Blog Action Day '09 - Change the World, One Bike at a Time

The focus of this year's Blog Action Day is climate change. Now, I'm not a climatologist, a biologist, or a geologist. I don't understand all the highlighted graphs, charts, or the monstrous amount of numbers that these learned people crank out to try to get Congress's attention every election year.

What I do get is that the world I'm being handed isn't the world I want to hand to the next generation. I know I'm a small fish in a huge ocean, but by doing the little things I can affect change on my corner of the world. How? The bicycle. My bike is something I understand and I know it can change the world. Heck, it already has.

When bicycling first became popular in the 1800's, it was one of the first things a woman could do without a chaperone. For the first time, women could go where they wanted, when they wanted. Businesses sprang up to service bicycles, roads were paved to better acomodate riding, and various shops and resaurants opened to serve the women and men who rode.

The freedom and joy a bicycle gives to the rider is the reason I spend so much time astride mine in the warm spring and summer months. If every working adult in the US gave up their car just one day a week to ride a bicycle, who knows how many tons of CO2 wouldn't make it's way into the atmosphere. It helps keep my body healthy and my mind more alert. I'm rarely so happy as when I'm riding.

I'm not saying give up your automobile, far from that. Just be wise in how much you drive. Carpool to work and/ or school, if you can. Walk the shorter distances to the corner store or to the soccer field. Every little bit really does help.

Hey, Congressmen and women; turn in your car keys for a week and go ride your bicycle. I bet you'll feel better. And you just might save the world in the process.

Until next time, ride long and keep the rubber-side down.