I wish I could say I found THIS one myself, but I found it at Kent Peterson's Blog. It's about a life well lived, and the danger of turning left. Like Kent said, it's not about bikes specifically, but it makes a good point that any cyclist can take to heart.
This evening, for the second time in several days, I started crying. The first time was May 3rd. May 3rd was my uncle's birthday. He died in October 2006 from Pulmonary Fibrosis. He was not a man of many words, but he had a heart of gold and he was a wonderful listener. I spent about 4 days with him back in 2000 when my wife and I took a road trip through the southwest and for me, it was one of the highlights of the trip. I'm very thankful that I got to know him, even if it was just a little bit. My cousin's email is what set me off. She wrote a very beautiful thing about her dad on his birthday and sent it to me, and I was sobbing by the time I finished it. Somehow I wasn't surprised, because she and I simultaneously fell apart at the funeral and ended up sobbing in each others arms for several minutes. It didn't seem strange that we hadn't seen each other in at least 20 years.
Tonight I got caught up with Fatty's Blog, and the ordeal that he and his wife are going through is excruciating to read. In particular, the reaction of his 11 year old son put me in tears for the second time in 5 days; DAMN! I can only imagine the pain that Susan is going through, but to see your children in that kind of fear and pain is intolerable. The folks at Twin Six approached Fatty about making a limited edition pink version of his totally awesome jersey in a show of solidarity for his wife. If you can do it, please go to the Pink Lemonade entry and vote for the size that you would want. Most of the funds go to support breast cancer research and little goes to Susan. Twin Six won't be making a dime, and I think that's pretty damn cool of them. If they do indeed make the jersey and I can get one, I'll wear it with pride as I suffer over Carson Pass on my trip to Burning Man by bicycle. In fact, I'm dedicating my suffering first ascent of Carson Pass to Susan Nelson.
Charity is my... well, I don't know how we're really related anymore. Technically we're not, but it doesn't matter.
She lives in LaLa land (aka Los Angeles) and works in the entertainment industry. She's also writing a book. Her writing is very good.. I'm very impressed. My writing feels awkward when I read her blog… DOH!
Check out her article about the Insanity of Vanity.
CURRENT MUSIC: Rush, Exit... Stage Left, Tom Sawyer
The Archdruid Report: Faustus and the Monkey Trap
I found the link over at Mauricio's Blog. Mauricio is a fellow Xtracyclist, and a regular poster over at Todd Fahrner's Blog. It's a great article and at the risk of repeating this point, for the third time, it points out that Biofuels are not the answer to our energy problems. Look, I'm all for using WVO (waste vegetable oil) to create biodiesel: this is giving it a second life. Cultivating crops for fuel only? Stupid stupid stupid. A line from Rush's "Territories" (released in 1987 on the Hold Your Fire album) song rings particularly true here;
The whole wide world
An endless universe
Yet we keep looking through
The eyeglass in reverse
Don't feed the people
But we feed the machines
Can't really feel
What international means
In different circles, we keep holding our ground
In different circles, we keep spinning round and round
Hard to believe that I used to quote Rush on a daily basis.. back in highschool. I can still do it once in a while. I'll be seeing them in Concord in August; already got my tickets.
Yeah, this post is all over the map... just like me.
Oh.. and a teaser: the Stokemonkey is completed. I fired it up for the first time today and it runs. There's some other details to finish (battery box placement to accomodate PeaPod, front derailer hookup, shellacing of the new cork grips, readjusting the handlebar accountrements, cable tying off loose ends), but after 8 long months of procrastination and excuses, the end is nigh. Just in time: I did my first ride to the shop in many months on my wife's bike and I was pining the whole time for SuperVato. It didn't help that the seat on her bike is NO substitue for my B17, the handlebar position on her bike (for me at least) is several inches below the seat and I was carrying a 30+ pound pack on my back. It all added up to a less than comfortable ride. None-the-less it was a beautiful day, perfect temperatures and the ride was glorius. I kept thinking to myself "why haven't I been doing this all then time?". It finally lit another fire under my ass and I finished the Stokemonkey install and started on the other finishing details. I'm waiting for the shellac to dry so I can sand and put on another coat tomorrow evening. Monday morning may find me riding to the citay.. though as Todd said, I should really take it easy on the battery the first few rides. Oh... and I weighed the entire rig (w/ battery). Sit down if you're standing (wait who stands to read this blog anyways?).. a whopping 95 lbs! I was thinking all along that somehow I was going to come out around 80 lbs, but ... no. Then add me (currently around 190), my son (I'm guessing, but probably around 35lbs) and a load of groceries (20-60 pounds) and I'm up between 320-380lbs. Does that exceed the rating of the FreeRadical? It's rather unclear. I'm guessing that I'm nearing capacity, but it's probably more about my wheels than anything else.
One of the general axioms of riding a motorcycle is "it's not of matter of if, it's a matter of when you crash your bike". I've heard this for years and dutifully repeated it, though without much conviction. Until today.
I've been riding motorcycles for nearly 13 years and I've never crashed a bike. I've dropped 2 different bikes a combined total of 3 times, but I wasn't REALLY riding when it happened. The first time was on my 1990/1992 (don't ask) Suzuki GSXR 1100. I was out at Rodeo Beach (aka Fort Kronkite) and being as the bike was still fairly new (to me) and feeling paranoid of thieves, I decided to put my new disc lock on while I walked the beach. On returning to the bike, I mounted up, fired the engine and attempted to back out of my parking spot… only to come to a jarring halt when the lock hit the forks. I was not ready for this and the bike tilted to the left and my left foot slipped while I was trying to get it down.. needless to say, the next few minutes found me feeling rather stupid and abashedly struggling to set the rubber side down again. I had not learned yet THIS technique, so I picked the bike up using my arms and back muscles... the wrong way. I didn't notice right away because of the adrenaline, but later that afternoon my back was very sore. This little mistake cost me a sizeable chunk of pride and a set of bent rotors that a resurfacing job didn't fix. A constant pulse in the front brake whenever applied was a constant reminder to think about the bike lock. I ended up getting a coiled cable that ran from the lock to the handlebar as a reminder so that it wouldn't happen again, but not before...
... the second dropped bike. After I sold my GSXR, I purchased a used 1995 BMW R1100 GS. It was (and is) a tall bike; even with the seat in the lowest position, I could never get more than the balls of my feet on the ground. This made stopping on any crowned or sloping road a real challenge. I always had to slide my hips over when coming to stop so I could get more of my foot on the ground. I got used to it but it was dicey in the beginning. One day while in SF I stopped at my favorite Mission St. Taqueria, El Farolitos at 24th & Misson. Seeing as I was in the heart of SF's Mission Distrct, I put my disc lock on. I parked with the ass end of the bike in to the curb between 2 cars. I was in a hurry when I got back to the bike as I was running late (at this point I don't remember where I had to be) and I forgot to remove the disc lock. I was turning right out of my spot heading north on Mission when the lock hit the forks and I overbalanced on the right side. As the bike went down and I hopped off and managed to slow the bike's pavement bound topple, but I was unable to halt it. The physical damange was limited to minor scratching and a slightly scratched cylinder head guard, but there was massive damage to my ego as there were tons of people (nothing unusual for Mission St. in the middle of the day) walking down the sidewalk. Somehow adrenaline pumping through my veins managed to get the bike back up on it's wheels, but I lifted the bike the wrong way again and I was panting by the time I got the kickstand down and the lock off. I took off as fast as I could, with my proverbial tail between my legs. It was shortly after this incident that I got the "reminder" cable for the lock.
The third time I dropped the bike and the second time I dropped the beamer was in Mendocino on a gravel road. I had been visiting my brother-in-law; At the time he was living way up a mountainside on a gravel road with a deep gravel driveway. You can guess where this is going. A little too much throttle combined with some sloppy clutch work kicked the rear wheel out to the right as I was departing and the bike ended up on it's left side with me standing next to it saying "wow, that sucks". Actually what I said was a lot worse than that, but let's leave it at that. I was a much better rider by this point, but I had zero experience riding a motorcycle in gravel and I didn't realize how unforgiving it can be. Minor scratching to the cylinder guards and none to me and thankfully this time no one witnessed my ineptitude. I had learned another valuable lesson.
So that covers my previous experience with dropping motorcycles. Speed was always less than 3 mph and it was always from a stop that I dropped the bike... until today.
I was heading home from work after a rather frustrating day at work. My ride was going well with several nicely connected green lights that usually don't link up. Riding usually makes me feel better when other things aren't going well. The way I become one with the bike and the way my mind clears and I focus completely on the here and now is a wonderful way to put your troubles aside. This focus was the reason that today's wreck didn't badly damage my bike and I escaped physically unscathed.
I was headed westbound down Fulton Street. Somewhere between 11th & 12th St. I got into the right hand lane in anticipation for turning right on Park Presidio. There was a green Toyota Corolla or Camry in front of me with a bunch of bumper stickers on it. As we approached Park Presidio the traffic stacked up right to Funston in the right lane. The corolla/camry was braking in a straight line, no right hand signal, all indication were that they were going straight past Park Presidio and heading for points further west. I began to move right into the curb lane/right hand turn lane that directs you onto Park Presidio. Map HERE. At this point the corolla/camry driver is nearly past the northbound lane of Funston as I begin to enter the widening turn lane. I've slowed to maybe 15-20mph. Can you guess what happened next? Yeah.. this asshat decides he doesn't want to wait for the cars at the light and decides he wants to shortcut them by going down Funston, so without signal or any indication he turns right onto Funston right in front of me. I locked up the brakes and managed to turn the bars enough to miss creaming his passenger door... I rode it to the end pulling my leg free as the bike dumped over on the right side. I realized afterward that I was howling in anger the whole time the panic braking was happening and I was standing in the entrance to Funston in the northbound lane double arm flipping the bird and screaming obscenities before the driver was even halfway down the block. He never even slowed down. I don't know if he even saw or heard me. A nice irishman by the name of Carl helped me pick up the bike and chatted with me for a few minutes. He told me about how his brother rides a motorcycle over in Ireland and also about another bad motorcycle accident he'd seen a few weeks ago. Somehow I managed to get over the whole thing and regain my composure within a couple of minutes. This is HIGHLY unusual for me and in retrospect I've come to realize that it was Carl's smile, unflappable positivity and his helping hand that turned a potential week long funk into something I was able to basically brush off like a bothersome mosquito. Somehow I was just happy to be unhurt and my bike damage to be relatively minor. Thanks again Carl, wherever you are out there.
Damage Assesment: Slightly scratched mirror casing, slightly bent front brake lever, dislodged right front turn signal and some ugly scratching on my right givi hardbag. The front turn signal still works even and the plastic didn't even break. I was amazed. I tried picking up the bike the way described in the video above, but I'm sure I was doing it wrong as I tried it twice and couldn't get a good grip. I ended up picking it up the wrong way. I don't seem to have hurt my back, but then again I did have some help from Carl. The rest of the ride home was mostly uneventful with the exception of a marin soccer mom in a white Range Rover Defender veering into my lane heading down the waldo grade; I was far enough back that I slowed down AND gave her the horn which sent her cell-phone-to-the-ear ass swerving back into her own lane. I gunned it past after that and didn't see her again.
WHAT I LEARNED (again):
THIS just cracked me up. I found it at FatCyclist and it gave me a good laugh. Can you imagine? I wonder what possessed this horse to do this? I don't ride (horses) but I've known a fair number and I've never seen behavior anything like this. Maybe it was a race horse?
Most thoroughbreds are freaked by bicycles/bicyclists, but this one seems to fit right in...
Gosh, THIS really tells it like it is. Funny, yet painful and scary.. because it's true. Man, I can't WAIT till his bungling neo fascist regime is through with their turn. Let's just hope the Dems don't mess it up worse.
Arrrrgghhh.... Avast ye scum ridden bug pluggers! Black Sam Rackham's gonna keel haul ye and stow ye in davey jones' locker if yer not savvy!!!
Just read this. I've admired LFOAB since the day I started reading his blog, but my respect and admiration for him just got ratcheted up a few notches. Good on ya mate! (I'm not australian, but that phrase just fits).
THIS article that I found through Oil Is For Sissies summed up the fuel efficient car thing pretty well. In fact, it put down in writing the thoughts that had been running round my head when I vetoed buying a hybrid. See, Hybrids aren't cheap. There are cheaper cars whose milage isn't that much lower. Wait, I'll just shut up now, because I'm just going to confuse you; go read the article. You'll see what I mean.
Oh, and you can safely exclude the bicycle or human/electric hybrid from this equation. It's on a whole different level.
If you haven't heard of Dave Nice and his misfortune on the Great Divide Race in 2006, then read Fatty's entry here.
I was incensed when I learned of Dave's misfortune in the 2006 GDR, so much so that I immediately went on the offensive and contacted everyone I knew in Montana and told them to be on the lookout for Dave's bike. It didn't help Dave get back in the race or get his bike back, but I felt like I'd done... something. Then after reading fatty's entry above, I really could do something to help Dave, so I dropped $100 on Fatty's raffle for Dave. I'm stoked that Dave will be able to race the GDR this year: losing one's whole rig like that has got to be bone-crushingly devastating. I know I would be tempted to enter a bad spiral of depression if I were him.
The selfish part of me was stoked to win a prize in the raffle, but I would have put in that money even if there wasn't a chance of winning anything. See, I used to enter every damn raffle that I came across, and I never won a thing. I'd enter to win raffles for things I could give a shit about. I never won. This was for something momentous. The GDR is an amazing race. Forget those asshats on "the amazing race". This is the real deal.
I dropped more than I should have, but I think Dave deserved another chance at the GDR, and I'm honored to help make it happen. The selfish part of me feverently hoped to win something cool and bike related. Fatty emailed me and informed me of my win.. WHEE. Ergon grips. I checked them out on his site (they're a sponser) and have been intrigued.
I found this travelogue tonight while reading a thread about touring/long distance bicycling on bikeforums.. A great great story and laugh-out-loud funny at several parts. If you've ever felt like getting some exercise, but didn't feel like getting off the couch, this is the way to do it for sure. You Burners out there will appreciate the applications of the vehicle design towards the 2007 "Green Man" theme... no polluting generators here!
So I ended up going to the North American Hand Made Bicycle Show after all. I didn't think I was going to be able to go, as the wife was out of town visiting her brother and I had the boy, and as much as I would like to hope that he would do fine at the show, I knew that it wouldn't be much fun for me, and I would have no chance of having any kind of conversations with any of the builders about custom longtails, nor would I get to drool over particularly beautiful lugged bikes, plus if there was anyone in need of custom CNC Woodwork, there was little chance I could peddle OUR services. Some close friends of ours came to the resuce & agreed to hold down the fort with the boy for a few hours so after dropping him off, I pulled a high speed burn down to San Jose (78 miles in 67 minutes... you do the math) to arrive at 2:05pm. It was just barely enough time; I could have spent 2-3 more hours there checking out bikes and talking to builders and staffers, but the show ended at 5:00, and it was enough.
I took some photos, but no doubt if you look around the web, you'll find better photos than mine. Really, mine were all snapshots; nothing was composed particularly well. I'll post them anyways for fun. Like an idiot, there were several builders and people I talked to extensively that I go no pictures of their stuff (Vanilla, Fraser and Old Man Mountain in particular). DOH!
I'm particularly torn between Vanilla & Fraser. They both make BEAUTIFUL longtails and are EXCEPTIONALLY nice people. At this point I can't justify another bicycle, so I'll have to sell a bunch of bikes before I can buy a custom longtail, but if you're ready for one now, I highly highly recommend Vanilla Cycles (Portland, OR), Fraser Cycles (So Cal), Sycip (Santa Rosa, CA) and Inglis Bikes (Napa, CA). Speaking of Inglis: I tried several times to talk to Curtis at the show, but he was always swamped so I never got the chance. He comes highly recommended by another Stokemonkey user Dave who has pictures of his Inglis made Xtrabike HERE. If the show is around here again next year, I'll definitely be going, as it's a blast and the bikes are just so heartbreakingly beautiful. One final note: A Rohloff hubbed mountain bike is being made by the guys @ Old Man Mountain, and if I had my drothers, I'd sell the Heckler and buy one in a heartbeat. Anyone want to buy a 2000 Santa Cruz Heckler (Medium) in Orange with a Polished Swingarm?
I started reading the Fat Cyclist Blog this evening, and there's a lot of great articles there. The one that pinged the tuning fork in me though is this one. Holy wow. Very sobering, and very heavy as the final thing I read before I go to sleep. I'd say "Enjoy", but that doesn't fit. Epic ordeal indeed, this one is heavy, but definitely worth the read.
An argument with my wife this evening over a money issue weighs heavily on my mind as I read this, and my over-reaction seems so very stupid now. Time is short folks; enjoy your small joys and triumphs. Crippling disability or illness can strike us at anytime and take away our ability to do the things that bring us joy. This article will make you want to hug the people you love, and if you're a bicyclist, it'll put the riding jones on you somethin' fierce. You've been warned.
A few months back a guy named Rick Polito got a hold of me (in a roundabout way). He's a reporter from the Marin IJ (Independant Journal), and he was doing an article about electric vehicles, and he had heard about my X/SM bike from either Todd at Cleverchimp or Bill Manewal, I'm still not quite sure... wait... yeah, it was Todd. ANYWAYS... where was I? Oh yes... so we play phone tag a couple of times, and then we finally have a long conversation, roughly an hour and he interviews me about bicycling, commuting, EV's, being a dad, etc. etc. He was going to try and get a pic of me riding with my son on the bike with the Stokemonkey in action, but I didn't get it done in time (there's this chain drag issue that I still haven't resolved.) Anyways, it's a nice article, and though I can't speak for the other people that he interviewed, he pretty much quoted me word for word, which I found to be refreshing and restored my faith in reporters a little bit. See, for the most part I know that many many things are taken out of context when they're reported in the news. I know that much is left out. I've known at least 3 people who've been interviewed for different newspapers, and in every instance they were either misquoted or there was information wrong.
Rick also happens to be a bicycle commuter (one of the only ones at the IJ by his own admission), so I applaud him for his commitment to health AND accuracy in reporting.
Kipchoge suggested months ago in his Pleasant Revolution Blog (Kipchoge is one of the two guys who started Xtracycle) that all the Xtracyclists call and/or write their newspapers to get them talking about our Xtracycle exploits and how we're contributing to the solution of obesity/global warming/traffic congestion relief/road rage, etc. So I guess this means I've had my 15 minutes...
Speaking of xtracycles... last week I saw another Xtracycle; YEAH! I was hauling some sheets of plywood to SF to my shop (sorry guys, hauling multiple sheets of 4 x 8 x 3/4" plywood and the finished products made from them over 70 miles is a job better done by a truck, one of the few things I think IS better done in a truck) and I was driving past San Quentin towards 101 south when I saw an Xtracyclist headed the other direction. My first reaction was one of joy at seeing another xtracyclist, and I had to forcibly resist the urge to slam on the brakes, swerve to the side of the road, get out, run across and hug the other biker. This no doubt would have freaked them out to no end as they would have had no idea why a strange person was running up to them trying to hug them. Thankfully, I resisted my first inclination.
My second reaction was that of guilt... why wasn't I riding mine? Well, there was the plywood thing... and the fact that the Stokemonkey conversion still isn't finished... DOH!
IMGP0003web.jpg
Originally uploaded by Nollij.
Ok.. so as promised, Here are some photos of the Flash Flags. Come back to the Flickr set soon and I'll have some photos of them attached to bicycles (even better!). I have 15 of them to sell, and they're $9 plus a couple of bucks for shipping (inside the continental U.S). 2007-11-02 NOTE: Shipping is a flat $5 via USPS Priority Mail , unless you want more than 2 of them with the modification. My quantity on hand varies so check with me at the email address at the bottom of this entry.
I put one on the Bike E RX and went for a ride on Saturday. I did about 18 miles between Novato and Kentfield. It wags around in the breeze and generally draws lots of attention to itself, which is good. I bumped it on a few things (pylons, bushes and myself) and it sustained no damage (which is what it's supposed to do). I'm a little disappointed with how small the stock clamp is, but an easy solution was at hand: I ran the closure screw through a metal hose clamp and attached that to one of the seat verticals on the RX. I tried the clamp out on 2 of my other bikes. It was too small to be able to close around the seat stays on the Marin Novato and of course it was too small for the big tubes on the RX. It did fit on my Burning Man Bike (Steel Univega circa mid 1980's) near the bottom of the seat stays, near the dropouts, but if I were to mount one on that bike, I would want it mounted closer to the brake bosses, in which case I might have to use a small hose clamp. It's not a big deal, but I'm a little disappointed that the stock clamp won't accommodate anything other than super skinny tubes. Which I guess means that I should give folks the option of having me add one for them. So add $3 if you want me to add a hose clamp for you. if you have a steel touring frame you're probably set with the stock clamp.
Oh yeah, I have no idea what the black plastic hook is supposed to do. If you figure it out, let me know!
Yes, the American Flag comes with it, and yes, the white stripes in it are retroreflective too. Whether you like the flag or not is beyond my control: throw it away if you don't like it. 2007-11-02 NOTE: The American Flag stickers didn't come with my second batch, so don't be surprised when you don't see them!
Kent Peterson posted THIS LINK on his blog, and I just can't say it any better, so I'll shut up. Well, one last thing... I have been known once in a while to get holier-than-thou about unlit cyclists at night, but only when they manage to almost kill me. Shutting up to commence... NOW.
They are here! I will post good pictures soon (as well as in the bag, I'll have some mounted photos as well). If you want one, they're $9. Shipping to most places (standard, not express) should be about $1-@2, but I'll have to put on in a package and weigh it to know for sure.
They look a little different than they used to.. they now have reflective striping across the flags, and they should be equally visible at night as well as day. What's funny is, I recently bought a flag and mast for my Bike E RX, and I did the EXACT same thing to my flag with some reflective tape I bought at the hardware store. I had no idea that they'd changed the design on the Flash Flags to do this as well... but I guess bike minds think alike. If I can figure out some way to mount it, I'll put a flash flag on my 'bent (but the seatstays (as far as they can be called this) won't accomodate it, so I'll either mount it to the seat, or drill and tap a hole in the body near the tail. Pictures to come as projects get completed.
Speaking of which, NO the stokemonkey isn't done. I'm waiting on a part I need to fabricate (custom chain guide) in order to run the bike safely, otherwise the chain will rub on the frame AND new Val Kleiss centerstand. Fortunately, the design phase is nearly finished, preliminary .dxf files have been created and the bearings are the only things holding up the chain roller process now.
The rubbing issue is due in large to the swapout of the cranks and rings(previously a Truvativ 5D 48,38,28, Now a Sugino X3 44, 34, 22) and BB (went to a UNB-53 from the Truvativ Splined Power cartidge), all in all lowering my high gear ratio from 103 to 94.4 and my low end from 27.7 to 21.8. The next upgrade I do to this bike in the transmission (and only once this one wears out) will be to go to fewer gears, either 7 or 8 cog cassette (if I can find a new one!) or the Deore XT 9 speed CS-M760.
The Flash Flags I ordered are almost here. I've been checking daily on their status via the UPS site and they are slowly making their way from Canada to my doorstep in Novato. These are a nifty little item that bolts on to your bike and increases your visibility to drivers of the vehicular variety. You can see them on here, but I'll have better pictures up as soon as I get them. They should be about $9 plus shipping. Drop me a comment if you're interested. I'll have 16 of them to sell and depending on how fast they go, I may get more.
Two of my favorite bloggers (and bicycle people) posted inspiring entries recently.
Large Fella On A Bike has a great article about his run-in with an extremely rude driver who nearly killed him. His reaction is a fabulous example of an evolved response to a stressful situation. He thanks his daughter for the insight she provided into people's motivations for doing bad things. Awesome!
Kent Peterson's entry titled Get A Light! made me think twice about my own reaction to unlit cyclist encounters. I've been guilty of the same reaction he had more than once. My yearly Burning Man attendance creates the highest number of "Hey, Get a light darkwad!" comments. It's not very helpful, as it only serves as an outlet for my own frustration, and the people receiving the comments are no doubt not listening to the message behind the comment/insult.
I guess this means it's time to start carrying some spare cheapo blinkers around with me when I'm night riding to give away. Obviously more effective that yelling "Get A Light Darkwad!"
For the record, "Darkwad" is a term that started (as far as I know) at Burning Man to describe people who are traveling around Black Rock City sans lighting. In a city with nearly 40k bicyclists, riding unlit at night creates enormous potential for collision.
Most bicycle related fatalities occur at or after sunset, and of those, most involve unlit cyclists. Get two light sets: one for yourself and one for a friend or stranger.
Reposted from an email I received from Co-Op America, an organization I got turned on to by the folks over at Xtracycle.
Each of these steps would reduce carbon emissions by at least 1 billion tons per year by 2054. Implementing at least seven of them brings us to the scale necessary to meet the climate challenge, but we have to start now, and move quickly. We have a ten-year window in which we need to be well on the way to achieving these steps.
The good news is that we have the technology and know-how to accomplish all of these steps right now. The best news is that we don't just save the climate with these steps. They bring us real energy security, more jobs, a cleaner environment, real progress on the war against poverty, and a safer world. Let's get started today.
1. Increase fuel economy for the world's 2 billion cars from an average of 30 mpg to 60 mpg. (Current US averages are a woeful 22 mpg.)
2. Cut back on driving. Decrease car travel for 2 billion 30-mpg cars from 10,000 to 5,000 miles per year, through increased use of mass transit, telecommuting, and walking and biking.
3. Increase energy efficiency by one-quarter in existing buildings and appliances. Move to zero-emissions plans for new buildings.
4. Decrease tropical deforestation to zero, and double the rate of new tree plantings.
5. Stop soil erosion. Apply "conservation tillage" techniques to cropland at 10 times the current usage. Encourage local, organic agriculture.
6. Increase wind power. Add 3 million 1-megawatt windmills, 75 times the current capacity.
7. Push hard for solar power. Add 3,000 gigawatt-peak solar photovoltaic units, 1,000 times current capacity.
8. Increase efficiency of coal plants from an average of 32 percent efficiency to 60 percent, and shut down plants that don't meet the standard. No net new coal plants; for new plants built, an equal number should close.
9. Replace 1,400 gigawatts of coal with natural gas, a four-fold increase in natural gas usage over current levels — a short-term step until zero-emissions renewable technologies can replace natural gas.
10. Sequester carbon dioxide at existing coal plants. Sequestration involves storing carbon dioxide underground, an unproven technology that may, nonetheless, be better than nothing.
11. Develop zero-emissions vehicles, including plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles powered by renewable energy.
12. Develop biomass as a short-term replacement for fossil fuel until better carbon-free technologies are developed — but only biofuels made from waste, and made without displacing farmland and rainforests.
A Matter of Scale by Keith Farnishwww.flickr.com
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