Monday, December 31, 2018

Good things must end to make space for new ones

This year is almost over - there are only a few hours of 2018 left. But before that will happen, I had a chance to go for one more quick bike ride. I somehow don't enjoy winter riding that much, especially not when winter is this warm, rainy and free of snow. It might be the gloomy weather, cloudy skies, muddy trails or perhaps just all of it together.

Nevertheless, I wanted to revisit an old place nearby - Wharton Plantation in Groton. I always had lots of fun riding there in summer mostly because the trails were not just some ordinary sandy paths in the forest, but at least a part of them are a bit challenging with some steep and rocky sections.
Anyway, once I got to the trailhead I didn't even recognize the place. It turns out that my favorite trail area underwent a massive timber harvesting operation earlier this year and the trail I wanted to use looks now like a muddy battleground.
I had no choice but to keep going hoping that not everything got permanently destroyed by lumberjacks. A bit further down the Dan Parker Rd the situation didn't look any better so I decided to turn right onto a more remote path leading east. This proved to be a good choice, not counting a couple of severely flooded spots. I guess the advantage of winter riding is that most of these places were still frozen solid. Crossing these places in summer could be much more difficult.
Next I reached Blood Rd (Geez, what a name!) and then Whispering Brook Rd (That sounds way better). I continued south along the former railway (Red Line Path) to then turn right and go back west coming back to Old Dunstable Rd.
It was a very short ride since it was getting dark so I decided to head back. I felt sad that some of my favorite hidden gems like Wharton Plantation are disappearing. I have never seen anyone on a bike over there and now I don't even know if I bother to visit this place again. The muddy, wide service road certainly doesn't have the same feeling as the old, narrow, rocky Dan Parker Rd had.

I guess some good things must end to make space for new ones. Hopefully, 2019 will take me to new, unexplored places.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Boring news

Finally, the future of transportation is here! At least that's what Elon Musk claimed earlier this week. He unveiled his first tunnel under Los Angeles area that apparently will take you across the city at high speed:

Sounds like the future? Sure! The only question remains - who is this future for? Because the more I learn about Musk's idea the more I realize this isn't the future for most of us.

But let's start from the beginning.

Elon Musk made some big claims years earlier when working on his project and when he started The Boring Company, with the aim to bring cost of drilling tunnels significantly down. And he did just that - building the 6000-ft tunnel in 18 months for just $10 million. That may look inexpensive compared to the cost of other tunnels until you realize that a lot of development cost isn't included in that price and his tunnel is only 12 feet wide, fits a single traffic lane and doesn't have any emergency exits. Looks more like a sewer than a true tunnel to me.

Then there's a problem of capacity. Musk claims his tunnels would be better than existing solutions such as subway, because he will move 4000 cars per hour at 155mph (250kmh). This however, means that a car would need to enter the tunnel every second. Since he's planning on using elevators to bring cars underground directly from parking street level, this doesn't seem probable.
As many quickly pointed out, a single subway train can hold about 2000 passengers and as such has much higher capacity than Musk's solution. This doesn't seem to discourage Elon Musk. He thinks he's building "something better":

But the most criticism came pointing out that Musk's idea "totally misses the point". And the point is obviously to move people, not cars, through the city.

Considering the amount of space they require, cars are just very inefficient vehicles. On top of that, they do have a significant impact on climate and are #1 cause of death of young Americans (with SUVs being particularly deadly).
As such, it seems that Musk just didn't do his homework. Or did he? His company sells cars, not subway trains after all, which makes me think that maybe it's all of us who miss the point. Maybe Musk's plan is not to give us the future of mass public transport, but to create a future... for himself (and few wealthy friends). Only then it makes sense to drill tunnels that will take several electric Teslas across the city.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

You can't have a change without making changes

And just like that it's nearly mid-December. Where did that year go? I've been reflecting on what happened in 2018, recent events in the world and here in the United States. Today I want to write about something a bit different. So, no bike content this time. Instead, I want to discuss global environmental changes we are facing, better known as global warming.

First, please keep in mind that I'm not an expert on this topic. I try to educate myself the best I can, but still, this is just my opinion - the way I see things. And the way I see the climate change problem is sadly somewhat pessimistic. I'm usually an optimist but with a firm connection to reality. However, when it comes to climate change, there's just too little to be happy about.
Let's start with saying that you can't believe or not that climate change is real. It's simply not a matter of faith! Essentially, the same way you can't believe that Earth is flat or Sun doesn't exist. If you do - you're just an ignorant - someone who chose to ignore science and scientifically proven facts. In other words, yes, climate change is real, water is wet and Earth is round. Period.

Since we have established that this phenomenon is real and we know it's threatening our future. Apparently, we need to cut down our CO2 emissions by half within about a decade, or we are all doomed. So what can we do about it?

If you look at majority of related information in media, it seems that we primarily focus on two topics: renewable energy sources and electric cars. Now I have bad news for you - it's not enough. Being green is not just about electric cars and renewable energy, even though it would be nice if the solution was that simple. At least that's what our politicians seem to believe. They are happy to propose a future with "clean coal" (whatever the heck that is) or "Green New Deal".

But it's not enough.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that in order to severely reduce CO2 emissions, we would need to do more. Much, much more. At the same time I just can't see this happening within the next 50 years and the reason is, simply put - money.

Let me explain.

The problem we have now has started back in the end of XIX century with the arrival of Industrial Revolution. Industrialization was the process that allowed countries such as United Kingdom, France, Germany or United States to leap forward and manufacture more in shorter time. The process continued through early XX century, accelerated by two world wars. Then, in the 1950's we started building our modern capitalism and corporate culture.

Now imagine it would all have to end.

Basically, in order to reduce pollution and "fix the planet", we all would need to drastically change our lifestyle. Driving electric car to work is not going to change much just as riding a bicycle won't help much either (sigh). Instead, we would need to revolutionize many more areas such as:

Energy sources
Coal is dead. Close coal and oil power plants. Shut down coal mines. Switch to renewable energy sources as much as possible. We may have to keep some nuclear power plants for critical industrial consumers but otherwise those would be phased out as well. In general - use less energy whenever possible. This means energy-efficient vehicles and devices but it also means to account for amount of energy required to manufacture such goods.

Transportation
Ideally - no private cars. No matter electric or not. We would need to travel less. Family vacation? Sure, but probably more like camping in a local state park than flying across the world to stay on a beach. No more flying for executive business meetings to the other side of the continent. We would need to work remotely or live much closer to work. Use public transport as much as possible. Use bicycles.

Housing
Single family houses in suburbs would be mostly gone. They are largely unsustainable as they require us to travel a lot and consume too many resources in the process. People would need to live closer together in townhouses and apartment buildings. We won't be building cheap, poorly insulated homes for a quick profit but more expensive and longer lasting energy-efficient buildings. We won't have front lawns either but those most likely won't be missed - we don't use them anyway.

Goods manufacturing
To reduce waste we would need to cut down on manufacturing, distribution, packaging and recycle essentially everything. This means no more junk we really don't need. No more buying stuff made on the other side of the world (shipping stuff across ocean is very polluting). Less plastic (ocean are full of it already), more reusable items. We would have to repair everything as much as possible and not throw out something just because it's not fashionable anymore. Planned obsolescence would be absolutely illegal.

Food production
Less meat (its production requires lots of resources). More locally grown food. Simpler menus. Less waste in general.

As you can see this type of future is characterized by words like no, less, decrease, lower, etc. This is in stark contrast with modern corporate world that is defined by words like growth, more, increase, profit and such.

Now you probably see why I said I can't see us being successful in fighting global warming. We are simply too used to our lifestyles and we created a world that worships wealth and monetary profits over anything else.

Try to tell Americans that they have to vacate their suburban homes and move to apartments in the city, they can't drive their cars, can't fly to their timeshare in Hawaii and can't have steak or burger for dinner anymore. Good luck with that.

The same way try to tell corporations that they have to now sell less, manufacture less, make less money, produce less waste, and be responsible for recycling of all old products and packaging they made earlier. I just can't see that happening either.

Of course, this doesn't just apply to Americans (Yes, I'm as guilty as anyone else.) or the Western World. China is now the leading producer of trash and one of larger world polluters (although not per capita). Try telling them now that they have to stop buying stuff, using disposable items and recycle everything. Easy?

But maybe I'm too pessimistic. Maybe it won't be that bad. Yet somehow, I feel that no matter what we decide, our grandchildren will live in a very different world than the one we live in now.