Paper straws and bicycles won’t solve the climate crisis. What my lib friends and I are doing doesn’t really matter when just a handful of entities make up so much more of the environmental impact.
We could stop those entities…if it weren’t for the cons constantly blocking any attempt to help the greater good.
More specifically, not with that disingenuous attitude that implies giving folks bicycles and changing nothing else, trying to shame them into using a mode that’s worse for them in order to altruistically help everybody else. Of-fucking-course that’s never gonna work!
Instead, what actually has to change is the zoning laws that shape the built environment the bicycles are operate in. We have to stop limiting density and mandating parking requirements, which not only physically force destinations farther apart (putting fewer within walking or biking distance) and cause the space between to be filled with car-infested asphalt (making walking and biking unpleasant), but also subsidize driving by forcing an oversupply of parking, driving down the price.
Removing the regulations and allowing developers to build as compactly as the market would dictate would cause people to freely choose bicycling because it would become more convenient than driving, and that is what would help solve the climate crisis!
Paper straws and bicycles won’t solve the climate crisis. What my lib friends and I are doing doesn’t really matter when just a handful of entities make up so much more of the environmental impact.
We could stop those entities…if it weren’t for the cons constantly blocking any attempt to help the greater good.
I could tell you how to stop them, but I don’t look good in orange
Not with that attitude!
More specifically, not with that disingenuous attitude that implies giving folks bicycles and changing nothing else, trying to shame them into using a mode that’s worse for them in order to altruistically help everybody else. Of-fucking-course that’s never gonna work!
Instead, what actually has to change is the zoning laws that shape the built environment the bicycles are operate in. We have to stop limiting density and mandating parking requirements, which not only physically force destinations farther apart (putting fewer within walking or biking distance) and cause the space between to be filled with car-infested asphalt (making walking and biking unpleasant), but also subsidize driving by forcing an oversupply of parking, driving down the price.
Removing the regulations and allowing developers to build as compactly as the market would dictate would cause people to freely choose bicycling because it would become more convenient than driving, and that is what would help solve the climate crisis!