Bicycles Combat Climate Chance
#26
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ordered all citizens to buy bikes.”
A bike that's not actually getting used (and to actually displace car trips, rather than just for enjoyment) isn't really a win, since it requires substantial resources to manufacture.
Therefore mandatory bike ownership is not a sound policy, because ownership does not mean usership.
What is sound policy is having the cost of using a private motor vehicle be high, investing in the cleaner and more efficient forms of powered public transit, requiring employers and landlords to offer secure indoor bike parking, and maintaining the streetscape in a way that actually improves cycling experience (which sadly, is often not how bike improvement money is getting spent)
Last edited by UniChris; 03-22-22 at 11:52 AM.
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#27
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A bike that's not actually getting used (and to actually displace car trips, rather than just for enjoyment) isn't really a win, since it requires substantial resources to manufacture.
Therefore mandatory bike ownership is not a sound policy, because ownership does not mean usership.
What is sound policy is having the cost of using a private motor vehicle be high, investing in the cleaner and more efficient forms of powered public transit, requiring employers and landlords to offer secure indoor bike parking, and maintaining the streetscape in a way that actually improves cycling experience (which sadly, is often not how bike improvement money is getting spent)
Therefore mandatory bike ownership is not a sound policy, because ownership does not mean usership.
What is sound policy is having the cost of using a private motor vehicle be high, investing in the cleaner and more efficient forms of powered public transit, requiring employers and landlords to offer secure indoor bike parking, and maintaining the streetscape in a way that actually improves cycling experience (which sadly, is often not how bike improvement money is getting spent)
#29
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Consider in the US, likely only one in 50 owned bicycles gets used to displace any meaningful number of car trips. Most just clutter up garages, with most of the fraction that do get ridden getting ridden more for adult fitness or childhood play than commuting or shopping.
I'd guess that the usage rate in many less car centric countries is going to be higher. But it's still likely not high enough to make mandatory whole population ownership a net climate win.
The way you get bike usership is by making it attractive and making personal vehicle usage unattractive.
Not by mandating that everyone possess a neglected, resource intensive, soon to be rustbucket.
If an authoritarian government wanted to do things that were actually useful, they'd make the trains and buses free (but that would cost government money) and have high fees on car use (but that would hit their power base). Mandating that every person buy a bike is counterproductive but easily looks attractive as misuse of authority since it's an unfunded mandate - the cost falls on the powerless, while the wealthy who do own cars will just buy cheap bikes to store, or not even bother and just pay the fine if they can't influence their way out of being subject to enforcement at all.
Last edited by UniChris; 03-22-22 at 12:35 PM.
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#30
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That's not the useful question. The useful question is if a given bike purchase is going to displace enough car kilometers to redeem the resources captured in its manufacture.
Consider in the US, likely only one in 50 owned bicycles gets used to displace any meaningful number of car trips. Most just clutter up garages, with most of the fraction that do get ridden getting ridden more for adult fitness or childhood play than commuting or shopping.
I'd guess that the usage rate in many less car centric countries is going to be higher. But it's still likely not high enough to make mandatory whole population ownership a net climate win.
The way you get bike usership is by making it attractive and making personal vehicle usage unattractive.
Not by mandating that everyone possess a neglected, resource intensive, soon to be rustbucket.
If an authoritarian government wanted to do things that were actually useful, they'd make the trains and buses free (but that would cost government money) and have high fees on car use (but that would hit their power base). Mandating that every person buy a bike is counterproductive but easily looks attractive as misuse of authority since it's an unfunded mandate - the cost falls on the powerless, while the wealthy who do own cars will just buy cheap bikes to store, or not even bother and just pay the fine if they can't influence their way out of being subject to enforcement at all.
Consider in the US, likely only one in 50 owned bicycles gets used to displace any meaningful number of car trips. Most just clutter up garages, with most of the fraction that do get ridden getting ridden more for adult fitness or childhood play than commuting or shopping.
I'd guess that the usage rate in many less car centric countries is going to be higher. But it's still likely not high enough to make mandatory whole population ownership a net climate win.
The way you get bike usership is by making it attractive and making personal vehicle usage unattractive.
Not by mandating that everyone possess a neglected, resource intensive, soon to be rustbucket.
If an authoritarian government wanted to do things that were actually useful, they'd make the trains and buses free (but that would cost government money) and have high fees on car use (but that would hit their power base). Mandating that every person buy a bike is counterproductive but easily looks attractive as misuse of authority since it's an unfunded mandate - the cost falls on the powerless, while the wealthy who do own cars will just buy cheap bikes to store, or not even bother and just pay the fine if they can't influence their way out of being subject to enforcement at all.
#31
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Requiring bike ownership on the part of an entire population is just stupidly counterproductive.
Making bike and transit ridership more attractive than driving is what actually works - and you don't have to mandate bike ownership to do that, you just have to make driving expensive to a degree consistent with its climate cost, buildout and subsidize public transit, make road conditions cycling friendly, and make solid basic bikes inexpensive to acquire.
Mandating bike ownership is the sort of stupidity that only looks good to someone who wants to appear to be doing something, while not impacting the lifestyle of their wealthy supporters, pushing the cost onto others, and not caring that they are wasting the very sorts of material and energy resources that are at issue in climate and environmental concerns.
Last edited by UniChris; 03-22-22 at 04:09 PM.
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#34
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Climate change is real. But not man made climate change. Man the world over produces 40 Billion tons of CO2 per year. The weight of the earths total atmosphere is 5.5 quadrillion tons. Divide 5.5 quadrillion tons into 40 billion tons, and you get 7 parts in a million. I submit that 7 part in a million is not something to ruin our standard of living or our economy over.
Like you're credible to make that judgment? Wanna be constructive? Figure out how to reduce emissions without ruining our standard of living or our economy. If the climate keeps going this way, we aren't going to be able to maintain either.
Are you denying that CO2 levels have gone up significantly in the last century?
You're entitled to your own opinions, you're not entitled to your own facts, and this is total bs.
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That's just stupid. The entire climate is contained under that arrow, are you claiming that factors localized to our planet don't affect how much of the sun's energy gets stored here?. Yes, if the sun got more or less powerful, it could swamp localized factors, but climate change is a marginal change in heat storage that we as a species are perfectly capable of accomplishing. We're talking billions of "tiny specks" emitting far more than their body weight in greenhouse gases.
The "is manmade climate change real" question really isn't debatable at this point, it's very obviously already happening.
Last edited by livedarklions; 03-23-22 at 02:40 PM.
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Climate change is real. But not man made climate change. Man the world over produces 40 Billion tons of CO2 per year. The weight of the earths total atmosphere is 5.5 quadrillion tons. Divide 5.5 quadrillion tons into 40 billion tons, and you get 7 parts in a million. I submit that 7 part in a million is not something to ruin our standard of living or our economy over.
https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...carbon-dioxide
You apparently don’t understand that carbon dioxide, and other emissions, accumulate in the atmosphere.
Last edited by Koyote; 03-23-22 at 03:17 PM.
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#37
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One person's contributing to global warming is another person's staving off the next ice age. For various reasons, the Earth has heated and cooled over time and yet we are here.
Of this I am certain. My bicycle doesn't matter.
Of this I am certain. My bicycle doesn't matter.
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#38
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Are you assuming your part of the coast still exists in a few years?
#39
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You must be very concerned about this, then, since the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is currently well over 400 parts per million:
https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...carbon-dioxide
You apparently don’t understand that carbon dioxide, and other emissions, accumulate in the atmosphere.
https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...carbon-dioxide
You apparently don’t understand that carbon dioxide, and other emissions, accumulate in the atmosphere.
7 ppm can’t be right.
#40
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Thread Starter
You must be very concerned about this, then, since the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is currently well over 400 parts per million:
https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...carbon-dioxide
You apparently don’t understand that carbon dioxide, and other emissions, accumulate in the atmosphere.
https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...carbon-dioxide
You apparently don’t understand that carbon dioxide, and other emissions, accumulate in the atmosphere.
7 ppm can’t be right.
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#42
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It's extremely complicated because there is a cycle where carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere then captured by plant growth, which takes it out of the atmosphere. What industrialization accomplished is the production of CO2 at levels too high to be fully captured, and this imbalance causes the pCO2 in the atmosphere to increase over time. It fluctuates month by month with growing season, but the average annual pCO2 has been rising steadily to very high levels. https://research.noaa.gov/article/Ar...carbon-dioxide
#43
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The denialism of Covid-19, Evolution, the link between lung cancer and smoking is identical to that of the denial of Climate Change. The arguments and tactics are all the same.
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I think you should go ahead and cancel the thread. Otherwise, there's a lot of very political climate change denialism that's going to require answering. Sorry, but I'm completely baffled by what the difference is between things that are being deleted and things that are not, and several of the posts that were deleted are still there in the quotes.
Just like the recent thread that you got kicked out of by a mod
#45
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President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov ....
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This thread has lots of political comments we’re deleting. Optical discussions aren’t allowed except in the P&R forum. Some of you may disagree with that but we do it for a reason - politics will drive just about any cycling discussion into heated off-topic arguments.
If you want to discuss this subject more in political terms, move it to P&R. But if political posts continue, we have no choice but cancel the thread.
Stan
If you want to discuss this subject more in political terms, move it to P&R. But if political posts continue, we have no choice but cancel the thread.
Stan
#47
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I think even rydabent must have realized that his claim is absurd, as he seems to have deleted the post.
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Like you're credible to make that judgment? Wanna be constructive? Figure out how to reduce emissions without ruining our standard of living or our economy. If the climate keeps going this way, we aren't going to be able to maintain either.
Are you denying that CO2 levels have gone up significantly in the last century?
You're entitled to your own opinions, you're not entitled to your own facts, and this is total bs.
Are you denying that CO2 levels have gone up significantly in the last century?
You're entitled to your own opinions, you're not entitled to your own facts, and this is total bs.
#49
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You weren't even truth adjacent.
So, just to recap, the ploy is to take something that's been proven scientifically, then post something completely nonscientific supposedly "refuting" the science, then claim that any pointing out that what you're saying is complete nonsense is "political".
#50
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You weren't even truth adjacent.
So, just to recap, the ploy is to take something that's been proven scientifically, then post something completely nonscientific supposedly "refuting" the science, then claim that any pointing out that what you're saying is complete nonsense is "political".
So, just to recap, the ploy is to take something that's been proven scientifically, then post something completely nonscientific supposedly "refuting" the science, then claim that any pointing out that what you're saying is complete nonsense is "political".