Trumpeter (1990)
ISSN: 0832-6193
Bicycling out of the Greenhouse
Frank Fisher is with the Graduate School of Environmental Science, Dept. of Geography and E.S., Monash University, Clayton, Australia. He has worked as an electrical engineer in Sweden, Switzerland and Australia. He has 20 years of experience as a commuter cycler, including through the urban snow of Swedish winters.
Introduction
In a major article in the Sydney Morning Herald (11.7. 88, p. 11) one time Financial Review editor Max Walsh asked, "Can the Developed World Stay Cool in the Greenhouse?," his answer to this question was that:
...mankind's salvation may well depend on the replacement of fossil fuel power stations with nuclear ones. This is the only non- polluting form of energy capable of even making a dent in the world's appetite for increased energy.
and then, despite nuclear energy being "non-polluting":
It is not a riskless form of energy production...Chernobyl...while it is non-polluting in respect of the atmosphere, it produces a high, toxic radioactive residue that has to be disposed of.
Therefore:
...the best informed Australian greenies of the future will...be...advocating the use of Australia's remote areas as nuclear power producing sites [and its] geologically stable areas as the most environmentally safe havens for radioactive waste...
...the present generation of greenies...would probably argue...that salvation involves turning back the clock, reducing energy consumption, rationing automobile use and lowering living standards...
...not a realistic political option in the advanced countries...even less so in the developing world.
Not surprisingly, the same arguments were repeated in The Melbourne Age a month later by Graeme O'Neill (15.8.88, pp. 3, 15).
"Greenies" are only too well aware of political pragmatics never-the- less, we are also painfully aware:
- of the technical incongruities in Walsh's arguments (I for one, spent 14 years in electrical (power) engineering in various countries);
- that the way industrialised societies presently organize their economics (households!) cannot but continue to produce one greenhouse effect after the other, and yet;
- that to change the structures of industrialised societies requires shifts of such magnitude and ramification that interim measures to "save the plant" must be used, and;
- that interim measures, in that they derive from present "political pragmatics" will inevitably be of the same structural type as present technical and economic fixes, and therefore tend to confirm the flawed structures that gave rise to the concern in the first place.
Such contradictory understandings and vicious circles form the stuff of environmentalists' lives and in our weaker moments evoke memories of Munch's famous painting "The Scream". That they should evoke such a response is hardly surprising, for such situations are basically unbearable. They are examples of the "cognitive dissonance" described by psychologists or the "double-binds" of anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1973).
Double binds or "Catch 22's," however, can be seen as opportunities to transcend the way of thinking they represent (Varela, 1984) and this is what the present paper is about. I shall make a case for doing something about the greenhouse effect, pollution and so on, that is open to immediate action. While in this immediate sense cycling is a personal response of apparently little consequence, my insistence upon it as a realistic option rests in the following:
- the personal learning experience it represents i.e. the effective personal involvement with the problem itself which is consistent with;
- political change, which manifests itself in a representative democracy, when people believe in what they're lobbying for and can demonstrate their belief by their actions; (This is political "empowerment.")
- numerous conventional incidental benefits (e.g. fitness, reduction in traffic infrastructure costs, heightened sociability of street life —cyclists are not separated from other people by metal boxes nor by the physical and legal momentum of their machines (it is dangerous and illegal to walk among moving cars);
- unconventional long term adjustments to our priorities about urban form and planning will arise as bicycle commuting becomes recognized and legitimate.
It should be understood at the outset that my case does not rest on the bicycle alone, but on the bike in conjunction with existing public transport and cars. The latter to be used as adjuncts to commuting rather than primary means.
Before making my case for the bicycle and the approach it represents, it will be necessary to illustrate the basis of my argument and therefore a lengthy section on the social resolution of environmental problems precedes it.
It is not enough simply to request or suggest that a particular path be tried, for the motives in suggesting a course of action will always be part of the message heard. Unsolicited suggestions such as mine smack of demands of the kind: "wash your hands" or "don't smoke." They inevitably have dubious currency, for they embody an expectation on the part of the hearer that the speaker knows something about washing hands or smoking, not apparent to the receiver of the message. The interpretation on the receiver's part may well be cynical scepticism ("What right have you to dictate to me?") and of a need to exercise reciprocal authority ("I'll listen to you, if you listen to me.").
In the present case, therefore, we are (I am!) involved in a legitimation exercise in which the standard - "prelegitimated" - forms such as empirically based science are not adequate. To support my argument I shall rely primarily upon stories and analyses of them. To substantiate this method, I shall first elaborate my reasons for it which, in addition to making the method more acceptable, will begin to set the scene for the sense the stories strive to make. A more formal and lengthy grounding for the gist of this paper appears elsewhere (Fisher, 1988a and b).
Stories can be multi-dimensional, and they reach beyond the limited domain of legitimacy of accepted empirical evidence. They appeal to a wider experience. Stories require a different kind of legitimation to that of empirical evidence, one that is potentially more widely accessible than that of "sensible" (sense-based empirical) data. Indeed, to understand numbers adequately, their bases in values must be recognized. That is, their strength lies precisely in the meaning which we give them and this is an order or type of understanding quite different from that of the numbers themselves. Wilber puts it this way:
...the problem with numbers is that, whereas one quality can be better than another, one number cannot...thus, once...translated...into empiric measurements and numbers, you have a world without quality, guaranteed. Which is to say, without value or meaning. All that is left, says Whitehead, is "bare valuelessness," which "has directed attention to things as opposed to values."
(Wilber, 1983, pp. 26-27 and Whitehead, 1929)
This is not to say that empiricism is a waste of time, but that without a capacity to embed it in the conscious purposes of both the enumerator (the one deriving the numbers) and the user, it is either meaningless or misleading and, therefore, potentially dangerous. To quote further from Wilber:
Empiricism...rightly claims that all valid knowledge must be grounded in experience, but it then reduces the meaning of experience solely to [sensory experience or its extensions]. Empiricism wishes to derive...experience of reason solely from...experience of sensations —that is,...no experience of reason...not first found in...experience of sensations. [The attempt is attractive] because one can easily...confuse sensory experience (pure empiricism) with experience in general. Empiricism sounds like it's making good sense...because it confuses two basic propositions; it says all real knowledge must be experiential, which is true enough using experience in the broad sense, but then it can't resist the temptation to say that experience is really or basically sensory experience - and that is the great disaster (pp. 42-43).
For:...[experience] can be used to cover virtually all modes of awareness and consciousness...ideas, thoughts and concepts [can be experienced, as well as sensations] (p. 42).
...these phenomenological apprehensions are not "mere values" or "just ideas" as opposed to "real facts," because in the mental realm, values and ideas are the real or immediate facts or data directly disclosed. [Furthermore] those phenomenological apprehensions can be tested by striking them against the community of other minds...(p. 49).
Social Resolution of Environmental Dislocation
Mechanical fixes, whether technical or economic, do not repair environmental breakdown, they only relocate it, in space, time or social context. Awareness of this has led to a rethinking of the way breakdown is understood, its definition (as "problem") and its origins. While there is general awareness among the environmentally concerned, that social structures are involved, there is only rudimentary awareness that the fundamentals of our culture, the nature of thought and knowledge, are themselves implicated. To illustrate, I shall begin by opening out one of Melbourne's currently newsworthy environmental issues (described in more detail in Fisher, 1986a) and then use the same approach with a number of simpler examples.
On the 19th of March, 1988, the Victorian government lost the Kew by-election. Written across a large number of ballot papers was a notice from the Kew electors advising that they did not want a 245 KV transmission line along their boundary. The Victorian Electricity Commission was on the verge of constructing a new line commencing in Richmond, terminating in Brunswick and running along the Yarra River between Kew and Collingwood. Opposition to the line is based on a number of environmental concerns connected with loss of amenity on the one hand and, more seriously, with a possibility of diseases (most notably cancer) arising in people exposed to electromagnetic fields originating from the line. Opponents to the line advocate rearranging the route and burying it. At present (late 1988) a specially constituted committee is reinvestigating the whole issue.
In the week prior to the election The Melbourne Times (inner Melbourne's principal local paper) maintained that "...no-one has really disputed the need for the line...." However, in 1985 in Collingwood Community Health Centre's comment on the Electricity Commission's environment effects statement, and in 1986 in the Institution of Engineers Australia's Multidisciplinary Engineering Transactions, I did suggest precisely that (Fisher, 1986a).
The line is not needed for energy, but to improve the security of supply of energy to the Melbourne Central Business District (CBD). Security is essentially a human issue and cannot be provided by technical means alone. Reasons for this are complex and cannot be given here (see Fisher, 1988a). According to the Electricity Commission, without the line, breakdown will occur once a decade. With it, breakdown will apparently only occur once every two centuries...the bases of these probabilities were not stated.
Given that security lies in knowing what one is dealing with and in being prepared, it would seem that we would be most secure by creating a CBD prepared for an occasional breakdown. Moreover, if actual breakdown is too infrequent, our capacities and systems to cope with breakdown will themselves atrophy, making us more vulnerable. Therefore, quite aside from the need to prepare for such breakdown for civil defence and other natural calamity reasons, there is a good argument for not building the line precisely on security grounds. However, a wider conception of security is needed here than the Electricity Commission's mandate permits. Nevertheless, express consideration of social and epistemological factors would provide for a more comprehensive security. Doing so would totally avoid adding new insecurities (to health i.e. electromagnetic radiation and to amenity) which in turn will eventually necessitate expensive, long-term epidemiological study. It might be added that such studies would not be made at the energy authority's expense, nor could they be done in the time frame surrounding the present "problem."
Considerations like these lie at the heart of environmental breakdown. The example clearly illustrates how an apparently technical problem is strongly rooted and therefore dissolvable in the social domain simply by reformulating it in terms of its wider context. Reformulation dramatically alters the way we deal with it. To generalize: problems are formulated in an environment of pre-conceptions and institutional frameworks, all of which are essentially flexible. In addition to this, the notion of problem itself implies closure and no issue involving Nature (people!) is ever closed. I am suggesting that we recognize these environmental problems and the solutions they engender are not definable in clear mechanical terms, but are processes whose boundaries and structures are themselves very much part of the process.
At a more mundane level consider the following two examples. Both illustrate how everyday issues would look if contextual issues were borne in mind.
1. The cost of spare parts: "Spare parts are inordinately expensive...if we built a car from spares it'd cost ten times as much as a new car." In as much as we equate a spare part with the original in our car, we ignore the separate storage, inventory, marketing and other processes that are necessary adjuncts to spares and not to the original component. The envelope of consideration that surrounds a spare at present is not the same as that surrounding the original component. To overcome the tendency to consider the spare (an entity in itself) in the same light as the equivalent component built into a car, we must generate a new type of awareness from which in turn would come a new economic calculus. This new calculus might internalize spare parts costs to the original (new) identity or image of a car. Just as today we are beginning to associate and expect fuel efficiency ratings with cars, thereby coupling into the image of cars their need for fuel, Victoria and N.S.W. are developing energy efficiency ratings for household goods to enhance awareness of their energy dependency, so tomorrow, we may offer a maintenance rating with all cars —thereby enhancing awareness to quality (cf. the work on car maintenance by the Aust. Consumers Association elaborated in Choice).
2. Litter control: At present we curse litterers and condone rate (tax) increases to establish litter control agencies. In doing this we willingly expend public funds to maintain a clean status quo. Were we to internalize litter to the "vernacular" or "shadow" economy (see e.g. Illich, 1981) by picking it up ourselves, rather than accepting its formalization into the money economy, the public resources litter control presently requires could either be used for some improvement to the status quo, or, of course, not be removed from the private sphere in the first place. The latter point raises questions about the meaning of wealth itself. Is it reasonable, for instance, to label as new wealth, capital expended on repairing damage caused by other activities?
Involving oneself with other people's litter is a profound notion for it involves (a) recognizing that we are our brother's (here brother = environment) keeper directly rather than indirectly (through wealth foregone in rates), and (b) recognizing that to "curse and pay" leaves one operating at the same level as the litterer. Perhaps actually somewhat "lower," in that we demean the litterer with the curse and legitimate littering by setting up a formal structure to deal with it. Indirectly, we also demean a whole class of people, those relegated to stoop and pick what those of our class (litterers and cursers) regard as insubstantial. Retaining a wrapping (say) either by not converting it to litter, or by rescuing it from that status by picking it up, is a profoundly enlightening and empowering act. Particularly when it involves returning it to some re-instating (recycling) process, rather than to some pre- existing throwaway "waste-control" system.
The educative power of the act described lies in the example it sets, that a nominally respectable person would be concerned to bestow importance upon something usually considered trivial. The point in deconstructing the litter example is, again, to demonstrate the power in recognizing context.
Finally, at a micro-level, such an approach might mean wearing more clothes in the house rather than heating it; buying food in one's own containers instead of prepackaged; eating seasonal instead of frozen foods, etc. Characteristic to this approach is involvement of individuals in the issues rather than off-loading them onto a "technostructure." In this exercise lies one of its profound strengths. For the higher "high technology" rises, the more it disconnects us from itself and its products (e.g. is "user friendly" or "foolproof") and the more vulnerable we become to its absence and to the agendas of those who design and maintain it. (See e.g. Ellul, 1980; Winner, 1976 and 1986; Roszak, 1986; Mumford, 1967/70; Fisher, 1988a and Lewis, 1941).
In a society more concerned about, and therefore more able to deal with, rights than its capacity to respond i.e. (to be response-able) to situations, such suggestions are hardly appealing. Nevertheless, any profound understanding of security and sustainable lifestyle depends on us grappling with the meaning of our techniques (cf. Watts, 1951; Thoreau, 1854; Schumacher, 1977; Valaskakis et al., 1977).
I am proposing, therefore, that instead of restricting our understanding of environmental responsibility-taking to the administration of carrot and stick incentives, we begin to develop systematic frameworks for thinking about things. An immediate outcome would be that we recognize the limitations of carrot and stick ("social Darwinist") approaches to human organization. Leaving the theory aside, the remainder of this paper will use an awareness of context to unpack one major barrier to the introduction of large scale cycling as an immediate, if intermediate, solution to the environmental breakdown associated with automobile commuting (on systems thinking see e.g. General Systems, I.S.G.S.R., 1956 ff; Waddington, 1977, Wilden, 1980 or, for a brief account, Fisher, 1988a).
The Bicycle as a Substantial Option for Commuting
Deliberate cycling in high-tech society is essentially a social resolution to the material problem of commuting. While directly relevant to the greenhouse effect, it is analyzed here as a metaphor for the general approach to resolving issues of environmental dislocation advocated.
Logically, the social option to automobile commuting would first involve restructuring work, home and other aspects of our lives, so that commuting ceased to be the major transport task it is today. This is neither remotely practical nor necessarily desirable. Cycling, on the other hand, in conjunction with public transport, provides an option to the car which is much cheaper, requires little infrastructure, would improve local and global environments and personal fitness as well. Despite these patent advantages, it is not given serious consideration by commuters for two major groups of reasons. The first are mechanical: perceptions of danger and difficulties with both carrying capacity and all weather performance, the second and more subtle are issues of substance.
Since perceptions of the mechanical insufficiency of the bicycle are strongly influenced by the assessments of substance conferred on it, I shall deal with them in isolation only briefly.
Even under existing conditions, where commuting infrastructure is not built with cycling in mind, adult cyclists (between the ages 20 and 60) are, statistically at least, not exposed to great danger. In Australia, this group account for 12% of cyclist accidents while constituting the overwhelming proportion of on-road person-kilometres (see the first five papers in Federal Department of transport, 1987). While there are no studies to substantiate it, this surprising reality probably derives from:
1. the acute awareness of adult cyclists to their vulnerability and consequent defensive cycling and,
2. the, largely unconscious, respect motorists confer on the vulnerability of the cyclist and consequent defensive driving. I have described this latter phenomenon in detail elsewhere (1985b and 1989).
In regard to carrying capacity —for normal commuting purposes— the bicycle is capable of considerable flexibility and with sufficient interest on the part of the cyclist, simple flexible means abound to carry the most diverse loads. Similarly, weather, sweat, dirt, night lighting and vulnerability to vandalism and theft can all be dealt with relatively simply, if the interest is present.
Details of the techniques for coping with a bag of vegetables on a rainy day are not germane to this paper, however, note that I have stressed the necessity to be motivated. I insist on this not, in the first instance because it prompts one to find "solutions," but because it is indicative of an attitude of positive acceptance of cycling as an acceptable way to conduct one's commuting requirements. In the jargon, it is indicative of a "proactive" rather than a reactive attitude to finding appropriate means of transport (see Fisher, 1986b and 1988b). I shall return to this point in the conclusion.
Let us turn now to the business of imbuing activities with substance. Without a sea change in the extent to which we see the bicycle and cycling in general, as substantial, commuter cycling, and indeed any profound response to environmental breakdown, will remain in the realms of recreation, "do-gooding" and eccentricity. The case I shall attempt to make proposes a way of looking at activities —for which cycling is a metaphor— that allows for the ascription of value, substance or consequence to the contexts in, and by which our interests arise and are maintained.
A man (sic.) of substance in our culture is someone who is master of the big, the strong, the powerful, the clever and associated and derivative issues such as the masculine, the fast, the expensive, the complicated and both the durable and the enduring (as of pain). Many items and activities that fall to a person of substance do so by association, e.g. it is no longer the work of van Gogh but the cumulative attention vested in it by a speculative system, which in turn enhances the substance of its owner (cf. Leiss, 1976 or Hirsch, 1977). In connection with commuter cycling, we may isolate various ways in which the activity fails to lock itself into our usual understandings of consequence, and therefore removes it from serious consideration as a viable means of transport.
The Bicycle (Hardware)
Physical: The bicycle is insubstantial in terms of weight, speed and space occupied; it is not powerful and cannot sustain acceleration, nor is it shiny.
Technological: The bicycle is essentially simple technology and where it may, for some spurious reasons become complicated, the complication is not immediately visible. Expense (a derivative measure): the bicycle is essentially cheap and again where it may become expensive, the expense is not easily seen.
The Cyclist
Age: The cyclist is juvenile, for cycling is associated with children, and therefore is also trivial (see Intention following).
Wealth (means): The commuter cyclist may be perceived as poor in means.
Intention: The cyclist is frivolous, for cycling is associated with recreation, and anyone who plays so fast and loose with the perceived (by motorists) dangers involved in cycling can't be serious. Consider the following: "I can't help thinking I am a lot healthier sitting in a car with the window wound tightly up..." (McMillan, 1981) implying that anyone seriously concerned with health will keep out of that air. Unwittingly, of course, also implying that we can continue to generate pollution and separate ourselves from it at the same time. The unwitting nature of this second implication is perhaps the most profound difficulty associated with modern techniques. They separate us from the very aspects of Nature they purport to facilitate (see concluding section).
Dignity: Cycling is undignified. To many, sweat, a raised pulse and respiration rate and flushed cheeks are properly the characteristics of people on the sports ground or in the private bedroom. It is therefore unseemly to be seen in public this way, not to mention admitting the possibility of dirtying one's clothes. To regain seemly composure would appear to involve time and organization (a wash and change of clothes, say). However, in addition to the possibility of questioning the social structures that require deodorization and spotless clothes, experienced cyclists find that they can, in the main, avoid these "problems." Perhaps most profound is the indignity associated with the feeling of vulnerability experienced by those who contemplate cycling, not to mention the ultimate indignity of being knocked over. All these are quite sufficient in their own right to ensure that the majority never make the effort to begin cycling for life; an effort which would prompt them to see the source of dignity as lying elsewhere: viz. in the search for responsible action.
The Interface (Clothing and Protective Gear)
Clothing: Is either "unsophisticated," consistent with cycling conditions, or is trendy, showy or provocative; all deligitimating the activity.
Protective Gear: Is personal armouring (in a Reichian sense) and therefore if both threatening and, by drawing attention to the cyclist, offensive.
The System
Cycling as a "solution" to urban commuting does not fit well with the demands of bureaucratic problem solving. Little or no money is needed, little infrastructure and little control. In common with all human activity, cycling will require some regulation. However, the extent of regulation should not be dictated by the norms of automotive commuting. Should cycling be subject to licenses, formalized paths and parking, etc., its essence would be severely eroded. That is, as Tim Colebatch noted some years ago in the Melbourne Age newspaper in arguing for not legally enforcing the wearing of safety helmets, the essence of cycling is personal freedom and the exercise of personal responsibility that goes with such freedom. In the immediate context, incidentally, I believe he was wrong; for cyclists ride among cars and trucks over which they exercise only the power of vulnerability, and, further, they often begin riding with little feel for their new situation in traffic. Therefore, donning a helmet while riding among cars should be compulsory. Given the incompatibility of bureaucratic mechanisms to the cycling environment then, the activities of government bodies concerned with cycling (both legislation and engineering) need careful monitoring.
To return to the way the consequence associated with cycling affects some apparently serious mechanical deficits of cycling, let us consider the capacity to cover long distances at short notice, to carry other people and gear, and to do so in "comfort and style." Taking these issues seriously, i.e. as if we wanted to make the urban commuting combination of bicycles and public transport work, consider the following questions relating to these three duties presently expected by our means of commuting:
- What is the incidence and predictability of such extraordinary excursions in our daily commuting pattern?
- What is the meaning of "comfort and style?" Is one, for instance, comfortable when fit or when physically inactive? (Consider the different meanings of style.)
- What other options are there to fulfilling these requirements? For instance: Couldn't we rent a motor vehicle when needed? Could one put a bicycle on public transport? (In Sweden even the buses are equipped to carry bicycles.) Could such duties be avoided, or be formulated in quite different ways?
Questions such as these draw attention to the deep structural impediments to cycling such as the automobile infrastructure we all (whether motorist or cyclist) support through taxes and therefore feel we might as well use! This is quite analogous to litter/garbage control: "There is no rate reimbursement for picking up litter or not putting out a full garbage can and so why bother?"
To exemplify the situation I have described I offer three cases. The first concerns the common experience of the cyclist wherein a motorist actually sees a cyclist and still drives into him/her. The cycle was simply not admitted to the motorist's pantheon of legitimate road vehicles. The second concerns the motorist who is dashing from car to pavement, knocks down a stationary bicycle, shrugs shoulders at the cyclist and proceeds; returns a moment later, steps around (ignores) the prone cycle and drives off. In this case the motorist did not register the bicycle (or the cyclist) as of consequence. It is interesting to speculate upon the reaction had the cyclist been wearing a suit rather than the alienating, protective, or "sloppy," clothing.
I shall describe the third example in some detail, partly because it is amusing. It involves the must subtle piece of vandalism I have encountered in nearly 20 years of commuting by bicycle. The practical joker placed a new, heavy-duty padlock over my padlock on the chain securing my bike to a post in the city. Now the bicycle was not obstructing foot or automobile traffic, nor was it hidden. It is also unlikely that the joker intended to steal the bicycle later for my chain is very large, hardened and actually worth as much as the old bicycle. The joker's padlock was also clearly brand new. Here the issue is subtle. For all the clear demonstration of my bicycle's small value, my big chain still patently demonstrated insecurity of a kind and the second padlock (which I could not unlock) made clever fun of it. My chain is an admission of a kind of failure: the cyclist has still not overcome a reliance on a desired object of material value. Compare the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, which can actually exacerbate the feelings of insecurity it is designed to protect against. Whereas, systematically approached, the problem could be dissolved by loosening the interest we vest in the enviable objects that presently clutter our houses. Such an approach would simultaneously make theft itself meaningless. However, aside from vesting personal interest in our material goods, we also come to rely on them and the nature of this reliance needs thought.
Concluding Comment
The view of this paper suggests that rather than focusing the light of society's credentialling (or influence granting) institutions on cycling, we work to reduce the consequence or substance associated with automobiles and automobile commuting. Rather than focusing authority and consequence on another device, we might actively seek to confer it on environments or contexts and the inter-relationships that tie us to them. The bicycle then becomes a symbol for these. Even here, however, there is a danger of missing the intent of this suggestion and of objectifying the environment...bringing us back to much the same situation as we are in now (cf. Livingston, 1981 and Fisher, 1985a).
Through examples I have tried to explain the nature of environmental problems and to expose a simple but apparently counter-intuitive (i.e. counter "common" sense) path to dissolving them. I have used one among numerous barriers to change - the patterns of imbuing articles and processes with consequence - to illustrate the approach we might take and the outcomes we might expect, if we decide to become personally involved in these big issues. This method is well illustrated in Thompson, Warburton and Hatley's brilliant piece on "how to save the Himalayas when you can't find out what's wrong with them" (1986). While they use one of the largest possible mechanism - -Himalayan planning— to demonstrate their path to environmental problem solving, I use the smallest —personal action. However, the methods are the same. The difference is that anyone capable of riding a bike can try my path.
In common with the experience of any non-conforming group making its way within the mainstream, the non-conformists have an opportunity to understand their environment in a way not easily accessible to the conformists (the value of contradiction again). Moreover, here the non-conformists also retain the opportunity to control the means they are using in a more comprehensive way then those of the mainstream. The control cyclists exercise over their machines and their transport environment is more comprehensive than that of motorists. This is the essence of Colebatch's description of freedom.
Ultimately, the consequences of relinquishing this freedom are not only environmental degradation but personal dehumanization (Lewis, 1941). Accepting plastic flowers as flowers, (Krieger, 1973) or motorized mobility as mobility, without recognizing the potential demeanment of ourselves (as well of the environment) is bringing us to the edge of the abyss. Indeed, reappropriating our daily lives by recognizing the appropriate technique for a task will actually preserve the car for those few but pleasant transport tasks where it may indeed be appropriate.
I am suggesting that we do seek to retain a visceral involvement with our environment (cf. Naess, 1986 who talks about identification with Nature). Feeling our actions and their consequences will ensure that we persist in our search for the appropriate techniques through which the sustainable lifestyles we so urgently need will arise.
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Copyright retained by author(s)
PID: http://hdl.handle.net/10515/sy5ff3mc0
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