From: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Reply-To: mjvande@PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 00:42:19 GMT

>You might also like to actually *read* my other posts on this thread,
>and yourself get some idea of what is *actually* happening down here
>in this part of the world right now. But we are in a position to do
 
I did better than that. I spent a week in Perth in April. What you
don't seem to realize is that before people can DO something they 
consider "radical", they first have to CONCEIVE of it, which is where
I come in. Nobody else is willing to broach even the IDEAS, so I do.
Once they hear it often enough, it will move from "radical" to
"common sense". It is already happening. When I started talking about
stopping highway construction 6 years ago, nobody would listen or
seriously consider it. Now it is common sense, among a large segment
of the world (well, large compared to before).

>You simply do not appear to realise that the consumption of energy and
>resources in an affluent (cf effluent) society is a power game, and you
>might begin paying some attention to the realities of human behaviour
>before you go about *demanding* that they do just what you want them to
>do, for whatever good reason you might have. As mentioned to another,
>you might instead settle down and work more closely with others with
>experience in this field over the longer term instead of going around
>beating your own drum so loudly. It just gets deafening and turns people
>off, and is no use at all in educating people on what options might be
>made available to them as time goes by.
 
Many people don't agree with you, & I often get thanks for having the
courage to say what I do.

>At present I am far more busy researching and extending public access
>to the Internet, than worrying about cars directly. By telecommuting I
>have already cut down use of the car to about 15%, with the further
>saving of office rent I have mentioned previously. The bicycle is in
>the back shed accumulating dust and cobwebs until the boys get older,
>when we might just go out riding together if they feel up to it.
 
Rebuilding Perth & other cities to not be auto-dependent is a big
problem, addressed by Richard Register (Ecocity Berkeley) & others.
But I think that it will happen naturally, & peope will FIND the
solutions, once they HAVE TO (congestion becomes intolerable). Thus,
we have to allow congestion to increase.

>BTW, since you know so much about who's who in the Land Down Under,
>have you ever heard of Peter Pedal? He is a hippie dating from the
>1960s who made a name for himself about twenty years ago by cycling
>all over Australia promoting pedal power. Apart from the bike he had
>with all these wonderful gizmos attached to it, he had fitted bicycle
>pedals to all his household appliances, from his little portable flour
>mill to his washing machine, even to a TV set via a 12 volt generator.
>
>Really a totally awesome guy, believe me.
>
>The company he started is now turning over about $1 million building
>and supplying small pelton wheel generators to the "Third World" as an
>"appropriate" hydro-electricity supply in small villages. Sure beats
>all that pedalling at one treadmill or another all day (every day),
>but there is no market in this country for the product.

Thanks. Do you have an address for him?