You are reading a single comment by @dooks and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@dooks
i've always considered myself concerned and interested in the environment as well as being rational scientist. i'm not an expert on ecology or climate change but my background is philosophy of physics and i'll defend scientific method to the end. on top of that i've always been pretty passionate about all things conservation and yet... and yet there is still a nagging doubt in my mind about much of this. token environmentalism is such a cash cow these days that i find it hard to sort the wheat from the chaffe when trying to filter much of the information available. it's so tied up in claim and counterclaim, faddy buzzwords, scaremongering, potentially dangerous spurious "debunking" i don't know where to start. i really want to get on board with the good guys. by which i mean the kind of people who will stand up for the unpleasant facts in the face of spin and denial and lead by example in making personal sacrifices for the greater good. but i find it hard to know exactly who to believe. it's not helped when you find out who you thought were the good guys "thanks a lot al gore" are often just as guilty of manipulating data... an even plain making shit up to sell a story. or a product. or a lifestyle.
basically, with limited access to the latest raw, dry, unemotional facts i find it very hard to get a clear picture in order to be able to make my own mind up. i'm not swayed by pictures of sad looking polar bears, nor do think that i'm "doing my bit" by pumping up the tyres on my oil-burning-filth-spewing car (see the poster on the back of busses suggesting that you make a contribution to the cause in this way!). I need FACTS in order to make up my own mind and i don't know where to get them. I would dearly love to get these nagging doubts laid to rest and get fully on board but i just can't. not just yet.
having said all that i think the only rational, sensible, prudent thing to do is err on the side of caution and do your best to minimise your potential impact because, well, why wouldn't you? given a choice between doing what you can to minimise a potentialy very bad thing, and doing nothing and potentially contributing to the potential bad thing... hmmm that didn't come out very well. too many potentials. but i'm sure you know what i mean. why not recycle? why not try and minimise energy use, investigate cheap, clean energy sources? etc. most of these things make sense from a personal, economic, micro-environmental and plain old happiness point of view anyway.
yours, onboard but still confused and healthily cynical,
dooks.