Bicycle Fixation Weblog
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06/06/2009: "Another Summerless Year?"
While I personally enjoy cool, cloudy days with scattered showers, I don't think it's a good sign that the weather is so erratic and out-of-synch as it has been lately. Last year there wasn't much of a summer here--a blazing hot week or two, but mostly cooler weather.Now, the rain I wrote of earlier has continued--pleasant riding for me, but absolutely wrong for this part of the world, this time of the year. I'm torn between enjoying it personally and understanding that it may signify the acceleration of Global Warming effects that recent meteorological surveys have indicated.
Meanwhile, governments do little, and the same pinstriped pirates who brought you Worldwide Recession continue by and large to argue against taking any steps that might reduce their profits, however necessary they may be to ensure the continuation of a world inhabitable by something other than roaches....
One can cry, one can shout, one can cower in despair...but the most powerful thing one can do is simply to start living "lightly on the earth" one's own self....
That's right, don't wait for "them" to fix the mess. Each one of us can fix our own personal corner of the world, and when enough of us have done so, it won't matter what the suits do in their hyperinsulated little meeting rooms.
Don't buy too much, and choose what you do buy with an eye towards its longevity. Eat less meat, which requires twenty to forty times as much land to feed you as plant food eaten directly does.
Live in cities, where each person uses less land, less energy, and fewer resources than rural or suburban dwellers do.
Find your pleasure in community at the coffeehouse, on the square, in the bus or train, on Critical Mass, where you can talk with all manner of folks directly, no editors involved, and learn what's really going on at street level.
And stay out of those land-hogging, air-fouling, isolation chambers known as "cars" as much as you can. More than you now think you can.
Yeah, it's too far to walk. But you're reading this, and you know it's not too far to ride.
The bicycle uses less energy to get you around than even walking does! And it keeps you in touch with your world, your fellows, yourself.
Ride your bike. You love it anyway. (But get some fenders for those rainy days to come!)
