Category: Sustainability

Sustainability Month 2023: E-Bike vs. Car

Wowza, it’s that time of year again where I talk about sustainability. Could it be about the environment? Investing? Life Style? All three? Who knows but it’s been a successful series and I have more to talk about this year.

E-bike

So I haven’t been driving in a couple years! In 2019 I bought a Rad Power Bike (still not an ambassador) and while at the time I bought it because I liked riding scooters downtown, the value has only gone up over the years; try saying that about your pickup, I dare you.

The Benefits

For me, it was a one and done. I paid for the bike in full and thus owned the bike. All said and done, it was around $1800 for fenders, a basket, a nice helmet, and of course the bike. I could have done monthly payments but I didn’t want to deal with the headache. Now E-bikes are fairly common but in 2019 they were something you only saw every once and a while. And in 2019, gas was a lot a cheaper.

Benefit one

Cheaper than gas. That’s right, I could pay a few hundred a month in gas or ride an E-Bike. Even electric cars need to be charged often and not everywhere has a charging station. My bike battery can get about 20 miles on full throttle, going 20 miles an hour. For city commuting, this will get you where you need in a decent timeframe. And it takes about 6 to 8 hours to charge. If I use peddle assist, I get 40 miles (and more) per charge and speeds that far surpass a normal biker with no effort exerted on your part (I tested this on my brother).

Benefit two

Exercise. Yes, you heard me right; you get to have your cake and eat it to (not literally, of course). Most commutes will be a mix of peddle assist and throttle, so prepare to work those calves. In a car, you sit. That’s it. No wind in your hair, no nothing. You sit and think about your life choices.

Benfit Three

They do not take up space. This has immediate impact. If you have a house (so no one) you can put the bike in a corner of your garage and use all that space for… Whatever you want! Woodworking? No problem. Set up a painting studio? You got it? Man Cave? Bam, it’s there. Now, big picture. You take up less space on the road and guess what? You have your seats filled. Cars are funny in the sense that a lot are built to have more than one person in them but 90% of the time people are driving alone. No carpooling, just driving alone. If you don’t believe me, go stare at a car passing you the next you’re on a run or walk. You are more likely to see one person than a car filled with people; crazy! Now imagine if society shifted to majority of people biking. Less space taken up means no need for eight lane highways and we can put back what was there before. Which, if you were wondering were houses, libraries, and schools; you know, things society actually needs.

Wow, another paragraph. It doesn’t stop there. Less cars means no need for massive parking lots, which in turn could be parks and plazas; you know, places for people to gather socially. I know, I know, I’m talking like a madman right now. If I’m not careful, I might say that if we just shut down entire blocks to traffic, it’ll actually make people happier and drive up revenue for local businesses. Gross!

Benefit four

You don’t kill people. That’s right, less cars means less death. Turns out supersizing your pickup is actually dangerous to kids and people who weren’t born six feet tall. Do you need a large pickup in a city? No, no you fucking don’t. Are you hauling lumber? Hay bales? Towing a truck? No, you’re just driving? Good job. You’ve just spent a bunch in gas and made the oil corporations very happy as well as the car lobbyist. If your truck takes up two spots in a parking, maybe you are the problem.

Benefit Five

No monthly payments (unless you didn’t pay in full). That’s right, they’re cheap. You don’t need to take out an expensive car loan to purchase one (I see you tesla drivers!). That saves roughly $500 a month give or take. On top of that, no bike insurance! That saves you another $150. That is investing money right there or rent (just kidding) or groceries (for a couple months). Cars are an extremely poor investment, I’m telling you. And if you have no commute, you literally just have a hunk of metal sitting around losing value every second it exists. If you need a car, guess what, lyft is probably cheaper or better yet, for that one trip, get a rental.

Benefit Six

They don’t pollute. Obviously, there is the cost of manufacturing. Trucks drive, materials get shaped into batteries, etc. But from my understanding, there is less of an environmental impact than the manufacturing of electric cars. And of course, when you ride your bike, zero emission. So you can feel good as you ride your E-bike. Driving a car, even a Tesla, not so much. You are stuck in traffic, wasting gas and if someone builds you a new lane, you just get more cars on the road. So enough, let’s start acting like Europeans. Cars don’t make economic sense and they’ve made America a beautiful Hellscape of pavement and broken dreams.

Benefit Seven

They’re just fun. They are fun to ride. Unlike a normal bike, you do not have to worry about dying in a pool of your own sweat. You can ride your bike and just enjoy the ride. Want a long bike ride? Use peddle assist at the lower levels and you can go 40 miles. Want to get groceries? Throttle up and enjoy the wind in your hair. However you ride, it is your choice to make. You know what doesn’t have congestion? Bike lanes. So ride on.

So that’s E-bike’s in a nutshell. There are really no downsides to owning one. The older models can be a little heavy but that just saves you a gym membership right there. For a sustainable future, I truly believe this is it. Get an E-bike and society will adjust. Imagine all the money you’ll save and imagine a world where walking and biking are the norm.

Climate anxiety through the lens of stoicism: Sustainability Month 2022

When I was a child, there was little I had to worry about. Most of my needs were met and many of the issues that would plague my adult life were simply over my head. Life was filled with hope and while I lacked the confidence I have now, terms such as climate anxiety had yet to come into existence. Had I known how much would change in a decade I would have wished I had focused on the present moment more back then.

Society as a whole is anxious and it seems there is no escape from the problems of the world. When the world shut down in 2020 the impact was quite magnificent for the environment and for a brief moment the world could take a break. During this time I picked up stoicism, which I have been practicing for the last year. Stoicism at its essence is focus on the present moment. All else matters very little to the stoics. I have struggled for the longest time to pull myself into the present moment. I have always had a focus on the future and the past keeps finding its way back into my life. This is anxiety in a nutshell. So while I’m not completely opposed to the idea behind climate anxiety, I wonder how much it helps to constantly focus on the terminology itself. Is the terminology itself doing more harm than good? Are there better ways to approach the modern problems of the world?

Where I first saw the term

How many years ago, I do not know. But it must have been when I was still in college and it was most definitely a New York Times article. In fact, the NY Times throws the terminology around quite liberally. I’m not saying the idea itself is wrong but the term is designed to create a sense of urgency that more often than not is less helpful than it initially seems. It paints a picture of climate drama when really we should be having climate hope (these terms are just as bad, I know). If we were to approach this issue from the lens of a philosopher, the conversation might look something like this, ‘The climate is in bad shape, but it could be worse, so what can we do today to make it better?’ This conversation acknowledges the problem but instead of an over emphasis on the future, it looks at taking it one day at a time. College Mike would have said no, that we need to focus on the big picture, which is true to a certain extent. However, the Mike of today sees the wisdom in just simply living life.

Years of Sustainability under my belt

A focus on sustainability has been one of those few things that has been a constant throughout my life. When I was younger, I would take trash and make art. When I was in high school, I sowed a community garden and recycled cans. In college I gardened, composted, and used energy efficient bulbs. I’ve cared about sustainability so much that I took sustainability as an elective course. When I was the service chair, I had our entire fraternity plant a pollinator garden for Earth Day. While it hasn’t always been a perfect journey, I can hold my head high knowing that I’ve made an effort to be more sustainable in every aspect of my life and know that I am all the better for it.

What the Future Holds

So the question is really whether or not we want to add to overall societal anxiety, which is another issue altogether. I’m grateful we live in a society where there are pressing headlines regarding the environment and ecofriendly options available. But it is not enough. In the 70s corporate America made a push to make environmental focus on the consumer to take attention away from what they themselves were doing to the environment. Instead of changing their behavior in a meaningful way, they chose to shift responsibility (and in turn, blame) to the consumer. The idea of a consumer focused environmental stewardship is not in itself a bad idea. I feel great when I compost, I feel great when I ride my bike, and I feel great when I walk. The anxiety comes with knowing no matter what I do, if corporations are left unchecked, very little can be done. And then you add that on a global scale. Even if the United States does its part, you still have industrial polluters such as China and India that have their own laws and regulations.

New Technologies Emerge

To counter this a few ideas have been thrown around. One is to go full nuclear which has seen much pushback throughout the years. Nuclear energy is a very safe form of energy and highly efficient. Nuclear waste can pose a problem but there are emerging technologies that can recycle the fuel rods and eliminate waste altogether. Wind and solar are good but can be dependent on the weather itself. The other exciting technology is carbon recapture technology which can one day hopefully be used as a source of energy and could even make diamonds. So there is hope for the future and it is not as bleak as it may seem. And the beauty of technology is that there will be future technology that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

Stoicism

Stoicism has been near and dear to my heart for the last year as I’ve read through ‘The Daily Stoic’. It turns out the ancient Greeks had much of the same problems we do in our modern society. There is a certain comfort in this. To know that centuries later, human beings as a whole have not much changed. We spend so much time obsessing about the future and dwelling on the past that it becomes all consuming. So for the last year I’ve done away with it all. I didn’t think much of the book when I first got it. A friend got it for me as a gift and it looked interesting enough so I did as the book said and have been reading a stoic quote each day. It’s been close to six months now and I can say with confidence my mindset has fundamentally changed. The journey has been up and down but overall the impact has been profound. My mindset has changed looking back and I’m excited to see where the next six months lead. And I think we can all take a page or two from the stoics. The present is what we say we all want to live in but how many people truly live in it? Anxiety forms when we think about what could be and what never was so stoicism as a practice is a noble pursuit.

Applying this to Climate Anxiety

I think to reduce climate anxiety, we really must truly understand what it is. The only time I truly felt it was with the Oregon Wildfires a year or two ago. It seemed like the world was going to end and there was a sense of helplessness that went along with it. I couldn’t go outside and the fires kept burning. I lost sleep with worry and where as a child the environment felt like an unmovable mountain that sense of stability was lost as I wondered if the next year would be worse. Looking outside and seeing clear blue skies puts a smile on my face this year as I can’t remember a summer ever being as nice as it is right now. I’m walking and biking almost everyday and it’s been a joy. The spring had a lot of rain and I thought it would never end, which I was more than happy to have as it meant wildfire season would be much less extreme. And with a summer this nice, I can only imagine a Fall that will follow suit.

Devil’s advocate would argue that this approach is too relaxed but the way I figure is the environment is always on my mind and I can make a difference each and every day. My long term goals are to buy a portable composter and use the compost to take up gardening. Our garden has been long neglected and it would be extremely gratifying to revive it.

Some other Cool Causes to Mitigate Climate Anxiety

Another thing I can feel good about is I can support causes through lifestyle choices. Many years ago, I took up meditation. And then I bought ‘Playne’, a meditation video game. Upon completion, the developer has a tree planted in honor of the milestone. It may seem insignificant but if enough people are focused on causes such as this, eventually you’ll have entire forests planted. The other app is ‘forest’ which is a productivity app where you plant a virtual forest. If you so choose, however, you can use the in game currency to plant a real tree. While these are small differences, they can help reduce the feeling of helplessness when it comes to being a good steward of the environment.

In Conclusion

Being anxious does not solve problems. We are constantly pulling ourselves out of what is and for no reason. The world is not all doom and gloom. New technologies are emerging that can mitigate the damage that’s been done to the planet and even reverse it. A life lived as a stoic can reduce some of the anxiety felt by a planet that arguably could have been better taken care of. However, there is a lot we can do ourselves to regain control. Ride your bike, walk more, even proper dieting can go a long way. It turns out a healthier life might just lead to a healthier planet.

Sustainability Month 2021: My Electric Bike and Public Transit

The final article for what has been my first ever Sustainability Series. To close this month, I thought it’d be fun to talk about a questionable purchase I made and my experience taking public transit as well as what I think the future of transportation should look like.

My Electric Bike and I

In 2019, I went on a bit of a spending spree. I decided to make lots of long term investments for future Mike. The tablet computer I invested in for settling down in coffee shops and writing as an aspiring Creative did not quite pan out how I expected (curse you Pandemic). And my electric bike that I would ride miles to work every day on? Has been sitting in my garage for the last year or so with one very brief ride. But it’s assembled and ready to go. In the future, I will talk about it more but for now I have nothing to say. It’s foldable, has a basket, and my God, it weighs 60 pounds. My next E-bike will be lighter and smaller; and when you think about it, folding is not as cool as it sounds. It was an experiment and I might even try the one wheel electric skateboards or an electric longboard in the future. Is E-biking better than driving? Hard to say so instead I will talk about…

Biking

Transportation for me has always followed major life transitions. I have ridden bikes throughout my life but it wasn’t until I reached college that it became something I did on a regular basis. And I should clarify, it was once I moved out of the dorms and didn’t have easy access to the campus. My Sophomore and Junior years I rode almost everyday, from home to class to the grocery store. A good three years were spent on the bike and it was great. I had flat tires that I learned to fix, a handlebar that came off during a ride and learned all about front and back lights as well as fenders for rain. I was riding with a purpose. As college became more and more crazy, I opted for walking and chose to ride my bike more selectively. It’s hard to say if I had more peace of mind walking 20 minutes to class but it was nice to slow it down.

Europe

Throughout college, I hardly ever rode our free public transit. Everything was fairly close and most of the time walking was quicker than waiting for a bus. That changed when I did study abroad. I rode the train, took the bus, and got quite used to every mode of transit that wasn’t driving. Living in a small German village was absolute paradise. The cities are designed for bikes, trains, and buses whereas the U.S. is mostly made for cars (hence why an electric bike makes sense). While the U.S. is getting better, Corvallis and Portland were American exceptions to our public transit. And these two cities pale in comparison to even the most rural German village.

Walking

Truth be told, I love walking. As far as feasibility, it becomes dependent on city. I can only walk so far and while it offers a lot of control, it’s limited by time. It is rare to live in a city that has it all. Many cities in the U.S. have strict commercial and residential codes making overlap between the two uncommon. In suburbs, there are strips of convenience among the sea of houses. If you have a car, no big deal. But anything else? It’s much harder. Where space could be used for whatever the mind can imagine, instead space is paved over for parking lots. Cities are great for walking but chaotic; lots of stopping for cars and traffic that honestly has no business being there.

Practicality vs. Sustainability

Cars are convenient and in the U.S. they are big. Why you might ask? Because our roads and bridges are crumbling, so if it’s not built like a tank, you’re in for a bumpy ride. The amount of space cars take up is staggering. In Portland, I’ve seen some retcons where two lane roads become one as bike lanes are added. As far as emissions, it’s hard to say if cars are our most pressing concern. I like the idea of going all electric and I may be in the minority, but I think electric trucks sound awesome. I also think if we want to cool the planet, we really need to innovate our roads. The pavement retains heat and makes the hot even hotter. Carpooling also might have taken a hit during the Pandemic as Lyft and Uber prices skyrocket with their rates, which is unfortunate, as the model turned a car (arguably a huge economic waste) into a sustainable option for individuals. Cars no longer spent the majority of their time in garages, sitting for the next big trip, but rather could be used to meet demand. I imagine after the Pandemic less will opt for Lyft rides and Ubers but I hope I’m wrong.

Personal Habits

Honestly, I prefer a mixed approach. Cars I view as an economic waste, even were I to buy electric. A car would be a luxury and with an E-bike I can accomplish my city needs easily at 20mph. Longer trips would suffer but a better network of carpooling would fix that right up. In cities with large populations, the cities should limit driving. Pedestrian only city blocks are becoming more popular and it’d be nice to see that arrive in Portland. If remote work sticks, it might save the commuting world. All speculation at the moment of course but it’ll be interesting to see people redefine how they travel. If you do drive, imagine a world with less traffic and more bikes. And if cities were designed so people are closer to their work as well as grocery stores? Then you have a utopia in terms of basic transit.

And that’s it for Sustainability Month 2021! With this, my blog is fully realized. I am talking about everything I want to talk about in a way I want to talk about it. The support for this month has been amazing and I’m excited for next year! Next month, I’ll be testing out a month vacation from the blog and will rejoin the world come September. Until then, enjoy summer and remember that being sustainable doesn’t mean having to compromise!

Sustainability Month 2021: My consideration of going vegan

This is not a confession but rather a musing. Full disclaimer: I am not a health expert. Over the last year, I’ve been focusing on healthier habits in my life and thus warrants exploration of going vegan. Another disclaimer: I eat meat. I enjoy a good steak every now and then and chicken? Well, I actually eat that quite often nowadays. Take the time now to gasp if you feel the need.

David Attenborough

David Attenborough raised a good point in ‘A Life On Our Planet’ His argument was simple, that being a carnivore in nature is tough. So how is it that we, coming from hunters and gatherers, have become the largest consumer of meat on the planet? That point raised one eyebrow in mild interest, as he continued to describe how the apocalypse and end of the world would unfold (great documentary if you haven’t watched already).

People

Before the Pandemic, I talked to people quite often. Some of those people were vegan and thus brought enlightenment of what could be. I think I am now more curious to try tofu than I have ever been before. My brother eats it and I have had it in miso soup, so I’m wondering if it could remove some of the urgency to eat meat. I would have to run the numbers but the little research I’ve done has shown being vegan to be healthier than strictly meat diets as red meats can be linked to some cancers.

The Cows

In my old age, I’ve grown bitter towards the cows. Where once I would run around merrily thinking milk had given me super powers, I now only see evil. Cows produce methane and they are killing us. Your McDouble may taste good, but at what cost? At least chickens are still our friends, right? The future will hopefully shift towards smaller animals with less of a carbon footprint and I will put my faith in chicken. Goodbye steak. In college, I took quite a few sustainability courses from Sustainability 101 to Environmental Economics. In Sustainability 101, we went into great detail concerning factory farms and the current demand for food. That stuck and while it has been many years later, I do truly think we need to eliminate cattle factory farms. Smaller farms might work but honestly I think it is better to shift the societal mindset of a mostly vegan diet with the occasional meat.

Community Gardens

In High School, I was a part of Students for Environmental Action (S.E.A.). I would collect cans around the school to help fund the club and we would meet every week to discuss environmental topics. A decade later and most of those issues haven’t changed, they’ve only grown more concerning. As part of S.E.A, we created a community garden out our High School. We grew carrots, beets, tomatoes, and many other veggies as well as fruit. I would bring food home and the rest would get donated to our local feedback. That was a more wholesome point in my life and I love the idea of gardening. Going vegan could be the chance to really get joy from what I eat, rather than simple consuming. There is more satisfaction in cooking something you grew.

What would it Look like?

For me, it would be a casual affair. My main driving factor in my decisions is my health. I want to have energy and not feel like, pardon my French, shit. All our food nowadays is designed to kill us. You drink a bottle of Coke, it tastes great. You get Diabetes from drinking too much Coke? Not so great. A bag of chips is filled to the brim with salt and eating meat everyday is not all that healthy. If you eat fish more than you eat meat, then we are talking. As I do more research into the subject the more excited I get, which typically does not happen with food. So for me, it is about a sustainable balance. I will actively try to eat less burgers and steak as I do not want to support industries that have grown in excess. If I do eat meat or cook, I will try more chicken dishes. The economics make sense and who knows, when Sustainability month roles around next year, I might just have something to talk about for my journey.

And that’s it for this article! With Sustainability Month, I’ve finally achieved a level of satisfaction with the blog that has pushed it beyond simply writing poetry, short stories, and the occasional article. In truth, I looked up the term and the diet I’m looking at is more a pesce-pollotarian diet than vegan. Fish, chicken, and veggies. Thanks for reading!