News
Parental climate chaos dilemma
As climate change devolves into climate chaos, parents today face a set of painful dilemmas. The inclination to shelter and protect our children from psychologically distressing information can result in our children being blindsided, feeling lied to, and growing up unprepared to face the future. The desire to give our children material and experiences can hasten the rate at which climate change morphs into climate chaos. To give or not to give? Then there is the question of guilt and resentment. We burned more fossil fuels than we should have in our privileged travel. Abandoning family hypermobility can leave parents with a sense of guilt for denying travel to our children. It can also leave children with a sense of resentment. Parental failure to curb our travel lust today makes climate chaos worse and passes on to our children the responsibility of making needed behavioral changes tomorrow. In shirking our responsibility we bequeath to our children their own future guilt and the difficult parental decisions and actions relative to their children. An abrupt stop here does not imply that the above is a comprehensive outline of the topic. These random thoughts are just a place to begin a...‘We are damned fools’
In 1988 NASA scientist James Hansen warned Congress of climate chaos. Today his message is: ‘We are damned fools’. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/19/climate-crisis-james-hansen-scientist-warningLMPD, bikes, Bardstown Rd & Public Works
Approaching the Bardstown Rd & Eastern Parkway an airhorn (?) sounds just feet away from the bike’s rear tire. A quick glance over the shoulder identifies the source as a big dark SUV. The SUV passes and the cyclist realizes the vehicle belongs to LMPD. The LMPD vehicle stops at the traffic signal. The cyclist pulls up to the passenger side window. It comes down. There are two officers in the front. The driver: “Stay in the bike lane.” He is referring to those mysterious parallel lines one foot apart in the door zone. The cyclist: “That is not a bike lane.” The driver: “Stay off the road.” The cyclist: “Cyclists are permitted to ride in the travel lane.” The driver: “Stay off the road.” The cyclist: “Arrest me.” Repelled by the LMPD vehicle’s exhaust fumes and the motor’s 250 degrees heat, the cyclist advances ahead and in front of the SUV and waits on the light to turn green. The LMPD vehicle roars as it blasts past and to the right of the cyclist. On the other side of the LMPD SUV a father and his two young sons, straddle their bicycles on the sidewalk waiting to cross the road. The first cyclist pulls on to the sidewalk and conversation ensues. The father, grateful the driver did not lose control of the SUV, identifies the behavior as bullying. The first cyclist expresses the hope that the officer will vent to his buddies and that they will set him straight. Godspeeds expressed, we part. Public Works. Several conversations concerning those parallel lines on the newly reconfigured Bardstown Rd have...Emails to Mayor, Deputy Mayors & Council Members
Three emails of July 8, 19, & 28 to Mayor Greenberg, Deputy Mayors & Council Members July 8 – At the rate at which heat records are falling and other geo measures are escalating, 10 years from today, maybe 2 years from today, no one will be interested in the details of the police chief search, or what photographers and bakers are doing, or the latest real estate development, or any of the other current distractions from what really matters, livability on Earth. Draft a climate change position, policy, and practices paper free of greenwashing. Distribute it widely. And let it be known that every media conference on any subject will start with a conversation on how we slow climate chaos, and every subject will be addressed in light of its relation and relative importance to climate chaos. July 19 – Heat records are falling daily, torrential rains are resulting in floods worldwide, oceans are overheating, and storms are increasing in violence and frequency. The responsible course of action for every city is to publish a climate chaos position, establish assertive climate chaos policies and practices, and evaluate every subject in light of its relation and relative importance to climate chaos. The opportunity to slow climate chaos is fading. Fast. July 28 – Last summer I was asked if Louisville needed a chief heat officer. With the understanding that CHOs, in the face of escalating heat worldwide, are simply applying Band-Aids to the problem, my response was: “No, not if the administration’s policies and practices are focused on shutting down surface parking lots, reducing private urban automobile usage, helping JCPS reorganize education...K&I Bridge
With the prospect of $10 million expansion of Waterfront Park westward, it may be time to renew the appeal to reopen Norfolk Southern’s K&I bridge to pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users. On 1 November 2013 the group working on the appeal ceased efforts on the argument that until Metro Louisville makes progress with plans and funding for the southern approaches to the K&I bridge, the request cannot be justified. That group included representation from both sides of the river – parks, public works, mayoral & congressional offices, local law enforcement, coast guard, INDOT, KYTC, citizens and citizen groups (historical, cycling, etc.), engineering, legal and business perspectives, etc.. Exhaustive (if rambling) reports of meetings & happenings were kept… here is the May 2013 report to the group https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_50yOJWw450UvXfpo-XHJLTMR2P3msTnY7X4fmwdXc/edit Open the K&I bridge Facebook page – Full Moon Bike Ride...Extinction Rebellion vows fossil fuels protest will ‘grind London to a halt’
The environmental activist group, which encourages supporters to cause disruption through non-violent civil disobedience, will return to the city (London) Saturday with new tactics it claims will “create the most roadblocks we ever have”.“The government declared a climate emergency, yet they are still considering licensing new oil and gas fields [and] financing fossil fuels through tax breaks despite the clear evidence and advice from experts that we need to end all new fossil fuel investment immediately.”...Climate scientists are desperate: we’re crying, begging and getting arrested
As one who was arrested here in Louisville in 2019 for climate change civil disobedience, Peter Kalmus’ article struck home. “…Nothing has worked. It’s now the eleventh hour and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity. I feel deep grief over the loss of forests and corals and diminishing biodiversity. But I’ll keep fighting as hard as I can for this Earth, no matter how bad it gets, because it can always get worse. And it will continue to get worse until we end the fossil fuel industry and the exponential quest for ever more profit at the expense of everything else. There is no way to fool physics….”...Ignoring Induced Demand is Engineering Malpractice
This process of deception, witnessed in Louisville’s OH River Bridges Project, is repeated nationwide every year.(Source: Strong Towns) “The standard approach for engineering projects is well-established. A team of technical experts determines that a project needs to happen. They get whatever authorization they need to move forward in evaluating options. They put together options, most frequently three of them. The first is the “do nothing” approach, the hated status quo that most everyone agrees is intolerable. The second is some lavish, over-the-top approach that seems ridiculous. And the third approach is the baby bear; not too big and not too small, in contrast with the others it will seem to be just right. This is all part of a sales job, including the anchoring effect of juxtapositioning the professional’s preferred alternative between two unappealing options. I have called these “dumb, dumber, and dumbest” on occasion. Engineers and project planners use the public comment process to go through engagement theater and simulate that they actually care about the feedback they are receiving, earnestly considering it instead of what they are really doing: working through the process to overcome opposition so they can move on to the building phase of the project (because that is the favorite phase).”...Pete Buttigeig
“Every transportation decision is a climate decision, whether we recognize it or not,… Not only do we have to cut emissions from transportation on our roads by making it so that you don’t have to drag two tons of metal along to get to where you need to go all the time, we’ve got to prepare for the climate impacts that are already happening.” (speech at SXSW- south by southwest – March 2022)Bikes weigh less than two tons. Buttigeig noted that the transportation sector is the US economy’s second leading source of greenhouse gas, behind the energy sector. Is it a slight of hand that electric vehicles will shift more of the greenhouse gas emissions away from transportation and to the energy...Ohio River Bridges Mistakes Repeated
Instead of investing in regional public transit, retrogressive leadership chose to invest in a 1950s transportation model – two more interstate bridges and many acres of new interstate roadways. Now retrogressive leadership is urging KY & IN governors to use federal infrastructure funding to eliminate tolls on the bridges. Better to keep the tolls and redirect the funds to public transit....
Reasons you should ride a bicycle
Petroleum Free Transportation
combats global climate change
improves local air quality
leaves no oil on our streets and in our drinking water
keeps local dollars local
frees our military from protecting foreign oil
promotes global peace
Bikes Are
healthy exercise
smart personal economy
great traffic calming influences
family-friendly
not electric (coal or fracked gas fueled) vehicles
fun!
