4 ms·

I’m not bicycling in 20 degrees Fahrenheit to shop for a family of 4, bags strapped to a bike. And there’s no public transportation. I think I’ma pretty regular

I’m not bicycling in 20 degrees Fahrenheit to shop for a family of 4, bags strapped to a bike. And there’s no public transportation. I think I’ma pretty regular American consumer. So I should feel guilty about this according to you?

abdupattoh 5y ago
I typically shop on a bike for my family of six at -15 to -25 C in Finland. But I live close to a large store and bike roads are excellent and usually cleared if snow.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  You’re a better person than me. Sorry, I’m not doing that. For the record, I’m roughly 6.5 km from a market. I wouldn’t even know how to strap 20 bags to a bicycle. How do you?
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    This thread has verged into "30-50 feral hogs" territory. I have never, even once, seen a person with 20 bags of groceries.
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
I suspect that for most people, when they are choosing where to live, environmental effects are way down the list. More important are: Will my kids go to a good school? Are the poor people (and associated social problems) far away from me? Which is to say that if you choose to live someplace where you can't walk or ride a bike or have mass transit access to daily needs, you made that decision. I'm not going to tell you that you are wrong, though.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Understood, and you are right. I’m just not going to feel blame or guilt that I drive to buy food because our priorities are different.
acdha 5y ago
Maybe not guilty but reflect on the many costs involved and try to lend your political voice to improvements. We burn a ton of fossil fuel moving people around with 10-20x their weight in metal; EVs can improve that somewhat but even if you can charge your renewably they still have a substantial CO2 cost in their manufacturing and the massive roads needed due to the intrinsic inefficiency of private vehicles. The associated low-density lifestyle similarly adds a big energy cost and makes transit hard to build. There are also many deaths and life-altering injuries annually, not to mention the way everything is made more expensive to subsidize vehicle storage in addition to the direct costs many people struggle with. All of that exists because the system is built to encourage it, and building something more sustainable means lots of us need to start calling for major changes. I think it's reasonable to worry about that even if you didn't personally create the problem.

abdupattoh 5y ago

I typically shop on a bike for my family of six at -15 to -25 C in Finland. But I live close to a large store and bike roads are excellent and usually cleared if snow.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
You’re a better person than me. Sorry, I’m not doing that. For the record, I’m roughly 6.5 km from a market. I wouldn’t even know how to strap 20 bags to a bicycle. How do you?
- jeffbee 5y ago
  This thread has verged into "30-50 feral hogs" territory. I have never, even once, seen a person with 20 bags of groceries.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

I suspect that for most people, when they are choosing where to live, environmental effects are way down the list. More important are: Will my kids go to a good school? Are the poor people (and associated social problems) far away from me? Which is to say that if you choose to live someplace where you can't walk or ride a bike or have mass transit access to daily needs, you made that decision. I'm not going to tell you that you are wrong, though.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Understood, and you are right. I’m just not going to feel blame or guilt that I drive to buy food because our priorities are different.

acdha 5y ago

Maybe not guilty but reflect on the many costs involved and try to lend your political voice to improvements. We burn a ton of fossil fuel moving people around with 10-20x their weight in metal; EVs can improve that somewhat but even if you can charge your renewably they still have a substantial CO2 cost in their manufacturing and the massive roads needed due to the intrinsic inefficiency of private vehicles. The associated low-density lifestyle similarly adds a big energy cost and makes transit hard to build. There are also many deaths and life-altering injuries annually, not to mention the way everything is made more expensive to subsidize vehicle storage in addition to the direct costs many people struggle with. All of that exists because the system is built to encourage it, and building something more sustainable means lots of us need to start calling for major changes. I think it's reasonable to worry about that even if you didn't personally create the problem.