issues
support pci
The End of Nature
Story
Weaning Off a Car
I became interested in peak-oil about 4 years ago. I decided to reduce my own carbon footprint by making a few changes around the house to "go green";
I replaced incandescent lights with CFLs, tore up my front and back lawns to grow my own veggies, hung my clothes on a clothes line, and installed 16 solar panels to spin the meter backwards. an interesting piece of data: after a month of sunshine, my solar panels have offset 1440 lbs of CO2.
However, my story is one of transportation, getting the most mileage per gallon.
I learned that a human body riding a bicycle can get up to 300 miles per gallon:
I commute 12 miles to and from work. Since the average drive is within a 10 mile radius (eg to get milk from the store), it makes sense to ditch the car for these short distances and
ride a bike.
I found a company on the internet, bought one of their kits and a lithium battery, and converted my wife's old mountain bike to an electric bike - a commuter bike.
I figure that it costs me about a cent a mile to ride my new bike. I don't have to rely on ancient sunshine (ie fossil fuel) to make my commute; rather my commute is now fueled by modern day sunshine via the solar panels recharging the lithium battery and the veggies from my garden fueling my muscles. I love the early morning exercise; it takes me 20 minutes at a top speed of 20 mph to ride this bike to my school where I teach at-risk high school students Life Science and Ecology. The bike has become a great topic of conversation and introduction to various ecology topics.
I look forward to the future where I will be riding my bike in the middle of the road rather than in a bike lane.
what is pci?