Which is why solving the climate crisis might require aluminum bike panniers...
Excerpt from Bill McKibben’s blog (billmckibben.substack.com):
Most of the time I’m writing about vested interest as the key obstacle to making the energy transition. And it is—without the endless campaign of delay, denial, and disinformation from Big Oil and its friends, we’d have started making big changes long ago. But there’s another force at work alongside Interest, and that’s Inertia, defined as the force that has kept you from, say, ever cleaning the coil on the bottom of your fridge, even though doing so would cut your electric usage considerably.
We’re going to have to summon the will to make some changes. Many are fairly easy: installing air source heat pumps, for instance, could not just help defeat Vladimir Putin, but they could heat your home more pleasantly, efficiently, and affordably.
Other changes require shifts in how we actually behave. But not impossible ones. Take, for instance, e-bikes: if you were looking for a perfect transportation mode in a climate-conscious era, this might be it, since it delivers mobility at a fraction of the environmental cost even of an electric car. E-bikes are outselling electric cars in America; in Europe, they’re so popular that they may soon be outselling all cars.
But to make this work at scale and at speed, which is what the climate crisis requires, you need more than the bike itself, elegant as it is. It helps immensely to also have safe bikepaths. And office buildings with showers. And even safe panniers—that’s why I was interested when Brian Hoffman wrote me with a description of his new product, the Velocker.
Transitions unleash creativity—new ways of doing things. Yes, new ways of doing things require us to change our daily habits a little. So anything that makes that easier is appreciated. Friction is the enemy. Well, Exxon is the enemy. But friction is an accomplice.
