"Free energy", "Free transportation"
The girlfriend of my friend PW has bookclub night once a month, and when she does, PW gets out of the apartment and rounds up the boys for beer night. Past beer nights have been in Uptown, Dinkytown, or downtown Mpls, putting them within easy biking distance. Tonights, however, was over in St Paul, just past Dale St. Walking distance for PW, who lives over there, but about 10 miles from my condo. I pondered taking the bus, then decided it was such a beautiful night that it would be wrong not to bike there.
Not wanting to crash the Cervelo in some drunken incident, I rode the Great Equalizer, but only after removing the knobbies and putting the slicks back on. I don't know that it is with these slicks, but they are a royal pain in the arse to install. That last few inches of bead just never wants to go over the rim. I think I figured out a better way to do it, but only after giving myself a nice blood blister on my thumb.
The ride over was nice - took 31st St as far as the Midtown YWCA, then hopped over to Lake, crossed Hiawatha. Parked in front of the Poodle club, I saw a fat middle aged guy sitting on a Harley, wearing a red and white elvis costume complete with big ole gold framed glasses, butterfly collar, the whole 9 yards. There was a woman on the bike who was dressed normally (well, normal for a middle-aged woman on a Harley, if you know what I mean.) Don't know what their story was.
Continued on Lake St over the Lake St bridge, down Cleveland to Summit, Summit to Dale.
At happy hour, Joe and I had a brief conversation about alternative energy, and I came up with the idea that when we talk about solar power, wind power, etc, we really need to start using the term "free energy" instead of "alternative energy", "renewable energy", "clean energy", etc. The term "clean" has been co-opted ("clean coal" being a good example) and "renewable" and isn't very catchy. Alternative almost makes it sound like there's something wrong with it.
The cost of petroleum is sky high, and society has been brainwashed into thinking with a very pro-market mentality, so the term "free energy" should really resonate with people, while also being entirely true. Solar and wind are in fact free (they cost pretty much nothing after the capital costs have been recovered) and are also free from all the foreign policy problems inherent in our petroleum based economy/society.
The same goes for transportation when it comes to walking, biking, etc. If someone asks us if we biked in to work, we could respond "Yep, I took free transportation today. How about you?" It could subconsciously yet effectively drive the point home.
The ride home was similarily gorgeous, I was riding in a tshirt and rolled up jeans, and was quite comfortable even at 11pm. Not a cloud in the sky, and oodles of stars overhead. Wonderful.
Not wanting to crash the Cervelo in some drunken incident, I rode the Great Equalizer, but only after removing the knobbies and putting the slicks back on. I don't know that it is with these slicks, but they are a royal pain in the arse to install. That last few inches of bead just never wants to go over the rim. I think I figured out a better way to do it, but only after giving myself a nice blood blister on my thumb.
The ride over was nice - took 31st St as far as the Midtown YWCA, then hopped over to Lake, crossed Hiawatha. Parked in front of the Poodle club, I saw a fat middle aged guy sitting on a Harley, wearing a red and white elvis costume complete with big ole gold framed glasses, butterfly collar, the whole 9 yards. There was a woman on the bike who was dressed normally (well, normal for a middle-aged woman on a Harley, if you know what I mean.) Don't know what their story was.
Continued on Lake St over the Lake St bridge, down Cleveland to Summit, Summit to Dale.
At happy hour, Joe and I had a brief conversation about alternative energy, and I came up with the idea that when we talk about solar power, wind power, etc, we really need to start using the term "free energy" instead of "alternative energy", "renewable energy", "clean energy", etc. The term "clean" has been co-opted ("clean coal" being a good example) and "renewable" and isn't very catchy. Alternative almost makes it sound like there's something wrong with it.
The cost of petroleum is sky high, and society has been brainwashed into thinking with a very pro-market mentality, so the term "free energy" should really resonate with people, while also being entirely true. Solar and wind are in fact free (they cost pretty much nothing after the capital costs have been recovered) and are also free from all the foreign policy problems inherent in our petroleum based economy/society.
The same goes for transportation when it comes to walking, biking, etc. If someone asks us if we biked in to work, we could respond "Yep, I took free transportation today. How about you?" It could subconsciously yet effectively drive the point home.
The ride home was similarily gorgeous, I was riding in a tshirt and rolled up jeans, and was quite comfortable even at 11pm. Not a cloud in the sky, and oodles of stars overhead. Wonderful.
posted by equipoise at 6:57 PM
5 Comments:
This is really smart - I'm going to start using this new terminology immediately. When my coworkers bitch about the costs of driving, I'll be sure to emphasize my own free commute.
ditto to that.
The one thing that could backfire is that people sometimes like to spend money. Although they now bitch about the expense of fuel, they liked spending the money on the big expensive car in the first place. It makes them feel special, and could see themselves as being above free things.
I was thinking about this yesterday - it's not really 'Free'
You still have to pay for fuel, it's just food instead of gasoline. There are still costs with maintaining other sources of energy, too...
I don't know about the rest of you, but I ate food long before I started riding my bike to work.
As for the starving kids in Africa, I always send them my extra food. It's that simple - if I don't eat it, I can send it to them.
Jeremy - I know that the fuel we use to power our legs isn't really free, but there are a lot of people who already consume more calories than they burn in their day-to-day life, and then they either a) get fat, or b) spend time on a treadmill or performing other exercise to burn off the excess fuel they've consumed.
Nothing in life is free. But I think in this case it's close enough for enough people, and I think using the term "free" in this context could still have some merit.
Frick - you make a good point too. The automobile (and the financial/material status many seem to think it conveys) is very ingrained, and could be tough to break. And some people think "free" equates to worthless, or cheap, so it is possible that some people will have negative associations with the word "free".
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