This is a blog about riding bicycles in the great Australian city of Brisbane and that’s the theme I normally like to try and stick to. I normally also try not to politicise it too much even if riding bicycles does have an inherent empathy to certain political values over others. But these are not normal times and there are matters of greater importance than maintaining the appearance of political neutrality.
As most of you know, our Mother Earth is in quite a bit of strife right now and that it’s us humans as a species who the finger of blame points squarely at. The debates about the truth of the situation have been settled and the time for action is now overdue. The good news is that although we caused it, we also have a great deal of power to stop it’s worst effects and because it’s still not too late, it would be insane not to take action.
Unfortunately, our leaders – those who we entrusted to steer the nation and, by extension, the world to a prosperous future for all seem to have a much different agenda. The effects of that agenda are set to make things much, much worse for our planet, our only home, and I’m writing this to urge you to consider taking at least a small part in doing something about it.
One thing you can do right now is this: someone in the Australian Parliament had the good sense to start this petition to finally declare an official climate emergency so that we can get serious about taking the necessary steps to give our environment, our economy and our society the best possible chance in the future. The petition closes on Wednesday 16th October 2019 so if you’d like to make your voice heard on this issue, get clicking below as soon as possible and let anyone else who you think might be interested know as well.
If you’re reading this for the first time and it’s after the above mentioned day, don’t despair. There’s still a lot you can do to help the problem each and every day. Make some noise on the interwebs somewhere, consider where your waste is going and how much power you can cut down on using. Do you really need to be eating meat with every single meal? (Your bowel, for one, is giving a resounding “no!”).
Those are just a few suggestions and there’s a million more that many people more qualified than me have written about so I’ll let you do your own research on those. One important point though is this: don’t attempt to achieve perfection on being a steward of the Earth or beat yourself up for every watt and kilojoule that you consume – the system we live in is stacked too heavily against us at the moment for any individual to be able to achieve that. What, in my opinion, you should do is the best you can with what you have because that’s all any of us can do. Don’t give in because every little bit helps – every spec of unnecessary emission prevented, every petition submitted, every stupid denialist argument shut down. Every droplet wears away at even the hardest stone.
And, of course, if you’re reading this page you likely also have another powerful weapon to help you fight for the Earth – your bicycle. Not only are you directly saving on emissions when you ride it, but you also free up roads to reduce congestion for the remaining cars and help put into motion a perpetual demand for more bicycle usage. You set an example for others to start riding and for more infrastructure to be built to support more bikes which attracts even more cyclists. An even better example is set when you use a bike for getting stuff done like shopping, commuting (maybe bimodally) and running errands.
That’s enough ranting from me. Hopefully I’ve sparked some positive thought processes for you.
Until next time, keep on riding and see you out there some time.