Blogging For Climate Change

Climate change. It blows. I should be able to write something more intelligent about it, but the fact is I can't. What we are experiencing right now is the result of a 100 years of expanding population, expanding economies, expanding technology.... and after all expansion comes retraction. This is what I see as "climate change". Nature is pulling us back because we have not pulled ourselves.

Photo by Rocketdog

What does this have to do with bicycles? It is easy to see that riding a bicycle is good, and others have done a great job pointing that out. I am afraid that I am a bit more... pessimistic about it. To me, I think that we better get used to it now, 'cause in another 20 years, there will be many, many fewer options for us when it comes to how to get around.

I write this because it is Blog Action Day and bloggers across the globe are being asked to blog about climate change today (and because I am a hopeless joiner from the looks of it). The hope is for a larger, global conversation to come out of it. A laudable goal, to be sure.

For myself, I am not sure that the challenge of tackling global climate change is how I want to look at bicycling. It is too large an issue for an individual to tackle. I prefer to look at cycling as a means of changing my own, personal climate- how I feel in my own body, how I improve my own life. The only thing we can change is ourselves, and one of the tools I use in that pursuit is my bicycle (and blogging). While my riding may or may not make a difference to the globe, it makes a difference to me. Hopefully, along the way, it makes a difference to someone else.

photo by Klemmin

Sorry I can't contribute a more rah-rah POV, but there it is.

Addendum- I find it interesting that when looking at registering the blog at the Blog Action Day website, I was asked to choose from a list of possible blog topics- Iraq, celebrity, cars, blogging, social media, Mommy & Me, "green"..... there was nothing for bikes or transportation or New Urbanism. Seems a bit strange to me considering the topic.