{"id":53,"date":"2007-11-01T07:30:29","date_gmt":"2007-11-01T13:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/?p=53"},"modified":"2007-11-01T07:30:29","modified_gmt":"2007-11-01T13:30:29","slug":"the-kingdom-of-bicycles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"The Kingdom of Bicycles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Car, truck, truck, big truck, bicycle, bicycle, bicycle.\u00a0 The perspective of a cyclists in China.\u00a0 There are tons of bicycles in China, in fact more than any other country, which is how it got its nickname “The kingdom of bicycles” or in Chinese\u00a0“Zi Xing Che Wang Guo”\u00a0 it seems however that this\u00a0isn’t for any environmental reason as much as it is economic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From moving massive construction cranes on huge flat-beds to people biking from their village to work\u00a0the field we have seen it all in China.\u00a0 We have biked through incredibly polluted areas laden with factories spewing smoke.\u00a0 We have biked over rivers with banks\u00a0covered in garbage, running black with pollution, and making their way out to the sea.\u00a0 We have spent days riding into and out of huge metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai.\u00a0 But we have also seen the families walking to their fields, the fields they use for self subsistence farming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0It becomes easy to point a finger at the common enemy, China, with all it’s problems and harm-causing money-making industries that go into any industrializing country.\u00a0 Too bad it is true, that China as a whole has now surpassed all other countries at leaving a deeper carbon footprint.\u00a0 That the pollution is so thick in some areas that respiratory disease is the leading cause of death, and it has only been twenty years in most places where these factories have existed, what of the Children who will spend their entire lives living under these conditions?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This trip has allowed me to have a more wholistic view of this country,\u00a0beyond the\u00a0smoke stacks, highways, and coal run power, beyond the government, oil hungry\u00a0officials, and rising middle class tourists are hundereds of millions of people who have no choice but to get up everyday and bike to their fields to grow a few vegetables, or walk to work through pollution created by the factories producing goods for us Americans.\u00a0\u00a0These people often\u00a0have one light bulb hanging in the center of their house, one television, and consume relatively few pre-packaged products as compared to Americans.\u00a0 They\u00a0rise and sleep with the sun.\u00a0 They are the forgotten China.\u00a0 Not that\u00a0they choose this\u00a0way of life, but because they have no choice.\u00a0 Which is important to consider as well.\u00a0 If they had the choice to live like this would they choose it, probably not.\u00a0 With this perspective pointing the finger\u00a0soon becomes much more difficult.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In America I\u00a0try to consciously consume less than the average American, however it is still incredibly more than so many people I see in the country-side of China.\u00a0 My plane ticket to come here for example created a much larger carbon foot print than that of many\u00a0of the people I meet make in many months.<\/p>\n

Many Chinese tell me of a common dream, that every person have a Car, like in America.\u00a0 I believe this dream would quickly become a nightmare.\u00a0Perhaps we can make a few people consider something they don’t often consider by\u00a0talking with them about it, but unfortunately I feel more is necessary.<\/p>\n

A man in the city of Huzhou in\u00a0Zhezhiang province with the English name of Mike was telling me of no car days, where in the city people are not allowed to drive cars on certain days.\u00a0 Beijing has had similar days as well, and has done test runs for the Olympics where factories and cars are not allowed to run.\u00a0\u00a0My understanding however that these days are generally ignored.\u00a0 I imagine such a day in the U.S.\u00a0would have similar results.\u00a0 Maybe the realization of a problem is a good first step anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The world is incredibly diverse, I have seen people drive their SUV down their driveway to get their mail and I have seen families with an old rusty bicycle as their only means of tranportation.\u00a0Should we feel guilty for using what we have aqccured?\u00a0 Not neccissarily, but we can at least be concious and make a choice to consume less.\u00a0 For years messages of environmental protection have been drilled into our heads.\u00a0 Use reusable bags and\u00a0imagine the tons of plastic that\u00a0could be saved each year,\u00a0bike to the grocery store instead of driving and imagine the fuel we would save.\u00a0 But what will it take to actually go through with these energy saving methods?\u00a0 I am guilty as well.\u00a0 Sometimes you conciously know what you are doing is wastefull yet you do it anyway.\u00a0 What will it take to change?\u00a0 In the U.S. there is a social stygma attatched to littering, probably because it is visible pollution that has an imidiate effect on our surroundings.\u00a0 But driving a Hummer to work for some reason is seen as impressive.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clear facts pointing out how our\u00a0world is being devastated is not working,\u00a0perhaps however if the\u00a0Jones’s talk behind our backs about how we leave our lights on\u00a0when we go out people will be more likely to\u00a0change.\u00a0\u00a0Well we need more\u00a0talkers!\u00a0 Not behind any one’s back though, but\u00a0in a respectable way, I feel to spread consciousness is really the best way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Car, truck, truck, big truck, bicycle, bicycle, bicycle.\u00a0 The perspective of a cyclists in China.\u00a0 There are tons of bicycles in China, in fact more than any other country, which is how it got its nickname “The kingdom of bicycles” or in Chinese\u00a0“Zi Xing Che Wang Guo”\u00a0 it seems however that this\u00a0isn’t for any environmental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adams-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}