Trainer Confessions

Climate Ride – why is it important to you?

[This post is somewhat off-topic & on Global Warming, but given that it ties back to the Climate Ride, it does belong here on Trainer Confessions.  What you see below is the text I intend to send to a few local news papers for inclusion in the Letter to the Editor section.  If you see any text that could be improved upon before then, please let me know.  And of course if you want to make a donation to the Climate Ride, please follow this link.]

When I signed up for the Climate Ride (a charitable 5 day 300+ mile bike ride to support sustainable solutions, bike advocacy and environmental causes) a few of my cycling friends thought it was a way for me to indulge my passion for cycling.  While there might be an ounce of truth behind such thinking, without question my primary motivation is help convince others to take action to avert the worst of what man-made Global Warming has already set in motion.

A long time ago, I once associated Global Warming’s impact with Polar Bears and glaciers – things in faraway places with only indirect consequences to my life.  In recent years as I learned more, I felt compelled to take Green actions as part of my parental duties; not only did I want to raise happy and healthy children, but I also wanted to make sure they inherited a livable planet when they grew up. 

But as I look back upon the increasingly numerous climate disasters in 2011 (unprecedented droughts, floods, and heat waves that impacted people all over the globe), it now has become clear that action is needed to make changes NOW and in my lifetime.  Global Warming isn’t something bad that could happen at some point in the future; it was one of the factors in 2011’s record setting number of Billion Dollar weather disasters in the US (a cost that doesn’t account for the devastation incurred to the hundreds who also lost their lives in these events).

But why doesn’t everyone realize this?  Why do you rarely hear news coverage of Global Warming, except for when it snows out during the winter and Fox News decides to roast Al Gore once again?  Why is it that all of the leading GOP presidential candidates even go so far as calling Global Warming a hoax perpetrated by greedy scientists looking for grant money?

And why is it that when I asked someone recently for ideas on how to raise money, they responded by saying “Global Warming isn’t like raising money for Cancer.  Everyone knows someone whose life was threatened (or worse) by cancer.  Global Warming just doesn’t impact as many people.”

I know first-hand of cancer’s far-reaching impact; I lost my half-brother to the disease when he was still just a child.  Cancer takes the lives of tens of millions of people ever year, so unquestionably those raising money for cancer deserve the support they receive.  But why can’t I convince people that the same is true for man-made Global Warming, which already is impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, and within a decade or so could be impacting all 7 billion members of the human race?

The comparison to cancer got me thinking a bit more as to why too few people today feel there’s reason to take Global Warming seriously.  Many decades ago, the scientific evidence on smoking was indisputable; if you smoked scientists proved that your odds of getting life-threatening cancer sky-rocketed.  Yet highly skilled marketers and lobbyists funded by the tobacco industry cast just enough doubt on the science, and as a result, millions of people dismissed the warnings and continued to smoke.  Big Tobacco’s profits continued to swell, even as people’s lives were ended by cancer.

Today Big Oil and Coal are following the same game plan to protect their record breaking profits, even going as far as using some of the very same former Tobacco marketers and lobbyists.  For example, even as the people of Texas continue to suffer through an unparalleled drought, the successful marketing and lobbying campaigns funded by millions of dollars of coal and oil money have the governor of that state, and presidential hopeful Rick Perry, declaring that Global Warming is a hoax and that there’s no reason for Texans to question the doubt as anything other than a natural occurrence.

It took millions of deaths to finally bring the end the influence of Big Tobacco.  Absent of their money and messaging, now you’d be hard pressed to find someone willing to challenge the science connecting smoking to cancer deaths.  Unfortunately today Global Warming science, now backed and supported by virtually every major scientific body, is still not widely known or believed by significant portions of the country.   Much like the chain smokers of the 60s and 70s whose health was on the decline, today we see the worsening signs of Global Warming, yet we fail to believe the science that would give us a path away from our terrible addiction.  I just hope that it won’t take the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions before we finally break from the shackles of the influence of Big Oil and Coal.

And that is why I signed up for the Climate Ride again this year.  It’s for a cause that’s deeply important to me, and now I hope that you might find a reason to think that it’s important to you as well.

 

Letter to the Editor

If you look at my blog entries by category, you'll see that there are unfortunately very few filed under "Carbon Footprint".  Living up on the top of a hill certainly makes it challenging to replace many of my car miles with bike miles, especially because so few of my trips out of the house are without the girls.  So, now that the off-season is giving me a few extra cycles to do non-cycling activities, I've been looking at other ways that I can make a difference. 

I know that some suggested that print media is dead, but I know that there still are a few out there who don't rely upon solely Twitter to keep up with the world.  So, with that in mind I set aside a bit of time to pen a Letter to the Editor last week and today I learned that at least one paper (the Glastonbury Citizen) decided to publish it.  They unfortunately don't seem to have an online version of the paper, so I figured I post it here (below).  Apologies to those who came here looking for bicycling news!

The US Senate failed to take action on a comprehensive climate bill this summer because of well funded big Oil and Coal lobbyists.  Now the lobbyists are trying to convince many in the Senate to take action that would tie the hands of the EPA as well.  Most people don't know that a small minority with a large amount of money are now doing things that ultimately will ruin our economy and worse, ruin the world we live in.  I’m writing this letter because the more people become aware of what is happening, the greater the odds that they'll do things differently.

Before the Senate ended their summer session, corporate polluters and their lobbyists successfully stalled efforts on clean energy and climate legislation.  As a result, the Senate failed to limit the money sent to oil dictatorships in the troubled Middle East, failed to revitalize the US economy by investing in green jobs which are now going to China, and failed to help stem the increasing tide of droughts, floods and heat waves brought on due to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

Now the same lobbyists are trying to hinder the EPA as that agency seeks to enforce common-sense safeguards, like the Clean Air Act.  Our dependence upon fossil fuels doesn’t just hurt the economy and the environment.  Increased CO2 and pollution levels will lead to more heart attacks, asthma attacks, hospital visits, and premature deaths.  The EPA now intends to step in to ensure you, your friends, and your loved ones are not put into harm’s way by enforcing the Good Neighbor Rule, the Smog (or Ozone) Rule, and the Coal Ash Rule.  Unfortunately big coal and oil are dead set on blocking them.

Please hold corporate polluters accountable and speed the transition to a clean energy economy and let the EPA carry out what it has been charted to do.

An Ax to Grind

Warning: Off Topic

Bicycling is my passion, and promise to keep this blog focused on that topic.  However, as you can see with one of my blog's categories, reducing my "carbon footprint" is one of the reasons I cycle so you'll have to indulge me a bit as I go a bit off topic with this post.

I am a member of the local town's "clean energy" committee that tries to get more people in the community to make the switch and pay for electricity that comes from sources like solar, wind, other renewables.  It isn't easy convincing people to pay the small premium, especially when it is so cold as it is here tonight.  So, from time to time we'll write to the paper and try to explain the rationale as to why someone would want to make the switch, and we'll do it in the form of a Letter to the Editor.

Ax to grind

I'm typing this now nearly 2 hrs beyond my bedtime (and sitting on a chair and not on my trainer!) because I got really ticked off after reading the newspaper today.  A reader sent in their own letter to the editor which was printed in today's newspaper, and in it, they suggested that I had some sort of ax to grind which motivated my support for Clean Energy and cast doubts as to whether or not I was doing it for the right reasons.  It was just a short letter, and one that likely will easily be forgotten, but I just couldn't go to sleep tonight without committing my thoughts to the keyboard so that I could eventually submit my rebuttal back to next week's newspaper. 

What you see below is my stream of conscious elaboration to the Glastonbury Citizen as to why I'm in support of Clean Energy.  I'm posting it here just in case folks want to critique it before I hit send. 

Any suggestions?

I have two beautiful little girls, Allison and Josephine.  I take my job as Dad seriously.  I need to make sure that I do what I can to make sure the world they inherit is one that has meaningful jobs here in the USA; I need to figure out how to make sure they are safe from terrorist attacks; I need to some how find ways to make sure they have affordable energy; and, if I have any spare time, I also am tasked with making sure that they are not suffering through unbearable heat, drought, and storms brought about by global warming.

I really believe that my intentions behind my support for Clean Energy (http://www.ctcleanenergyoptions.com/) are well intentioned efforts to provide the best for Allison and Josephine. Supporting Clean Energy will help build the Clean-tech jobs here as opposed to the rapidly developing industry in China.  It will take hundreds of billions of dollars sent to the Middle East, which in turn funds the likes of Al Qaeda, and put it into the pockets of hard working Americans.  Funding the unlimited source of clean energy will enable the ever growing world population (demand) to get ahead of the declining availability of oil and coal (supply) to keep the price of energy from sky rocketing.  Lastly, while some scientists (most of the funded by Big Oil) may question recent findings from our nation’s most educated at NASA (www.nasa.gov), it seems clear to me that a major investment in clean energy will mitigate the risk posed by global warming.

In the January 28^th edition of the Citizen it was written that I had an ax to grind because of my support for Clean Energy.  I initially took offense to the suggestion that I had an ulterior motive or had private ends to serve. I took a deep breath and thought about it for a moment, and then realized that the reader was in fact correct.  I did have a private end to serve by supporting Clean Energy – Allison and Josephine.