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The hidden potential of bicycles (www.resilience.org)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by toaster@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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The average modern person, by one calculation, spends more than 1,600 hours a year to pay for their cars, their insurance, fuel and repairs. We go to jobs partly to pay for the cars, and we need the cars mostly to get to jobs. We spend four of our sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering the resources for the car.

Since the average modern American, by one estimate, travels 7,500 miles a year, and put in 1,600 hours a year to do that, they are travelling five miles per hour. Before people had cars, however, people managed to do the same – by walking.

By contrast, a person on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than a pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process.

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[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Of course. I don’t drive and don’t plan on ever having to again. I was just saying this type of framing in an article doesn’t help the cause. It is fodder for the people peddling misinformation about why we shouldn’t do anything about climate change. The pro-climate change groups will always latch onto this type of shit when they can find it. Like the whole “no more hamburgers” thing or the “crickets as food” thing or the “no more vacations” thing or whatever the fuck they’re always spouting on fox. It’s a strawman, of course. But we shouldn’t be serving it up that way.

That’s what I was saying. Not that we need to be pushing EVs. Just that this type of article saying, “maybe we can live in a world where one day we move back to pedal power” is the exact sort of PR problem the pro-climate movement keeps falling into.

Münecat did a great video on the PR pitfalls of the crunchy spokespeople these movements always seem to put forward. We all understand a solarpunk utopia would be great. But picking out the least desirable aspect of it for the largely lazy population doesn’t help the cause.

That’s all I was saying.

this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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