Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Bloomberg Green advocates voluntary poverty and a return to 19th-century transportation solutions, to address the great climate crisis.
It’s time to consider electric bicycles as a means of transportation
As gas prices soar, e-bikes – especially cargo models that can carry children and groceries – can replace car trips and save fuel. Why don’t federal officials promote them?
Via David Zipper March 15, 2022, 22:00 GMT + 10
With gasoline prices soaring after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US elected officials are trying everything from gasoline tax “holiday” arrive drench into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to appease motorists worried about budget excesses. The Biden administration has suggested that the long-term salvation lies in phasing out gas-powered vehicles entirely: “Once we have electric cars running on clean energy, we’ll never have to worry about gas prices again”, The White House recently tweeted. “And autocrats like Putin will not be able to use fossil fuels as weapons against other countries.”
Meanwhile, Americans are rediscovering classic fuel-saving habits, like choose a smaller vehicle or transit. But one promising approach isn’t in the policy discussions: moving cars to increasingly popular e-bike and e-cargo bike, powered by pedal power augmented by a rechargeable battery. It’s an omission that speaks volumes about how underappreciated battery-powered bikes are in Washington, even among the most climate-friendly politicians.
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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-15/the-electrical-vehicles-we-need-now-are-e-bikes
What a sad little vision of the future – the United States of America is turning into a nation of energy-impoverished farmers.
What happened to reaching for the stars, flying cars, a life of leisure and luxury that even the emperors of old could never aspire to?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people choosing to ride an e-bike. I used to cycle for fun, until the injury stopped. But cycling should be an option, one of many options, it shouldn’t be a choice we have to make because we can’t buy anything better.
Wealth is choices. You can choose to ride your e-bike. But if you are rich, you can also choose to drive your car without worrying about fuel costs.
Poverty, as opposed to wealth, is your choices being limited by costs, feeling constrained by fuel and energy that you can no longer afford, living the small life with limited prospects, like a bunch of medieval peasants plowing the land for our betters. Or like 19th-century wage slaves who worked as battery-powered hens in their barns, packing or manufacturing the products that made them rich.
Pass the number of private jets cluttering our airports during climate conferences, our “bettors” have no intention of giving up any of their privileges. There’s no reason any of us should excuse their climate deviance and give up any of our privileges, while they laugh in our faces.
The current sky-high fuel and energy prices are completely fixable. All our politicians have to do is stay away and let our entrepreneurs drill for the oil we so desperately need right now. Supply and demand. Supply increases and prices will fall, as has happened under President Trump.
If and when some engineering genius comes up with a better solution than fossil fuels, we’ll listen. My only allegiance to fossil fuels is convenience. But living the small life and accepting shoddy solutions because we can’t afford better is not a vision of the future I want to embrace.
Until that day comes something better, let’s start being lenient, and stop messing with our lives and stop causing unnecessary suffering to ordinary people like ourselves.
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