Cycling For Our Lives

Whenever I went to Florida during the summer, I woke up before sunrise so I do a ride before midday. Or, if I started later, I would plan to spend a couple of hours at the beach, or in a shady area, at lunchtime.  The idea was, of course, to avoid the midday heat and humidity, which could be unbearable.

For me, that was not an imposition.  If I did an early ride, I could have lunch and go to a movie or to stores--which are air-conditioned--with my parents during the hottest part of the day.  And who could complain about spending time on a beach in Florida?

But for others, the consequences of extreme weather are more extreme.  I'm hearing stories about parents who, during the current record-breaking heat wave in much of the western US, wake their kids up before dawn just so they can go outside for a couple of hours before the heat is not only unpleasant, but sometimes dangerous.  

Others, though, face much worse, including the loss of their homes, their livings or even their ways of life.  As an example, aboriginal peoples in Arctic regions will lose everything from their culture to their traditional diets if the ice continues to melt at current rates.  Likewise, people in coastal regions all over the world face displacement, and in still other regions, famines could result from crop or fishery failures or destruction.

James Baldwin once remarked that the future is like heaven:  People exalt it, but they don't want to go to it now.  He was talking about the Civil Rights struggles, but he could have been describing the current situation:  People know we need to change our ways, but not now.  Policies for reducing greenhouse emissions set goals for 2050 or some other year many of us won't see.  During the past few years, however, we've seen and heard evidence of accelerating climate change and environmental degradation. 

"The worst is yet to come, affecting our children's and grandchildren's lives much more than our own."  That blunt assessment came from an unlikely source:  a report compiled by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists who have been studying the issue.   The 4000 page document is not scheduled for official release until February 2022, but Agence France Presse received a draft yesterday.

From Ecoist magazine

I have devoted a post to this report because there is hardly a better reason to encourage cycling.  One of the chief causes of climate change is fossil fuel combustion, and one of its main sources is motor vehicle use.  I understand that, given the realities of how too many places are designed, and the ways in which some people make a living, some driving is necessary and inevitable.  But every time I ride by a line of SUVs transporting only their drivers, I have to wonder whether they're just going to the store down the street.