Sea Otter Classic - "Climate Neutral"

I still like the good news better.

When I look at all the vehicles following the big races, and all the miles driven during multi-day tours I end up thinking about the disconnect.

My favorite way to think about the North American Solar Car Challenge that rolled through my town last summer is the image of a solar car being led by an SUV and followed by two SUV's.



So it comes as very happy news that the big spring race in California known as the Sea Otter Classic is partnering with Clif Bar to make this year's edition "Climate Neutral." From CyclingNews.com - "All told, Clif Bar and Sea Otter will offset nearly 748 tons of carbon dioxide."

I've offset my own CO2 emissions in the same way by purchasing tags here.

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3/30 10pm - maybe 3am is a bit early in the day to be reading news. I'm pretty sure CyclingNews.com was reporting this story, but here 19 hours later the story is gone. Poof...or should I say evaporated?

Fear Of a Warm Planet

Trains and Ticks

www.fightglobalwarming.com

The ads - click

The news - click

What you can do - boom

The Long Walk

I’m amazed at how little I actually read.

There’s an article in the current issue of Minneapolis’ The Rake Magazine by Jennifer Vogel titled “The Long Walk.” It’s about her experience of spending a “year on foot in Minneapolis.”

It’s pretty heavy (and pretty excellent) on urban planning and shoulda, woulda, coulda’s surrounding the development of downtown Minneapolis over the past 20 years. I was hoping for more experiential stories and anecdotes than I found. That’s not to say it was completely without.

The experiential part that most resonates with me is how alone she feels as she walks during the winter. It’s almost an exact fit with the opening lines from the movie “Crash.” My most common walk for lunch is a round trip of about ¾ mile. I come in spitting distance of probably 1,000 people. I’d have to actually get run over by one of them to actually have human contact with any of them.

Juggle Me This II

This guy juggles pretty well too. It's described as a parody of the Chris Bliss act I posted previously but if you go look, there's really nothing funny about it. It's seriously good.

Juggle Me This

This guy can juggle pretty well.

Happy St Patty's Day, Bike Day

Missing: muse

After riding a geared bike for a number of days, THIS day started with a very long and slow ride to work. Long because recent snowfall has again closed my preferred route to work. Slow because I rode the single speed which takes about 6mph off my average speed. Alas, it still has studded tires, and winter wants everyone to know that it isn’t finished yet.

I left work a little early and headed downtown to join about 15 other cyclists in the annual parade ‘o the day. Three of the participants were under 9 years old (a 4 year old rode it on training wheels). Two participants took their first ever tandem ride. They’re experts now after all that starting and stopping.

Post parade I hooked up with The Owner for a traditional plate full of enchiladas. The Uncle should know that I had a broccoli/cheese ‘lada in his honor.

The sun set as I returned home.

I verified the impassibility of my favored route to work by marching a couple hundred yards through snow.

Toward the end of the ride I found myself in a position to get run over by a mother of a friend/classmate of The Boy 8. As she approached an intersection she looked my direction and didn’t see me. As she rolled to a stop she was looking the other direction, at this point I had the back of her head lit with my helmet light. As she started to depart her stop sign she made one final look to her left and found herself in pretty close quarters with me and my light. How would that be? Getting run over by someone I know.

Report: March 6-12

Trips -
MinusCar: 8
Multi-occupant Auto: 8
Single occupant Auto: 4

This was a pretty good week. Not great, but good. It started off really well; I was riding the long way to work and the long way from work. By the weekend I became more auto dependent.

One day this week while I was walking to fetch some lunch I was reflecting on The MinusCar Project and these “trip” numbers that I post every week. I’ve been pretty disappointed with my attitude and the results for a number of weeks now. I’m very anxious to get beyond winter and start getting some real miles in.

On this walk to lunch I came to the realization that I (and my team) have been regularly participating in a MinusCar thing without fully realizing it. This particular day I was going on a KFC Snacker run for 5 teammates and it occurred to me how nice it would be if I could count this trip as 5 MinusCar trips. My favorite part of this is that it is a regular occurrence within the team that one person will fetch lunch for one or two others.

My Car Miles: 25
My Bike Miles/Hours: 78.5/5.4

Hardware

Report: February 27-March 5

Trips -
MinusCar: 6
Multi-occupant Auto: 8
Single occupant Auto: 6

It’s warming up a little and getting easier to do some extra trips by bike. I rode to work four days this week. Half of my single occupant trips were on the day I didn’t ride.

My Car Miles: 47
My Bike Miles/Hours: 71.6/5.2

I rode to work four days this week. One of the days I made three stops on the way home including the craft store and grocery store for den meeting supplies. I’m starting to think about the day I can get The Boys back to riding bikes and trailers.

Overheard @ Kohl's

"Charcoal brown - it's the new black."

So now you know.

Report: February 20-26

Trips -
MinusCar: 9
Multi-occupant Auto: 7
Single occupant Auto: 2

It seems like I’ve been looking for results like these for a long time. Trips without a car equal to the number of times I sat in a car.

My Car Miles: 19
My Bike Miles/Hours: 44.5/3.4

And twice as many miles on my bike as on my car.

What Are You Giving Up for Lent?

Today is Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent. Lent is popularly known as a time to give up something. It’s popular to give up candy or red meat for Lent.

It’s never popular to give up motorized transport. This week’s Sojo-mail has two significant articles. “Biking as a Lenten Practice” asserts the idea of giving up something that will help an individual focus on oil, energy and the war in Iraq. “Demotorizing My Soul” is less about Lent and more about linking the joys of cycling with the spiritual.

In the latter Will Braun is right on, nailing me from the opening line – “We’re not meant to go that fast. It’s just too hard on the spirit.”

But it’s the closing that landed like a bombshell and put words and explanation to what The MinusCar Project is about.

"The moral of the story is adventure. It's not that I became a novice practitioner of mobility ethics, but that the whole notion of spirited lifestyle change took the form of adventure. I was eager to embark not only on the next overly-ambitious trip but on other lifestyle experiments.

Such as the changes yet to come. The further ruralization of my life. The reduction of stuff. The reduction of computer-dependence. Closer contact with the poor. And a few others I'm too shy to mention. I'm not sure how or when these transformations are going to happen, but I look forward to the ride."

Riding a bike isn’t about fixing the war in Iraq. It can’t be about fixing Global Warming. Riding a bike and The MinusCar Project is about fixing me. Anybody who changes their behavior because of something they read or see here is icing on the cake. The most important change is the change that happens to me.

The MinusCar Project leads me to ask questions; what is enough? Is 169 gallons of water per day enough for a household? Is the 1kW of electricity that will light all the bulbs inside my home better used in Africa where it will light all the bulbs in 70 homes?

The MinusCar Project takes me on adventures. Most recently the fighting of a house bill; and future ones too, like the summer plan to build a wind turbine and too share the experience with friends.

So go ahead. Give something up for Lent. Give up your motorized transport – maybe for just one day. Sit on a bike seat or sit on a bus, or even walk somewhere you'd normally drive (thanks for the encouragement MH!). And while you're not all consumed by the taillights of the car in front of you consider the question – what is enough?

PS – I was thinking about The MinusComputer-Dependence Project, but then I realized I wouldn’t be able to blog about it.

Another Food Allergy Post

More about The Clown – poor Ronald has found himself in a quandary after announcing there are wheat and dairy derivatives on their fries. It looks like three parties have sued The Clown over the announcement. To fight these suits it’s become priority number 1 to get a scientist to test the foods to prove there are not allergens present…and the scientist found no allergens present. So which is it Ronald? This blog I found seems to have a pretty good report on the most recent news.

The Case of the Disappearing Pizza – tonight was a pizza night, and we hired Pizza Hut. While I was putting my pizza together on their website I decided to check for new food label information. I was handsomely rewarded. They are now admitting to egg in the pizza sauce, and acknowledge that peanuts and tree nuts can possibly exist in products manufactured for them. It seems pretty obvious that this is a CYA claim along the lines of, “if we say everything has everything in it then we can’t be breaking the law.” Come on Pizza Hut, do the work, find out for sure. It might be worth a customer or two. I enjoy this statement the most, "Please check with the store manager." If you only knew what I knew about what store managers know about food allergies!

So I jumped over to our other pizza of choice, Papa John’s. Their site has the same statements as it always has. Well good! At least we still have the Papa…or do we? There’s a voice in my head telling me it’s more likely their legal department just hasn’t fully grasped what the new food labeling laws mean.

The saga continues...

Amory Lovins - Despair is a Sin

The Internets have provided a pretty hopeful week!

Today’s finding is in Discover Magazine. They have an article that provides Amory Lovins’ perspective on an oil free future. In the article there is the case for lighter cars and even a hint of validation of my belief that each home should be responsible to generate its own energy. And he makes it all sound so possible!

Here’s the lead in:

AMORY LOVINS is a physicist, economist, inventor, automobile designer, consultant to 18 heads of state, author of 29 books, and cofounder of Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank. Most of all, he's a man who takes pride in saving energy.

And here’s some inspiration:

...after a while someone in the back will get up and give a long riff about all the bad things that are happening-most of which are basically true…after this person calms down, I gently ask whether feeling that way makes him more effective. As René Dubos, the famous biologist, once said, "Despair is a sin."

Thanks again to The Other Tyler Hamilton. Maybe I should rename this blog to The Best of Clean Break.

Report: February 13-19

Trips -
MinusCar: 5
Multi-occupant Auto: 7
Single occupant Auto: 6

Again another less than inspiring bike performance but pretty good reliance on the bus.

My Car Miles: 64
My Bike Miles/Hours: 14/1

A Tough Allergy Day

Great news! I bet you didn’t know that new federal food labeling laws went into effect on January 1st. Yeah that’s pretty big stuff for parents like us who avoid 7 of the 8 major food allergens for their children. It will be so easy now to avoid the allergens and increase the likelihood that The Boys will live to outgrow their food allergies, right?

Well, it will help us avoid the sort of allergic reaction that could put them in the hospital, but it’s really only great news for parents of kids who are less than 3 years old. For my The Boys these laws are a very mixed blessing.

Here is the downside (there’s always a down side).

This morning we opened the morning staple Honeycombs for breakfast. Did you know that Honeycombs are manufactured on equipment that processes wheat? Nope, neither did we…until this morning. Maybe we can get Post Cereal to explain to The Boy 3 why his favorite cereal has to go away.

When I went to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) website to find information about the new food labeling laws for this blog post I found a statement for the press. FAAN’s response to McDonalds quietly released statement that their fries are produced using dairy and wheat derivatives. The Clown at McDonalds even errantly suggests ignoring The Doctor’s orders and continuing consumption of the fries. Nice.

Hopefully once all this new packaging comes out there will be foods left that can be consumed. I’m not ready yet to have The Boys selected out of the gene pool.

In more entertaining allergy news, the This American Life: Living Without radio show featured a story by Sarah Vowell about her wheat allergy. It’s the second segment of the show, and is probably quite revealing to someone unaware of what it means to be wheat allergic. You can listen free using Real Audio.

Keep listening to section 3, there’s a guy doing his own The MinusHome Project.

More News & Another Blogger Joins the Fray

First off: The Uncle was apparently traversing New Zealand media and came across a news article indicating that South Africa has beaten the world to super efficient solar panels. Is it too good to be true? Perhaps, but I’m not going to let a little doubt running my today…check this out:

In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists has developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology that will enable homes to obtain all their electricity from the sun.

Second: Wheel Revolution is a new sustainable living conscious, biking blogger from Portland, OR. She has a The Boy too! Check her out now and you’ll be getting in on the ground floor.

Being the chronicles of one family's evolution toward a sustainable life.

Third: Even W makes the MinusCar news highlights today. He’s touring alternative energy companies this week and promising a little alternative energy shock and awe in the not to distant future.

Our nation is on the threshold of new energy technology that I think will startle the American people," Bush said. "We're on the edge of some amazing breakthroughs - breakthroughs all aimed at enhancing our national security and our economic security and the quality of life of the folks who live here in the United States.

The News: CNN

From the land of inattentive drivers: here is a CNN video news article about a training film for police officers put together by the International Association of Police Chiefs. The second most common cause of death to officers is being struck by other vehicles while outside their cars making routine traffic stops; the first cause is car on car traffic accidents.

This video is quite stunning and surely shows clips where people have died. Two clips are extraordinary for the damage they don’t do. The very first one in the report involves an officer bending over talking to a driver through the window and being grazed on the backside by a car, sending his citation booklet flying. The second shows an officer instructing a woman to stand away from her vehicle to be safer. 10 seconds later her car is rammed by another.

Some of these situations are extra meaningful to me. They remind me of the time a car came quite close to me while I was biking on the sidewalk up a steep hill. Also, there is evidence at my office that I see daily, of a car jumping the curb crossing the sidewalk and running into a planter outside the front of the building. I suppose there were no pedestrians in the way during that unfortunate incident.

From the land of brilliant inventors: (thanks to MinusCar reader /KT for pointing me to this) Dean Kamen, the man who invented the Segway, is hard at work again. This time on two machines, one that can purify water…any water! and another than can generate 1kW of electricity by burning cow dung. The implication this has for the less developed nations and villagers is incredible, especially given the business model being employed for the machines implementation. You’ll have to read the article for details.

In a world where I wish each household would (or is it a fear that each household will need to) meet its own energy needs this machine sounds pretty useful. Reduce its carbon emissions by converting it to operate on concentrated sunlight or heat from the wind and I’ll buy two.

How much power is 1kW? The article claims 70 efficient light bulbs. Yeah, I have 70 light bulbs in my home so I might have to give up something…I think I hear my television volunteering to go first.

Knowledge Is Power

Before you read this, can you answer this question: How much water does your household consume in a day?

Over at my favorite blog, Clean Break, The Other Tyler Hamilton writes about wanting a better history of his household power consumption. I agree. I also agree it is highly likely energy companies already have this data. And why not provide it? Is it too confusing for us dumb consumers? Would it generate too many phone calls for customer service? One helpful commenter to the post offers a more literal than usual, “Knowledge is power.”

I processed my water bill this week. I was shocked and awed to find that my household water consumption is 169 gallons a day! A day! A day! And I didn’t water my lawn a single time this month. To my knowledge, this is the first time the information has been provided. I have no idea how this number relates to my neighbor's (here’s your chance to help), but I do know I’m well short of the 1,233 gallons per day point where I’d incur a consumption penalty. Still, 168 hours in a week, minus 47.5 hours away at school and work, minus 63 hours asleep, that's 57.5 hours at home where we consume 20.5 gallons an hour.

I can’t remember where, but I read once that if the whole city (any city) were to leave for vacation, the number of gallons of water still consumed by the empty city would be staggering. How many leaky toilets do you have?

I think I’ll make some phone calls to my utility companies tomorrow.