You are an environmentalist, yes you are, whether you call your self one or not, we all are. Except for a few poor unfortunate souls who have psychopathic tendencies we all care about the place we live. Communities are not the same as they were went I was a girl, roads are no longer played on by children, and we all sneak into our cars and by pass having to talk to our neighbours
The place that we live is spoiled by cars. Now I know that at the moment most of us think that we are dependent on cars. But even if you drive all day long, you have to admit that no one chooses to go on holiday and sits at the side of a busy road in a deck chair. It is noisy, has dangerous fumes, and kills people and animals. The death rate for pedestrians walking on the path is about a 1/3 of that of cyclist on the road, so you do not even have to be on the road to be killed by a car. An environment where young mothers and their children are killed walking on the path on the way to school, is not a good one. An environment where I have to shout in the course of my work so as to be heard ( I often work at the side of busy roads ) is not a good one. An environment where so much surface area has been given over to tarmac is not good. I have not mentioned global warming, I do not need to as life would be better if we cycled more regardless of whether or not it affected climate change.
Here is a list of reasons to cycle
We fight wars over oil, we all know it, we invade poor country's under false pretexts to get their oil and this sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Lets stop pretending.
The place that we live is spoiled by cars. Now I know that at the moment most of us think that we are dependent on cars. But even if you drive all day long, you have to admit that no one chooses to go on holiday and sits at the side of a busy road in a deck chair. It is noisy, has dangerous fumes, and kills people and animals. The death rate for pedestrians walking on the path is about a 1/3 of that of cyclist on the road, so you do not even have to be on the road to be killed by a car. An environment where young mothers and their children are killed walking on the path on the way to school, is not a good one. An environment where I have to shout in the course of my work so as to be heard ( I often work at the side of busy roads ) is not a good one. An environment where so much surface area has been given over to tarmac is not good. I have not mentioned global warming, I do not need to as life would be better if we cycled more regardless of whether or not it affected climate change.
Here is a list of reasons to cycle
We fight wars over oil, we all know it, we invade poor country's under false pretexts to get their oil and this sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Lets stop pretending.
Safety in numbers, the more people who cycle the safer it is for us all see the
C.T.C safety in numbers campaign. If you scroll down the page you will see me, not looking glamorous in a blue mack. The idea behind this photo shoot was to not look too cycley, no hi visibility jacket and no helmet, so as not to send out a message that you need protective clothing to cycle.
C.T.C safety in numbers campaign. If you scroll down the page you will see me, not looking glamorous in a blue mack. The idea behind this photo shoot was to not look too cycley, no hi visibility jacket and no helmet, so as not to send out a message that you need protective clothing to cycle.
You need less metal and other elements to make a bike compared with other vehicles and the extraction of resources causes lots of pain see The Story Of Stuff for an entertaining explanation of extraction of materials.
Noise pollution I can barely use my back garden because of the noise of a dual carriageway over my garden fence, but the front part of my house has a traffic free area which is really nice. The road at the bottom of my garden doesn’t just go past my house.
Fumes One of the reasons that I cycle is that I cannot travel for very long in a bus. I am sensitive to sulphur and so get extremely sick any where near diesel vehicles.
Cyclists do not kill people and animals. Sometimes there seems to be a campaign in the media that paint us all as mad pavement riding, red light jumping thugs. But we do not kill animals or people in any thing like the numbers that cars do, with out even having to have training or a licence. Motor vehicles kill 610 pedestrians every year and cyclist kill an average of 2.2 pedestrians.
Oil is a finite substance Now I do not mean that OH NO we won’t have any energy, I mean that the planet made this stuff over millions of years and so we should not just burn it. It has value in its self. And may be our descendants will be fed up with us for just burning it, as we are over some of the forests that have been destroyed in the past.
Extraction of oil has horrible side effects Oil spills do so much damage I hardly need to go over it, and I would guess that it is only necessary because of our historical dependence on oil. We can and should do things differently now. I look forward to a nice future with clean and perhaps free or near free energy. Not a bleak time where we go back to the dark ages.
Noise pollution I can barely use my back garden because of the noise of a dual carriageway over my garden fence, but the front part of my house has a traffic free area which is really nice. The road at the bottom of my garden doesn’t just go past my house.
Fumes One of the reasons that I cycle is that I cannot travel for very long in a bus. I am sensitive to sulphur and so get extremely sick any where near diesel vehicles.
Cyclists do not kill people and animals. Sometimes there seems to be a campaign in the media that paint us all as mad pavement riding, red light jumping thugs. But we do not kill animals or people in any thing like the numbers that cars do, with out even having to have training or a licence. Motor vehicles kill 610 pedestrians every year and cyclist kill an average of 2.2 pedestrians.
Oil is a finite substance Now I do not mean that OH NO we won’t have any energy, I mean that the planet made this stuff over millions of years and so we should not just burn it. It has value in its self. And may be our descendants will be fed up with us for just burning it, as we are over some of the forests that have been destroyed in the past.
Extraction of oil has horrible side effects Oil spills do so much damage I hardly need to go over it, and I would guess that it is only necessary because of our historical dependence on oil. We can and should do things differently now. I look forward to a nice future with clean and perhaps free or near free energy. Not a bleak time where we go back to the dark ages.
