I Want To Ride My Bicycle

"I wouldn't call myself a proponent of [internal combustion engines], I just believe that if something works (cost effectively), keep doing it. I'm all for alternative fuels and sources of energy/power it's just that none that I've dealt with or read about are cost effective. I hope this changes someday, but for now fossil fuels are what makes the world go around as they say."

" You do have a valid point-- I would be the first to break the exhaust line in the vehicle if it pointed inside ...I truly believe that our need for something better ,faster and fancier has lead us to the point that the environment has been critically damaged and we have caused ourselves illness because of it."

"Another idea: Instead of moving forward, you can move backward. There are many answers around us, or things from our past, that still have great value today. We don't have to innovate new things. Think of the bicycle, for example. When we say we need to innovate, we are really saying "we need our scientists to create solutions," which makes us helpless. If we say instead, "what has already proven to work and how can I use that?", we allow ourselves to find our own solutions. It's empowering!"
 

"How many could really go back to old world ways of life? Would you give up all modern technology?  I personally could live in the country near woods and water ...ride horses down the road... but that is not the world we live in...we live in the days [where having] something more than your neighbor makes you better...who is to say a new technology in the auto/transportation industry would not add yet another chemical that could cause cancer?  [I'm] just a simple girl that would love to go back to basics and stop thinking about competing in this modern world of new and more is better."

Man, good discussion, folks.  Yes, bikes are a good alternative, but their application is limited mostly to individual use.  That is to say, not many trucking companies are gonna be breaking out the bikes to get their work done.  I doubt FedEx has a bike fleet.  Should they?  Maybe, but it wouldn't solve our energy problems.  We need more innovation because there are better answers out there.  The fact that we are discussing this acknowledges that there is an issue.  We need to innovate our thinking.  And that's not to say that we need to create something new with new chemicals and further manufacturing that degrades the environment even further.  We can work along with nature.  Nature has been doing things in ways that are sustainable, waste-free, and beneficial to all life for billions of years (depending on your beliefs about it...) Mimicking what nature already does successfully is the objective of the work of people like Janine Benyus.  By observing what nature does to survive, cooperate with other species, and democratically exist in a competitive environment, we can find the models and the practical applications to bring forth and apply to our reality.  We can teach ourselves to live in ways that are truly in balance with our environment.  And right now, our culture is one that is out of balance and in danger of destroying itself.


So in a sense, I'm saying yes to looking backward-- but farther back than the bicycle.  Let's go back to finding our priorities.  To making the conditions conducive to life.  To growing our own food instead of having it trucked or flown in from all elsewheres of the world.  We need to localize our food production, get to know our local farmers.  But now I'm getting out there on another tangent.  Forgive me that.  I speak what comes to mind.  But living with organic foods grown within walking distance from your home would do a lot to combat some of these issues of environment that we're talking about.  


The issue is much more complicated than I've been able to outline here, but I'm trying.  And that is more than we are wont to do these days, as we discuss certain subjects with only the choir, if you know what I mean.  I would love for this to grow into something greater than I have even imagined yet.  But that is up to you, dear reader.  We've got work to do, for sure.  What say we Keep On Truckin'?