basilbias.com

The Bay area is famously bike-friendly. But a few ‘bicycle boulevards’ don’t change the reality of city biking.

It’s true, drivers around here can be very nice. If you wait to cross a busy street long enough, someone will usually stop and let you go, even though they are not legally required to. At stop signs, more often than not, drivers will wave you though even if they got there first.

But try taking up your rightful full lane[1] for a millisecond, and if the honking of the cars behind you[2] doesn’t knock you off your bike, the jerks crossing the double yellow line to whiz past you will.

Regardless of the number of bike-friendly features, cycling in a world built for cars is a power struggle. Just as, in a sexist society, men will hold the door for a lady,[3] drivers who stop to let a cyclist cross are, in a way, asserting their dominance. They have the power to stop traffic for you if they choose, just as they have the power to make you wait indefinitely (or run you over.)

If you think I’m reading too much into things, consider this: Last summer while I was biking home one day, a man in a red Miata almost hit me. It was clearly his fault. I was biking on the right side of the middle lane of the street, because the right lane was about to become a right-turn-only lane and I wanted to go straight. He was coming from the opposite direction, making a U-turn[4] around the median, and didn’t see me. He barely missed me. As he sped away, he shouted “Streets are for cars!”

And, although he was in the wrong, he had a point. Our roadways were not designed with bikes in mind. Where they even exist, bike lanes are an afterthought, sandwiched between parked cars and shared with buses[5] and turning vehicles. Cyclists literally have no place to call their own, while the modern American city’s very layout was dictated by the needs of the automobile. Add to this the machismo that is inherent in revving an engine, and it’s pretty inevitable that bicyclists are going to be treated as second-class citizens.

Which is why I don’t let assholes like the guy in the red sports car get to me anymore. In fact, cyclists should expect as much from all drivers, and bike accordingly. As Robert Hurst points out in his excellent book, The Art of Urban Cycling, road rage is a natural product of the anonymity the modern automobile provides. We have no reason to expect drivers to be civil, but there’s no need to take it personally. When they harass bicyclists, motorists are merely expressing misdirected rage at their own social isolation. More importantly, however, anyone who has ever observed city traffic knows that bad driving is the rule rather than the exception. So, instead of getting huffy after some distracted driver pulls out in front of them, a skilled cyclist anticipates irresponsible driving, and easily adjusts to accommodate it.

Urban biking is an exercise in humility. Dorky helmets and copious amounts of reflector tape aside, a nuanced view of the power dynamics inherent in biking on car-clogged streets is essential. Our status as underdogs may force us to be constantly on guard, but in many situations, it doubles as an advantage. Our small size which makes us so invisible also lets us squeeze through traffic jams unencumbered. The fact that bikes pose less of a threat than cars do (and that many traffic lights do not detect our presence) allows us to go through red lights in some circumstances.[6] And it’s becoming generally acceptable for bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs in order to conserve momentum.

In general, vehicles afford protection for their occupants in proportion to the danger they pose to everyone else. By nature of our vehicle choice, cyclists must take more responsibility for preserving our own skin than anyone else on the road has to. In an imperfect world, relying on regulations and everyone else’s good judgment can be problematic, if not downright dangerous. Especially if you are not the one in charge.

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[1] Contrary to popular belief, although bicycles are legally classified as vehicles, they are not equal to cars in all respects in the eyes of the law. Cyclists only have the right to take up a full lane when it is necessary for their own safety. Otherwise, they are supposed to ride to the right to allow faster traffic to pass them.

[2] Note to drivers: Car horns are designed to be heard from inside a car, through the glass and over the noise of the engine. Unless you are about to hit someone, there is absolutely no need to use this device within close range of a pedestrian or cyclist, particularly if they are following the law.

[3] I have debated this one with everyone from well-intentioned males to chivalrous butch lesbians to straight women who think it’s sweet, but I remain convinced: going out of one’s way to hold the door open for someone is not simply a nice gesture. I’m not saying door-holding should be banned, I’m just pointing out that it has implications, no matter what.

[4] Which, inexplicably, is perfectly legal in California by the way (making a U-turn that is, not failing to yield to a bike.)

[5] If you’ve ever shared a lane with bus, you understand why this is an awkward arrangement. In downtown districts, where there are a lot of stops, bikes and buses tend to cover about the same distance in the same period of time. This does not mean that they go the same speed though: while cyclists usually go a pretty constant speed, often even passing cars that are stuck in traffic, buses’ progress is stilted at best. Not only do they pull over at every bus stop, but they often have to wait to merge back into traffic. Then they speed up and stop short at the next stop. Thus, the bike and the bus are constantly maneuvering around each other, making for a very aggravating ride for everyone involved.

[6] After coming to a complete stop, and triple checking that there are no cars (or cops) anywhere, of course!

I left being vegetarian off my list of ways to reduce one’s impact because I figured I’d better devote an entire post to it, or I’d end up with a footnote to rival David Foster Wallace’s.[1] However, before I write that epic, I wanted to share something I came across the other day: seven reasons to eat only plants, written by my seventh grade self.[2]

• Better for the planet. Eating meat wastes resources. It takes about 16 pounds of grain and soy to produce one pound of meat. So 15 pounds of food are wasted. Imagine if we all ate grain and soy instead of meat – sixteen times more food would be available. Half the land in the U.S. is used for grazing land. The plants grown on that land (just for the livestock to eat) are being fed chemical fertilizers and pesticides are put on them to get rid of the bugs. This is harmful to the environment. It pollutes the water, the air and the soil, and causes imbalances in the ecosystems. In fact 15% of global warming gases are caused by chemical agriculture.
• Better for your health. Broccoli has the most powerful anti-cancer compound ever detected. But vitamins, fiber and other nutrients in non-animal foods are also good to combat cancer. Many people who eat meat believe that eating lean meat won’t cause cancer. But studies show that red meat itself, not only the fat, causes cancer. All meats contain saturated fat and cholesterol. These can cause high blood pressure and even heart attacks and strokes. Meats also contain poisons that are not on nutrition facts labels. Because livestock are injected with synthetic hormones to be fattened, and eat plants that are not organically grown, when you eat meat you are also eating chemicals. These pesticides and hormones build up in the livestock and then in the human much faster than if you just ate vegetables with pesticides on them.
• Better protein.[3] Meat is not the only way, or even the best way, to get protein. By eating both grains and legumes (beans) you get more usable protein than in eggs or meat. Also, some foods have complete proteins – such as soybeans, corn, mushrooms and even brown rice.[4]
• Less expensive. One pound of soybeans contains more protein than one pound of meat, and the soybeans cost a lot less. This is because farmers must grow plants to feed the meat. The only things plants need to grow are water, sun, and soil.
• More variety. There are basically five kinds of meat. There are 10-50 commonly eaten vegetables, twenty-four peas, beans and lentils, twenty fruits, twelve nuts and nine grains!
• More ethical. The average American slaughters 2000 animals in his lifetime. Eating meat in the amount that the average American does uses more than one individual’s fair share of the earth’s natural resources.
• More humane. The meat we eat today is not from cows that lived happily on a farm getting milked until they got old and had to be killed. Some livestock today “lives” in a tiny metal stall in a dark factory, getting fed plumping drugs and the worst grade of corn. Many times, they never see the sun. Veal calves live out their lives alone, separated from their mothers at birth, fed fake milk until they can eat, fed food that isn’t good enough for humans. They are kept alive until they are fat enough for the slaughter house. And, as stated in Beyond Beef, “slaughter houses haven’t changed much since Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.” Is this humane? Does this make sense? We contribute to rain forest conservation and then eat the meat from cattle that contribute to the forest’s destruction. “Well, I can’t stop that,” you say. But you can. If you stop eating meat then you stop paying these cruel companies that treat animals like machines, and destroy the environment.

You can make a difference. It may seem like just one little chicken, but to that chicken, it’s his life. Most of the corn that was fed to the chicken is wasted. The earth is weakened every time you choose meat, and waste resources.[5]

Although you gotta admit that that awkwardly phrased conclusion is pretty convincing, don’t think for one moment that I’m ready to let this topic go. I’ve suffered enough ignorant comments in my lifetime of being vegetarian to feel justified in thoroughly setting the record straight. So watch out for the next installment of the environmental virtues of vegetarianism!

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[1] Strictly hyperbolic! Never again will anyone turn a footnote the way DFW could, god rest his soul.

[2] With some help from the parentals most likely. This list is verbatim, except for the headings, which I changed just now because the non-parallel construction bugged me.

[3] Much of this probably came from Diet for a Small Planet, which I recently reread. Although it was written in the seventies, and the complementary protein theory in the early editions has since been proved to be a little stricter than necessary, its critique of our country’s eating habits is unfortunately still very relevant. Honestly, the amount of nutrient waste that is purposefully built in to the American system of food production is just mind-boggling.

[4] And quinoa! I don’t know what everyone’s protein fixation stems from. I mean, the average carnivorous American gets way more protein than necessary, and that excess protein is converted to, you guessed it, fat.

[5] I wrote this while I was going to Catholic school. One of the many things I found perplexing about Catholicism was the big deal they made about not being allowed to eat meat on Fridays (and why the pope felt it was necessary to change that rule to apply only to Lent.) Besides the fact that a meatless day in the name of god once a week for forty days didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice to me, isn’t eating fish instead kinda exploiting a loophole in the wording? Because heaven forbid you go a single meal without killing something.

While I was waiting for the rain to clear up so I could go run errands,[1] I spent a good couple hours yesterday calculating my carbon footprint on various websites. Of the seven I tried, most asked only about household energy usage (i.e. heating and electricity bills) and transportation. Two sites also took food and goods consumption into account. One of these asked only about total dollars spent (which is inaccurate because they assume you buy only new items and non-local food), the other asked about overall habits (i.e. if you buy secondhand items) but didn’t always account for quantity.

Depending on what the calculators took into account and what assumptions they made, my results ranged anywhere from 2.15 to 9.5 tons of CO2 emissions per year. The most comprehensive calculator[2] estimates that in the past 11 months, my lifestyle produced 4.24 tons of CO2.[3] When adjusted to represent a total year, that’s a little less than a fourth of the national average, which, according to that particular calculator, is 20.4 tons per year per person, and a little more than the global average, which is 4 tons. However, the consensus is that if we are to stabilize our climate, the global average per capita has to be reduced to 2 tons. So, even though I’m doing pretty well for an American, I still have a lot of work to do.

Here’s the breakdown of my footprint, according to carbonfootprint.com:

House	0.73 tons of CO2
Flights	1.26 tons of CO2
Bart	0.02 tons of CO2
Car	0.08 tons of CO2
Food, Goods & Services	2.15 tons of CO2[4]

Total                           4.24 tons of CO2 (In 11 months)

It’s surprising that food, goods and services account for more than half of my total, considering I don’t eat meat, and I buy mostly organic, local food and second-hand clothes. But if you really think about all the overhead carbon involved in the retail and service industries, it makes sense (apparently, the fact that I have a bank account contributes almost half a ton of C02 alone.) In effect, the high carbon cost of this category reflects the emissions of the industries that produce the things I buy. Adding in indirect emissions makes the comparison to average per capita emissions slightly more useful, since per capita emissions are a country’s gross emissions (including industry) divided by its number of citizens.

Since I still have to more than halve my CO2 emissions, and my family insists I fly home once a year, here are my next baby steps to reduce my impact:

1. Replace every incandescent bulb in the house that’s used for more than 20 minutes at a time with a compact fluorescent.

2. Replace normal power strips with Smart power strips,[5] which can sense when the main unit (i.e. the computer or TV) is turned off, and automatically cut off power to accessories (like the printer or DVD player.)[6]

3. Buy more of my produce at the farmer’s market.

If you’re a dork like me who’s motivated by quantitative data, gather up your bills and calculate your carbon footprint here![7] Even if you don’t care for numbers, I suggest you give it a try. If you’re doing well, it’ll be heartening to know your efforts are adding up; if you’re more like the average American, maybe you need a shocker to propel you off your brand-new couch to turn the freakin’ thermostat down.

Seriously, though, while it’s true that to effectively stop global warming in its tracks, the largest changes will have to be at the industrial and governmental levels, even our small personal changes, especially as Americans, make a huge difference.

So, if you don’t already, start holding yourself accountable. And if you feel like sharing, tell us what’s next on your list of ways to decrease your carbon shoe size!

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[1] I don’t mind getting a little drenched, but since my bicycle isn’t equipped with a windshield, let alone wipers, I sometimes feel it’s wiser to just wait it out. It does get hard to see if you can’t keep your eyes open for more than the millisecond between raindrops.

[2] They even have an option to adjust your flight emissions number to more accurately reflect the amount of damage done by spewing greenhouse gases directly into the troposphere!

[3] I calculated the past 11 months not to mislead you into thinking my footprint is smaller than it is, as it may appear, but because we weren’t yet fully moved into our current house a year ago and that month’s PG&E bill isn’t representative of our average usage.

[4] The first two figures, house and flights, are probably somewhat accurate. The rest, however, are anybody’s guess. (For instance, I really have no idea how many miles the car rides I get from friends add up to in 11 months.)

[5] Thanks to Paris for this tip!

[6] According to the International Energy Agency, standby mode on electronic devices contributes about 1% of all global carbon emissions, which is about equal to that of the entire aviation industry.

[7] Another nice thing about this calculator is that you can calculate your emissions for the time span of your choice, so if you don’t have all your bills for an entire year handy, you can just do the past 3 months. Also, if you were so inclined, you could keep tabs on your progress every month.