From the Mt. Shasta News (California), 08.29.07:A two-wheeled wonder that benefits the planetA compelling, persuasive, and irrefutable argument for the sanity of bicycling. Includes my favorite quotations from John F. Kennedy and H.G. Wells.
The bicycle--the most energy-efficient form of travel ever devised--deserves a bit of respect. Pound for pound, a person on a bicycle expends less energy than any creature or machine covering the same distance. (A person walking expends about three times as much energy per pound; a salmon swimming expends about twice as much.) As Bill Strickland calculates in The Quotable Cyclist, "the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon."
Replacing car trips with bike trips has unmistakable environmental benefits: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, impact from noise and pollution, and resource consumption. Commuting by bike produces absolutely no pollution! We burn millions of barrels of oil daily driving our cars, and have poor health and pollution to show for it.
Consider as well the manufacturing process: one hundred bicycles can be produced for the same energy and resources it takes to build one medium-sized automobile. Little wonder there are almost twice as many bicycles as cars worldwide. (Read more.)
Image: Chico Geno
Visit: Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips
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