work4bike

There is no turning back in bike design, especially with e-bikes now coming on the scene. People only talk about sustainability, they don't practice it, except some trivial aspects.



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Herzlos

We're a forum of cycling enthusiasts, so we almost certainly cover an order of magnitude of mileage than a person who uses a bicycle for transport only.

This article reckons the average bicycle user only does about 1000 miles (1600km) a year, which means a bike with 15,000km on it is about 10 years old and since it's probably not been brilliantly maintained and is just used to get to work and back, will almost certainly be approaching the point where it's less hassle to scrap it and buy a new one, given the vast bulk of bicycles sold will have cost under about $500 new.

tomato coupe

If you didn't have kids, then you've already made the single biggest step to reduce your impact on the planet. So, you get a pass on the rest.

Joe Bikerider

Not to us who have been using an IGH. Like me.

mstateglfr 

When I have read about the current semi-popular position to morally hold over others, that having kids is ethically wrong as it singlehandedly destroys the environment more than everything else combined, the data I have seen seems to imply carbon use will stay constant into the future.
That is odd to me, since in the developed world there is a downward trend for carbon use.

Why wouldn't all the carbon reduction laws be taken into account? Why wouldn't the already started downward trend be taken into account?
I know economies don't matter if the world is destroyed by warming/climate change, but population decline definitely creates some significant issues of its own, and those very real issues also seem to just not be discussed or even acknowledged in articles and comments on this subject.

I am not suggesting having kids is somehow good for the environment, to be clear.
It's just funny to see realities, projections, and carbon reduction laws largely ignored in what seems like an effort to hold a moral high ground over others.
Also, I am not suggesting the 2 posters I just quoted are expressing moral superiority. The comments simply happened to motivate me to post this as a perspective worth considering.

Koyote

Carbon emissions from fossil fuel use are declining, but atmospheric CO2 levels are still rising; I'm not current enough to give a definitive explanation for this seeming paradox, but I suspect this is happening at least partly because of positive feedback loops, which are phenomena in which rising temps themselves cause more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere. For example, as more permafrost melts due to rising temps, much sequestered CO2 is released into the atmosphere, which helps ensure that temps continue to rise in spite of burning less fossil fuel. (Other positive feedback loops help maintain our dependence on fossil fuels...e.g., rising temps lead us to use our AC more, which is powered by electricity, which is often created by burning fossil fuels.)

Back when I was teaching courses on this subject, all of the research that I read suggested that our population is way beyond Earth's sustainable carrying capacity. There's no definitive methodology for determining that level, but every plausible scholar and study I recall reading (on that topic) concluded that we are way beyond the planet's sustainable population. (That much seems quite obviously true for the way we are currently living -- otherwise we wouldn't even be discussing climate change.) And given that the affluent economies (like ours) use far more resources, and produce far more pollution, on a per capita basis, as compared to the rest of the world's populations, rising populations here in the Western world are particularly troublesome.

cyccommute 

Chicken/egg* scenario. Low mileage riders probably aren’t transportation riders so the carbon footprint is meaningless. The vast majority of transportation takes place in cars anyway so the tiny carbon footprint of bicycles is equally as meaningless. Basically the whole article a mostly useless bit of navel gazing and guilt tripping about something that really doesn’t matter all that much.


*Egg came first by several hundred million years.

PeteHski

The comments section is quite revealing. Someone points out to the author that maybe bicycles are not a major concern in the bigger picture and the author responds with:-

"For me, this article is not really about bicycles, it is about capitalism managing to destroy everything, even a sustainable icon like the bicycle. That is the important matter to attend instead of focusing on technological solutions for whatever you find more relevant than a bicycle."

So there you have it. A rant about capitalism, combined with a strong retro-grouch bias toward old steel bicycles.

TiHabanero

Greta, Al Gore and the like are so right they are taking it to the bank. Meanwhile winter is winter, spring is spring, summer is summer and fall is fall, and it is all happening to this day.

mstateglfr 

Wine grapes [size=33px]that used to grow in France are now in England.
Ticks that used to die off and not survive far north are living thru winter and creating large surges of disease in uncommon locations.
I could honestly type out a hundred scenarios like these, but doubt there is value in that for the audience I am responding to.



Direct question- regardless of if it's naturally occurring or influenced by man, do you think there is a change in climate activity over the last 125 years, and especially over the last 40?
...or do you rake the position that nothing is different?[/size]

Atlas Shrugged

What I am always amused with is the vintage 70’s reto crowd is always complaining about big bike marketing scams enticing purchasers with the new and improved products and technologies is a example of capitalism run amok. The irony is the storied names they are wedded to are really a construct of nothing but marketing vapor. Somehow a Columbus tubed cast lugged bike assembled by a bunch of dudes whose names end with a vowel is somehow different from another even though they are virtually identical. During the 70’s North American bike boom they had to differentiate the various identical offerings much like the tobacco industry by assigning emotional attributes and vague differentiators. I fondly recall my 74 Masi GC with 1st generation Super Record and the sense of pride I had when I purchased it with my hard earned money. But it was ***** when compared to my most recent bike both in performance and build quality.

Koyote

I don't disagree. But you're starting to sound like a broken record. Time to move on.

Atlas Shrugged

Great point, been alone traveling for the past month and heading back to the real world tomorrow so that that last repetitive broken record rant for a while. Thanks for the reality check

PeteHski

We only need to watch David Attenborough's climate change documentary to get the big picture and it isn't looking good. He's a guy who has literally lived through it and seen it all first hand with no political or commercial motive. It's all pretty sad really, but not that surprising.

Koyote

We've all been there. You can yell at the clouds (err, old men with their lugged steel bikes) all you want...But it'll only harden their resolve.

rossiny

I love the debate about climate change. The reason being is that magically all pollution has been cured and magically disappeared miraculously!!! Currently no airplanes, car, pollute , nor plastic clogg our oceans, waterways. No problem with the push towards EVs, requiring vast amounts of lithium mining, electric power demand if we go that route, no landfill problems overflowing, and fake recycling programs shipping stuff to China.. .
You see , climate change debate has cured all of these, ,, just prove it's a normal phase earth goes through , and our conscience is clear as a new born 👶 baby 🤥

Daniel4

For all the bicycles, ebikes and escooters manufactured, their negative impact on the environment is minuscule in comparison to the number of motorized vehicles and EVs. Compare by weight of raw material used, it's even lower.

So if there's a budget to work on sustainability, where do you think that $1 should be spent, on the bicycle industry or on the automotive industry?

tcs

Sustainable? I dunno. I ordered newly made HSA120 Pawl Springs for an overhaul of my pre-War Sturmey AW.

Fun fact: As they were before the 11th century.

Koyote

The people who generated this are actual climate scientists who are working with actual data. You know, as opposed to people with no actual education or training in the subject who nonetheless think they know more than those who do have education and training in the subject.

PeteHski

The MIT report released a couple of years ago comparing EV vs combustion engine lifecycle emissions concluded that EVs are significantly less polluting overall (especially when used on cleaner electricity grids), but still not enough on their own to meet long-term government emission targets. But interestingly, the popular media deliberately mis-quoted this report to make it sound like EVs were environmentally worse. I read both the media stories and the actual MIT report and they were like chalk and cheese. The authors of the report actually wrote a complaint letter about this mis-representation to a number of newspapers, but nobody really paid attention beyond the original click bait.

3alarmer 

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...thank you for not moving this thread to teh P+R. It would have been wasted in there.

shelbyfv

That's what annoys me about climate change "debates." That it's happening is no longer subject to debate among those qualified to have an opinion. Still plenty of opportunity to debate what, if anything, to do about it.

Koyote

"We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature."
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/1...48-9326/ac2966

"The scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate has passed 99.9%, according to research that strengthens the case for global action at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow."
​​​​​​https://www.theguardian.com/environm...used-by-humans

Maelochs

Re: EVs .... who has done long-term impact studies about the mining and refining of Rare Earths (particularly in Communist China, where environmental laws do no t exist) and the long-term storage of dead EV batteries? We know most of them will end up in the "EV Battareez--Hazerdis" section of some landfill in some small town somewhere, leaching away through the never-maintained liner ..... As for the rest they are cars .... same energy and material requirements to build. Still need tarmac to drive on. Still need lubricants. Maybe generating the needed energy for recharge is cleaner than refining it to gasoline and burning it ..... but that is not "life-cycle" impact. That is "use-cycle" impact. Those old Pintos and Caprices are rusting slowly in junkyards, doing only very minor damage to local water supplies .... but a stack of hundreds of EV battery packs, under a tarp somewhere .....

seypat

That'll get you another day older and deeper in debt if you try to load it.

In keeping with the ever evolving theme:

WWJD if he had to run for public office or vote in an election?