistance part of the psy-101 equation listed above will change, fueled by need. the anxiety part hopefully will be exchanged to exitement to ride...and that everyone is looking forward to their next ride like i am!

go out and represent!

tomg

Is it me or the bourbon?

People are so out of shape and concerned with their image that they wouldn't dream of cycling a mile to a store.

My solution to global warming: let hippies teach gym class in public schools instead of the guys who failed to become cops.

(I apologize for my above comment. I am perfectly aware that many PE teachers did not fail to become police officers [pro bullies]. PE teachers; I understand that your parents worked hard to send you to college, and you never even applied to the force)

Well duh, they're obviously fabulously wealthy!

I've been coming to the conclusion lately that the breakdown is athletics. In high school (I was there about 6 years ago) I remember that only jocks went out for sports: Only people who were already good at the sport they were going for; or very good at another sport.

Everyone else just complained about gym, at pizza and french fries daily, and played video games at home. (I'm a guy if you can't already tell, so it's a guy perspective).

I wish schools would have less competitive leagues for sports. Not that you stop keeping score. You just stop posting the wins and losses in the newspaper. You don't try to get the whole school to buy a ticket to the event. The point of the event is healthy fun and 3rrr amongst _normal people_.

Hopefully if kids start doing this in school they'll look for it when they graduate. And maybe we'll get more amateur sports leagues with more variety. As it stands we all have to teach ourselves to exercise after we're grown up and fat.

I blame 24 hour news stations. Something about them breeds idiocy.

There are some apparently intelligent people in the media, they just aren't in news. It seems most of them are in comedy. It's not very altruistic of them, but comedy seems to attract the more intelligent of the celebrity clan. Must be something about acting stupid that's liberating?

Don't think that message was "missed" exactly... it was the basis for nearly every comment by Jeff Goldbloom's character.

+1. Excellent post.

Ironically, though, I do agree with the same guy on his position in this clip, which is that corn-based ethanol is a terrible idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBg8CY4bEqI&NR=1

Of course, considering his stance in the first clip, how does he think we're going to keep all the cars running? Oh wait, I'm thinking too much again! Silly me! I forgot that we are entitled to cheap and abundant fossill fuels forever! Let's go cruis'n for burgers! VRRRRRRRRRRoooooooooooooommm!! Good times 4evAr! Everyone ready?!?!

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CONSUME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!111!!111!

Not really "missed," no (Crichton wrote the screenplay, after all), but certainly de-emphasized. In the novel, the character Ian Malcom (Goldblum's character) delivers many of the most important ideas. In the film, he's almost an afterthought--"too cool" somehow.

In setting down the novel, I felt my horizons greatly expanded in a number of ways, but in leaving the theater, I felt like I had been compelled to go buy a lunch box or a T-shirt.

$pielberg is a very fine film director--he really knows how to move a story forward. But he seems largely to use those talents to take basic human fascinations (aliens, sharks, dinosaurs, Nazis, etc.) and turn them into pop culture ca$h (or is that trash?).

What I find ironic is that of the people I know, the ones with kids seem to be the least interested in re-examining their lifestyle or changing their habits.