From: camerons@NAD.3Com.COM (Cameron Spitzer)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.soc
Subject: Re: Cycling and Environmentalism
Date: 19 Dec 92 02:21:56 GMT
Reply-To: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us


I'd like to start by thanking John - Forester for his intrepid advocacy of
bicycles as utility transportation.  Most of the flames I've seen directed
at him were IMHO undeserved and due to careless (mis)reading of his somtimes
deceptively subtle positions.
Now you know where I'm coming from; John, you're a little out of line this time.


In article 71905@cup.portal.com, JForester@cup.portal.com (John - Forester) writes:
>
>                    CYCLING AND ENVIRONMENTALISM
>
>   The question here is to what extent cycling and environmentalism
>agree or disagree...
>
>   Environmentalists typically have a different program.

Nonsense.  "Environmentalists" are not an organization and therefore
cannot have a single "program."  Get yourself a smaller tar brush.
If anything, the major environmental advocacy groups are guilty of
*completely ignoring* the bicycle alternative.


>   For a formal statement of this environmentalist combination of
>fear, exaggeration and bad decision, read Peter Harnik's article in
>the magazine of the Sierra Club some years back[...] How did the Sierra
>Club correct [Harnick's errors]?  [It] replied that the new
>information was "incredible" and that the Club would not allow its
>writers to be criticized.

I have nearly identical impressions of the haughty and arrogant
League of American Wheelmen.  Just because they are a typical (obsessed
with internal politics, uninterested in outside criticism, overconfident
in their expertise and correctness) nonprofit doesn't mean LAW is evil or
its efforts counterproductive.  The same goes for Sierra Club.  They make
big mistakes, but their work is nonetheless constructive.


>...It seems illogical, almost incomprehensible, that
>environmentalists should oppose ways of cycling that are safer, more
>convenient, and faster while advocating ways that are less safe, less
>convenient, and slower.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me.  The employees of the major environmental
nonprofits are, after all, middle/professional-class Americans, the population
at which the most powerful stream of propaganda ever composed in all of human
history has been directed; they (we) are the most indoctrinated people who have
ever lived.  They (we) cannot reasonably be expected to hold any values or
prejudices other than those which are built into that stream (which presents
autos as the only practical mode of transport *for the middle class*), even if
those prejudices contradict common sense and the evidence of our own senses.
Modern propaganda is *that* powerful.  Exceptions exist, but we shouldn't
count on exceptions.  Advocates for societal change must understand this to be effective.  We must painstakingly befriend and de-program these people
before we can educate them, and it will take an on-going dialog, not just a
letter to the editor.  May I suggest that Union of Concerned Scientists will
probably be easier to approach and persuade than Sierra Club, and they are
nearly as influential in matters relating to US energy and transportation
policy.


>   My motivation should be clear to all: I aim for the good of
>cyclists. So far as I can see, that is an environmentally sound
>position, and I care about the environment.

That much is clear to me.


>If that upsets the environmentalists, so much the worse for them.

I don't think we can afford attitudes like that, as superior as they
might make us feel.  Feeling superior is not the desired goal.  We need
the environmental non-profits, if for no other reason than because they
have fought a forty-year battle for standing among our nation's
institutions of power.  We don't have another forty years.  Let's
try (even harder) to work together.  Let's give those who'd rightfully
be our allies the benefit of the doubt, and

         NEVER ASCRIBE TO MALICE THAT WHICH IGNORANCE OR STUPIDITY
                     or indoctrination CAN EXPLAIN.


Cameron Spitzer (cls@truffula.sj.ca.us), a member of
Union of Concerned Scientists, 26 Church Street, Cambridge MA 02238