Fix Fell Demands Safe Streets as a Human Right

SF Critical Mass Visits Fell St. Arco Protest

By the way, I’m wearing the facemask and keffiyah to protect against all that pollution on Fell St.– any resemblance to an anarchist is purely coincidental.

Plug the Holes or We Won’t Go

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zIxlsDZOmM]

We will return to the Arco station every week to peacefully block the Fell St. entrances until BP plugs the holes in the Gulf and until the City plugs the dangerous driveways on Fell and makes it safe for people to live less oil dependent lives.

Fridays 5:30pm-8:30pm Fell and Divisadero San Francisco

Special thanks to Janel Sterbentz for producing this video- if the BABC won’t put her talents to use then we certainly will!

Full text of speech available here.

Fell St. ARCO Closed For Total Rethink

What an incredible, inspiring protest yesterday in San Francisco.   Truly in awe at the raw energy from the neighborhood residents who have clearly had enough of this dangerous and awful situation that the city has failed to correct- where cars lined up for cheap (BP) gas obstruct the only level east west bike lane in the city, forcing cyclists directly into speeding traffic.   It would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t so tragically awful.  We got a ton of media responding to our press release, including all the local TV stations, SF Weekly, the Guardian, Streetsblog, Indymedia, SF Gate, KPFA (starting at 13:50), Pirate Radio, and others.   Video will be up here shortly in the next couple of days.

People are discussing coming back and shutting the entrances every week until the holes are plugged- both the one in the Gulf, and the entrances on Fell St. that drive the fear of cycling and demand for oil.  Updates will be posted here.

Here is a copy of my speech yesterday, with the help of El Arbol, Fossil Fool‘s amazing pedal powered mobile sound system:

Thank you to everyone who showed up today, and to those who spread the word and made this happen.  This was truly a grassroots effort, not organized by any official non-profit organization, just a few of us from the neighborhood concerned about the way things are going.

We have succeeded in (at least temporarily) shutting down a toxic business that threatens the neighborhood, threatens the Gulf, and ultimately threatens the world.   The presence of this Arco station endangers cyclists on Fell St. and finances a criminally negligent corporation.

Before we go any further, let’s have a moment of silence to remember the victims of this terrible catastrophe.  The eleven men who were killed on the Deepwater Horizon and their families.  The millions of Gulf residents- both human and wild who are suffering as we speak.

As we remember these victims, let’s not forget the other victims of car culture- those motorists who do not have viable alternatives to driving alone, and whose health is suffering as a result.  People on bikes, on foot, and in cars who have been seriously injured or killed by cars- over 1.2 million of us throughout the world every year.

Let’s not forget all those elderly people living out the last of their days in isolation because their streets- streets like Oak and Fell have become nothing more than traffic sewers.

We must remember all those children growing up deprived of any connection to the natural world, surrounded by speeding steel and asphalt, getting to know the world only from the backseat of a car.

Now I am not pointing the finger or blaming those who drive cars- for many years I was one of them, and occasionally still am.   Drivers are as much victims of this inhumane system as the rest of us.

Somehow, we need to rethink our cities as safe and pleasant habitats for human beings.   The fact that they are NOT is an indication that something has gone deeply awry with our culture.

These days, cars are supposedly such a part of our lives that we are not allowed to question their dominance.   But when California’s cars are the number one source of carbon emissions.  When our cars are the number one killer of our children.   When our thirst for oil drives the kind of disaster we are seeing in the Gulf, I think we need to begin to ask questions.  These realities point to the fact that we are dangerously, hopelessly addicted to our motor vehicles.

We now know that over ONE MILLION gallons of toxic crude are leaking into the Gulf of Mexico every day.  An Exxon Valdez of oil every 8-10 days.

The most advanced technology humans have is INCAPABLE of stopping what our technology has unleashed.

Just as if we continue to emit more than 5 BILLION tons of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere every year we will be incapable of closing the Pandora’s box we have opened.

The oil companies and the government have reassured us they have the situation under control.  They say “TRUST US” we know what we’re doing.  Well you know what?   We DON’T trust you anymore.

If the United States government, controlled by multinational energy giants- continues to undermine climate justice on an international level and endanger the future of life on this planet for selfish, short term profits, there will be social unrest like we have never before seen in this country.   It may be next week.   It may be in 20 years.  But I cannot accept that the people in this country will accept the sacrifice of this planet without a fight.

From individual citizens reporting what is happening in the Gulf, we know that BP IS STILL IN CHARGE, despite what Obama says.  BP defies the EPA,  pumping tons of chemical dispersant into the sea, not to reduce the environmental damage but to hide the extent of the spill from the public- to keep the damage UNDERWATER away from the lens of the media.

According to the New York Times, BP is ordering the US Coast Guard and local police forces to keep the media away from areas filled with dead and dying wildlife, bagging the bodies and stashing them out of view the same way we do with the bodies of civilian casualties in Iraq.

Today in San Francisco, we say NO.  WE WILL NO LONGER BE SILENT IN THE FACE OF THESE BRAZEN ATTACKS ON OUR HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT.

Today, we bear witness to the connection between unsafe cycling conditions and our own fatal dependence on fossil fuels for transportation.

Future generations will learn about how our society treated people who opted out of car culture- how we continue to design streets that cause deaths and injuries of vulnerable road users- just to maximize traffic flow.   Streets that scare people into lives of inactivity and oil dependence, and they will recoil in horror.

In response to the mentally ill man who mowed down four innocent people on bicycle the other day, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition tells us that “OUR STREETS ARE SAFE.”  Well you know what? THEY ARE NOT SAFE.   And they are very rarely pleasant.   Riding a bike in the city could be paradise.   But right now, for most of us it is a scary experience.

Instead of giving us tired old platitudes, they could have used this horrific incident to condemn the countless acts of intimidation of people on bicycles throughout the city every day, people who use cars as deadly weapons to threaten vulnerable road users, revving their engines like a predatory animal.   Incidents that the San Francisco Police Department responds to only with a nod and a wink.

Our fossil fuel dependent society is neither advanced nor civilized.   All the luxuries and unrestrained mobility that we take for granted are an historical anomaly made possible by a finite supply of cheap oil.

We are literally being kept alive by large multinational corporations like BP and Safeway.   When the cheap oil runs out as it inevitably will, our civilization will collapse as surely as those human civilizations of the past have done.

BUT TODAY WE STAND UP TOGETHER AND REJECT THAT FATE.   We know that another world is possible.  A future of humans living in a reciprocal relationship with nature, not an exploitative one where we take and take and take.

A future where health and the environment are prioritized over profit.  A future with networks of safe green routes for walking and cycling, lined with trees and plants, connecting the whole city, the whole bay area.  Where clean, quiet, and frequent public transit connects cities.

Where we have leisure time to spend with our families and friends and we are no longer forced to waste our lives under fluorescent lights at jobs we hate just to keep ourselves and our families alive and feed our cars.

A sane world where we can feed OURSELVES without resorting to factory farms, tortured animals, poisoned fields, and genetically modified crops.

A world where we are reconnected to our fellow human beings and to the natural world.

Money is NOT REAL.  It is a construct- ultimately only paper and metal.  What IS real are plants, human beings, and other animals.

The love between a mother and her child.   That is real.  We must build a new world based on that, or we will end up destroying this beautiful planet and the living beings who inhabit it.

If any good can come out of this catastrophic situation in the Gulf, it can be an OPPORTUNITY for people to come together and start building a better world, the way we have built up this little green park here today.

Power is not taken- it is given.  And if the powers that be will not face up to their historic responsibility to quickly wean us off fossil fuels, we will have to STOP GIVING THEM OUR POWER.

We solved this longstanding neighborhood problem here ourselves.  We didn’t ask the government to do it for us.   We didn’t give money to a non-profit to lobby for us.   WE JUST WENT OUT AND DID IT OURSELVES.

It really IS that easy.

Sustrans Stonewalls Again

Almost a year and a half after I posted it, Sustrans has still not publicly or privately responded to my article, The Problem with Sustrans: How a Grassroots Phenomenon Has Turned into a Private, Unaccountable Corporation.  The piece generated thousands of hits and dozens of readers from all around the UK have chimed in and confirmed my observations. My friend Chris Hutt- one of the original founders of Sustrans and an incredibly knowledgeable bicycle advocate, sadly died without warning a couple of months ago, and had this to say as part of his Sustrans Sussed post on the Green Bristol Blog last year:

“The current wave of criticism is not merely negative carping. It is a vital part of the dynamic environment within which we all function and will in due course bring about change. How quickly we see the necessary change depends on how far gone Sustrans is. Will they bury their heads in the sand and carry on currying favour with those with the money bags or will they recognise the need to re-engage with their core constituency, Britain’s cyclists?”

Sustrans started as a grassroots DIY organisation- people from the community getting out there with a shovel and pickaxe and restoring a neglected rail line between Bristol and Bath into a linear green haven. This bottom up effort came from visionaries who believed they could change transport. Back then with a tiny budget and a rebellious attitude, Sustrans accomplished some amazing feats of engineering and land preservation for which we should all be grateful.

Now though, there is growing concern about the direction of the UK’s “leading sustainable transport charity.”

The questions people are asking about the organization haven’t gone away, but have only intensified in response to Sustrans’ reluctance to engage, particularly glaring after they refused to even acknowledge questions posed two weeks ago on the Guardian’s You Ask- They Answer series.

Common threads to what people are saying are:

-Sustrans has become self-serving and opaque, often failing to work with and empower local people and local ideas.

-Sustrans spends millions of public money with inadequate public oversight.

-Sustrans has compromised its original vision of a high quality UK cycle network, settling for long detours and steep hills just to add mileage.

Sustrans is hardly unique amongst charities (on either side of the Atlantic).    Many have adopted the worst characteristics of corporations- cozying up to the government agencies they are meant to influence, and bickering with each other for increasingly scarce resources.  While Sustrans absorbs millions of pounds from concerned people in the UK to (not) campaign for a bicycle network, organizations like NRDC and EDF convince well meaning American environmentalists to support the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill backed by big oil, coal, and gas and the Nature Conservancy takes millions from oil companies currently wiping out sensitive wetlands.  As the title of Nick Seddon’s 2007 book asks after looking at the state of charitable organisations in the UK, “Who Cares“?

Photo courtesy Bikeradar

Here is a sample of comments received on the original article:

“Like you Josh, I applaud a lot of what Sustrans has achieved. But they know nothing about building links with other cycling orgs or engaging with the cycling community. Sadly I think they’ve become very arrogant, remote and self-centred.”

-Anonymous

” I know they have a job to do and that their projects are their priority — but honestly, their degree of self-interest is truly staggering. In many years of cycle campaigning I’ve never seen Sustrans try to work with other groups or simply to give something unconditionally.”

-Hector

“Perhaps the charity commission needs to look into Sustrans (if it has jursidiction)?”

-Paul Harris

“Tell me it’s not true! Quite a read, even a year on, it has the ring of truth about it…..

Democratic process is by now long passed. When an unelected, charitably constituted organisation can hold a whole village to ransom, what hope is there?

-David Shields

“Sustrans is no different to a whole host of NGOs charities and non profit making organisations who may establish themselves with altruism to meet a particular or perceived need but then find themselves as part of the establishment and find it difficult to separate social responsibility from self preservation.”

-Alan Gillard, architect, Cardiff

“Glad to see this finally come out – they have had far too easy a ride, and boy do they love riding roughshod over people.”

-“Snail”

“Sustrans most certainly aren’t a campaigning charity. I found my local sustrans office in Newcastle rather unsupportive when I started a campaign to improve cycling in Newcastle’s city centre (which is in dire need of improving). I have now cancelled my monthly donation with sustrans, written to sustrans’ chief exec to describe my disappointment and become a CTC member! Visit http://www.katlayout.co.uk/ for more on the safe cycling petition.”

-Katja Leyendecke

If no change is forthcoming from the charities that are meant to be bringing about the change we so desperately need, perhaps the best solution is for all of us to pick up a shovel and start digging. As Virgil said:

“They can do all because they think they can.”

It’s time for all of us to start believing another world is possible. It is.

D.I.Y. N.C.N.

Navigating a Recovery from Carbon Addiction

By sheer coincidence (or perhaps divine intervention) the “Navigating the American Carbon World” Conference — a schmooze-fest of oil executives, bankers, offset dealers, and green(wash) groups flown in to- essentially- carve up and sell the sky, perpetuating our addiction to fossil fuels- is- at this moment sharing the San Francisco Marriott Marquis with (are you ready for this?)—– the annual meeting of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

So, at the protest today organized by the Mobilization for Climate Justice- West , we thought, why not merge the conferences? Get the psychiatrists to treat the carbon trading carbon addicts. The real victims, the ones in denial, who believe we can just ‘offset’ the damage like a papal indulgence to guilty pleasures- and we know where that leads.

White man sell sky

Denial– a common symptom of addiction- is widespread. We bury our heads in the sand against the looming climate devastation and energy crash- Can our system’s habit be treated by the latest in addiction therapy before it’s too late? Right now we’ve got the top addiction experts in the world sharing the same hotel as the Shell executives, the Bank of Americas that fund them, and the Terrapasses who pardon the sin– there’s really never been a better opportunity to admit we have a problem and enter recovery.

So we’ve created a public open letter to the American Society for Addiction Medicine, calling upon them to treat our friends the fossil fuel addicts at the carbon trading conference.  Sign our letter today!   We’ve never needed a shrink like we do today.

The Panel discussing how corporations can green(wash) themselves.

So last night at a cocktail party at 111 Minna for conference attendees put on by Brighter Planet, an offset company looking to open up west coast markets, I posed the question to Patty, the Executive Director of Brighter Planet who was on the panel…

“given that the carbon trading and offsetting industry are increasingly in disrepute over a number of scandals and abuses, such as the multi-million euro carbon trade scam uncovered on Tuesday by the Spanish authorities and given that James Hansen, one of the world’s most respected atmospheric scientists is now saying that carbon trading and offsets ‘are designed to perpetuate business-as-usual and squander the precious time needed to prevent the crossing of disastrous ‘tipping points’.’

Given all that, what is Brighter Planet doing to transition away from the sale of offsets?”

They didn’t like that question. I mean they REALLY didn’t like that question. The moderator tried to rip the microphone out of my hands, and got all flustered.

The nonplussed

Much hostility from the audience, including the drunk carbon traders on the floor who were rudely yelling over the panel discussion. This guy Trevor from Barclays capital became agitated and walked away when I offered to sell him “Cheatneutral infidelity offsets.” Maybe he has guilt issues around his fossil fuel cheating. Who knows.

Then today during the MCJ Demo on the first day of the conference, people unfurled a large banner in the middle of 4th St., temporarily blocking traffic, gave speeches and street theatre,  and disrupted the conference a number of times inside including an announcement on a live mic at the luncheon that “history will spit” on those who delay emissions reductions.

Anyway, no doubt more fun tomorrow at the Offset This! protest outside the Marriott Marquis- 4th and Market- at 8am tomorrow (friday).   We’re headed for climate chaos, and we have a message for the bankers, oil executives, greenwash groups, and politicians who profit from delaying the inevitable weaning:

The Sky is NOT FOR SALE.

On the Level Goes Feral

Can you name the edible plant in this photo?

I’ve finally done it.  I’ve left the city.  Moved out to a cabin in the woods in rural West Marin County north of San Francisco.  I am now subsisting on wild greens and breathing blissfully clean air.   For many years I tried desperately to maintain the charade that I am a “city person.”  Yet I noticed that I would flee with my bicycle and sleeping bag into the countryside at every opportunity.  I am now at age 34 finally accepting the truth.  I value a dark starry night over the bright city lights.  A quiet dawn over the honking of the car horn.  A small social town over a bustling anonymous metropolis.  And I suspect I am not alone amongst city dwellers.  Cities have the potential to become healthy habitats for human beings- indeed they must if we are to turn the tide on climate change- but we’re not there yet.  And I for one am getting sick of waiting around for the transition.

El Nino rains in California have led to an astounding diversity of fungi

The evolution of cities from a series of noisy, dangerous, and anti-social traffic sewers into green, friendly, and safe public spaces is certainly not being held up by the majority, who continue to clamor for quality urban environments.  Who could stand up and say that the tantalizing visions of a garden city depicted in the illustrations and murals of Mona Caron would not be healthier for our children– not to mention a far more pleasant place to live?   Yet the people who we allow to remain in power continue to design cities from behind windscreens- the machine retains priority.  How did we get to a point where human beings have designed habitats that are hostile to human beings?  What kind of psychotic system has allowed these things that go against our very nature?

There is no doubt that human beings are healthier in a natural setting. On an evolutionary- even a molecular basis we are drawn to riparian zones, where we are more likely to find sustenance.  Studies show we heal faster in hospital when there is greenery outside the window (1).    Kids even concentrate better in the classroom after they’ve been amongst the trees. (2)

The truth is that we are starved- nearly to death- by a profound lack of connection to the rest of life on the planet.  The massive popularity of the film Avatar- the highest grossing film of all time- is a wake up call that human beings are desperate for a deeper connection with the natural world- even if that means you have to drive to the multiplex for a 2 (okay, 3) dimensional imitation of the real thing.

Avatar provides a (computer generated) glimpse of the world we have largely destroyed. The reality when you walk out into the multiplex parking lot stands in stark contrast...

In fact, it’s not surprising that people have reported depression after seeing the complex diversity of life and landscapes and then comparing the fantasy life to their own bleak, traffic-dominated worlds.

Mushrooms can save the world, according to experts (3)

So, my plan is to capitalize on the success of Avatar- adding a new natural theme and design to my blog, which will appeal to all you poor nature deprived sods out there while generating billions in revenue!   Since green is the new black, I’m going full on green in 2010.  I’m taking an ecology class at Audubon Canyon, spending a ton of time in the wilderness, and attempting to document what I see and learn here on this blog.  Become more acquainted with what is at stake and get inspired to save it.  Or appreciate it all before it vanishes.  Depending on my mood.

Plants, unlike corporations, have been quietly green all along (cow parsnip if you're wondering)

Why is a blog ostensibly focused on transportation policy suddenly going feral? Talking mushrooms over mass transit, herons over highways, bobcats over buses?  Why?  Because we need to acquaint with and love all that is at stake on our beautiful planet if we are to get inspired to change business as usual.  And despite grim news stories and climate warnings, there is still much to love.   If we don’t want to see the disappearance of the Monarch butterfly, the redwood tree, and the California newt, and even worse get blamed for their disappearance, we need to harness the passion of John Muir.  We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.  And believe me that’s not going to happen.  Unless we kill capitalism.  Unless we throw the sons of bitches out.  Unless we stop being selfish and learn to stay in one place.   Unless we realize that saving individual parcels of land from development while the skies are set ablaze ain’t gonna save paradise.

An Amanita. It looked fake- almost plastic...

A 'gooseneck' barnacle

You know that feeling of butterflies in your stomach- when you realize that the Earth is far more diverse, interconnected- even wiser than you ever thought possible?  Maybe you don’t know what I’m saying. (If not you should get out there and spend a night in the forest…believe me the suburbs are far scarier.)   Anyway I had a moment like this the other day when we came across a pond with newts embracing each other in amplexus.   The romantic amphibian dance that has kept the whole thing going.  Did you know that we don’t know how long newts live- the oldest ones in captivity are over 30 years old!  They’re definitely wiser than you or I!!  So, even though it’s not really that type of blog, I’m posting some porn for your viewing pleasure.  I hope it will give you butterflies as it did me.

Notes

1) Ulrich, R.S. 1984. View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science, 224: 420-421.

(2) Wells, Nancy M. (2000). At Home with Nature, Effects of “Greenness” on Children’s Cognitive Functioning, Environment and Behavior, 32(6), 775-795

(3) Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running

Anti-Car (not anti-driver) and Proud

On Friday I was at the SF Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) to give a talk with Bruce Appleyard entitled The Legacy of Livable Streets: Four decades later, what have we learned? Bruce is the son of Donald Appleyard the UC Berkeley professor who led the 1969 study on the social impacts of motor vehicle traffic in San Francisco that I replicated for my dissertation at the UWE Centre for Transport and Society.  Tragically, Donald Appleyard was killed by a speeding car in 1982, a shock that reverberated throughout the urban planning world.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Bruce is finishing up his PhD at UC Berkeley and looking to release a second edition of his Dad’s seminal work, Livable Streets.   He and I just met when I returned to the States in October.  He’s a really sweet guy, and I feel like I’m almost getting to know the father through the son.    Bruce and I have been traveling around the Bay Area talking with high school students, planning organizations, and anyone else who will listen about the importance of his father’s work, and how we can take lessons from Livable Streets to help us get us out of this mess that we’re in.

Josh Hart and Bruce Appleyard at Santa Cruz High School Dec. 17th 2009

David Baker, architect of sustainable housing and longtime bicycle advocate, moderated the session on Friday and introduced me as being ‘one of the old guard transportation activists from San Francisco- someone who has, over the years, remained unabashedly anti-car.’ (or something like that)

Thank you David Baker.   Honestly, that is the kindest thing you could possibly say to me.  As readers of this blog are well aware, there is no love lost between me and ol’ four wheels.  Unfortunately the potentially healthy relationships we could have had with the car have (almost exclusively) been usurped by relationships of dependency that have proven devastating to our health.  Devastating in ways that are now being documented and measured like never before.

I have no problem with coming right out and saying it.   I am anti-car.  I am vehemently and totally against our society’s current relationship with the automobile.  The expectation that everyone can own a car and use it as one’s primary transportation is delusional and dangerous.  However, I am not anti-driver. And there is a big difference.  Love the patient.   Hate the disease.

What I said by way of introduction at the SPUR event, was the following:

Imagine that you grew up in an alcoholic family, watching your sisters and brothers beaten, your parents so drunk they couldn’t stand up, watching them collapse in the gutter puking their guts out, watching them neglect the ones who they loved and gamble the family’s nest egg just so they could get one more bottle of booze.  If this was you, I imagine you’d be pretty anti-alcohol, despite perhaps enjoying a glass of wine with dinner on occasion as an adult.

Our society is like that family- but the drug of choice is of course, fossil fuels, with the most potent method of administering that drug being the motor vehicle.   Sadly, the addiction is that much worse because it goes undiagnosed (and like many other drugs is extremely dangerous when combined with alcohol).  The side effects written off as “tragic accidents” and “natural” disasters.  Somehow we have grown numb to the impacts.  The biggest killer of our kids.  The greatest threat to our future.  Doesn’t get much bigger than that.

To confront the reality directly would require difficult questions about the morality of our society- especially questions of class and corporate power, and require an initially painful period of withdrawal.  For most people, that transition is too much to take on as long as social norms and current land uses continue to require that human adults individually purchase and operate a vehicle with five or more seats.  Though as a new generation grow up into a senseless motorized and suicidal society, this dynamic is perhaps gradually starting to shift.

We need an intervention of historic proportions- a way to shake ourselves out of our complacency. But how, when, and where?  Who?  You?

So why am I anti-car?  So glad you asked.  Let us count the reasons:

Top Ten Reasons I am Anti-Car:

Cars are killing our kids. Motor vehicles are the number one killer of California children and UK boys (1).

Cars are poisoning the air. We sacrifice the air that we breathe to exhaust pipes, the toxins from which kill up to an estimated 2.4 million people/ year and degrade the health and quality of life of billions more. (2)  One’s right to breathe is now considered less important than one’s right to drive.

Cars are destroying our mental health Worsening road noise causes an unknown epidemic of stress, sleep deprivation- even heart disease and depression. (3)

Cars are destroying our local social lives and communities. The volume of traffic on your road largely determines the number of your neighbors with whom you are acquainted,  and particularly the number of close friends.  (4)

Cars are terrifying billions into lives of inactivity and disease. Cars not only allow people to live virtually exercise-free lives, they also scare countless others away from walking and bicycling and into sedentary (and often solitary) lifestyles.  Lovely stuff.   Skyrocketing obesity levels in the developed world are a predictable outcome of our car-friendly planning and transport policies over the last 60 years.  In the United States, 70% of the population fails to meet minimum recommended physical activity (5), a deficiency that leads to over $77 billion per year in hospital costs. (6)

Cars destroy human and animal life.  We kill or seriously injure 50 million human beings (7) (more than 200 Haitis) and somewhere over 1 billion wild and domesticated animals every year which we dismiss as “accidents” on the world’s roads. (8)  The truth is that this massive suffering and death toll is a preventable tragedy.  Deaths and injuries are strongly linked to the number and speed of vehicles on a given roadway. (9)  One less car will actually save a life.

Cars are jeopardizing our stable climate.  We are endangering the very foundation of our civilization- a stable, productive climate, just so we can continue to put the pedal to the metal.  Despite clear warnings from scientists, we persist in selfish and self-destructive behaviors like individual, habitual driving- not because we are evil, but because we think that someone else is paying attention to the problem.  Cars are responsible for more CO2 emitted than any other sector in California. (10)

Adolf Hitler LOVED cars. And yes, what top ten list would be complete without Hitler.  It is true that the man himself really was the driving force behind the Volkswagen, the Autobahn, and ultimately the technique of killing 6 million Jews and other undesirables efficiently with the use of the internal combustion engine.

On that note, happy cycling.

Sources

(1)  ONS, 2002. Social Focus in Brief: Children July 2002. London: Office for National Statistics/TSO. Available from: http://www.statistics.gov.uk [Accessed 8 April 2008].  For US: http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/111riskc.html

(2) WHO, 2002. Estimated deaths & DALYs attributable to selected environmental risk factors. WHO Member State, 2002.

(3)  YAMAZAKI, S., SOKEJIMA, S., NITTA, H., NAKAYAMA, T., FUKUHARA, S., 2005. Living close to automobile traffic and quality of life in Japan: A population-based survey, International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 15:1, 1-9.

(4)  APPLEYARD, D., 1969.  The Environmental Quality of City Streets: The Residents’ Viewpoint.  Journal of the American Planning Association, 35, pp. 84-101.

and

HART, J. (2008) Driven to Excess: Impacts of Motor Vehicle Traffic on Residential Quality of Life in Bristol, UK.  University of the West of England 2008.

(5)  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, 2000. Healthy People 2010. Washington, DC: USDHHS.

(6)  PRATT, M., MACERA, C.A., WANG, G., 2000. Higher direct medical costs associated with physical inactivity. The Physician and Sports Medicine. 28 (10), 63–70.

(7) WHO, 2004. Global strategy on diet, physical activity and health. Geneva: World Health Organization.

(8) http://culturechange.org/issue8/roadkill.htm

(9)  ROBERTS, I., NORTON, R., JACKSON, R., DUNN, R., HASSALL, I., 1995.  Effect of environmental factors on risk of injury of child pedestrians by motor vehicles: a case-control study.  British Medical Journal. 310:91-94.

and

IIHS, 2000. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Status Report 35 (5), May 13, 2000.

(10) http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/solutions/cleaner_cars_pickups_and_suvs/californias-global-warming.html

Holier than You

OK well there have been rumors, and you might have had a sneaking suspicion.   But now it’s official.   I am in fact “holier than you.”  This is according to the Holier Than You Blog which featured this photo of me from the other day waiting for the Caltrain at San Jose station in my new orange rain pants.    So saddle up for sanctimony!  Amp up the attitude.   Prepare for piousness!   My cycle pants have been known to blind a man at forty paces.  It’s not going to be pretty.

Joking very much aside, I was trapped on a Highway 17 ‘express’ bus the other morning that broke down near the Summit for an hour.  (thank you Arnold Schwarzenegger for cutting transit funds drastically while leaving highway funding totally intact!  sweeet.)  Anyway, silver lining is that I got to meet Richard Masoner who runs the famous and well respected Cycleicio.us blog.  A fascinating guy- he works at a software company by day and maintains his blog a lot more frequently than I do.   He also does product reviews for Momentum Magazine, the magazine for self-propelled people.

If you’re in the Bay Area this Friday I will be talking at a SPUR brown bag lunch with Bruce Appleyard so come by and be blinded by my dazzling wit, or *far* more likely by my eye piercing rainpants.

Cross Street with Caution- Vehicles May Not Stop

Yesterday, on the first day of the Copenhagen conference, I went for a bike ride around San Francisco to clear the cobwebs. I rode past the Golden Gate Bridge, and noticed that a new pedestrian ‘safety’ device had been installed.  Clearly, tourists from the UK had been visiting the bridge, and seeing a zebra crosswalk, assumed they had right of way.   It’s good that the Bridge District put in an audible warning so as to remind visitors who really has priority on the mean streets of the good ‘ol U S of A.

I then rode past City Hall where men were ripping open plastic bags full of ice out of the back of a lorry, and depositing them into a large grinding machine, so as to make it ‘snow’ all over the front of city hall.   I wonder how much carbon was emitted to make the ice, put it in plastic bags, drive it to City Hall, then run the snow machine for an hour.   All this on the first day of Copenhagen.   Oh the sweet sorrow.  Oh the irony.

Sea level is rising now, the climate is changing, but if we cover City Hall with snow hopefully no one will notice and we can continue to eat hors d’oevres

This kind of display would have been absolutely unheard of in the National Parks while Bush was in office

The transformation of Crissy Field from industrial wasteland to nature preserve has been astounding.  There are birds, mice, pelicans, and butterflies where once there was an airfield and military base.  It’s nice to see the changes after three years away.

If the ice at both poles melted, sea level would reach the roadway on the Golden Gate Bridge.  At least the oil tankers couldn’t reach the Richmond refinery any longer!