The Ride to Chattanooga is Paved with PR

In Georgia, our TV and print media recently reported on the development of a 161-mile bicycle route connecting Atlanta with Chattanooga.

Huh?
Most of the details in these reports come from a press release issued by the public relations office at Georgia's Department of Transportation. U.S. Bike Route 21 is the first of its kind in Georgia and will eventually connect with other bike routes going all the way to Cleveland, Ohio.

But GDOT's press release doesn't answer the most pertinent question, what is it? Clearly none of the "news" outlets could be bothered to ask.

I had to dig hard in order to find a map of the route. As a result, here's my description of USBR 21:
Start at Five Points in downtown Atlanta, ride north to Smyrna, get on the Silver Comet Trail, ride to Cedartown, make a right and head north on a bunch of two-lane country roads (except for a stretch of heavily-travelled Georgia Route 20 west of Rome), until you see the "Welcome to Tennessee" sign.

Not a speck of new pavement was applied for the route. USBR 21's "development" was embodied by the labors of GDOT's Bicycle Coordinator, who presumably drew a bunch of lines on a map and then attended an embarrassing number of meetings and conference calls to make it official.

As for the future of USBR 21, our Coordinator at GDOT is "exploring possible sources of funding for the installation of signs along the route."
I hope this at least inspires some individuals to plan their two-wheeled adventures to Chattanooga, or Atlanta. Or Cleveland.
But don't wait for GDOT to install the route markers. Just follow the "See Rock City" signs.

Revolution For Nice People in a Nice Country

The documentary is called Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom (available only on Netflix.)

For 93 days in 2013 and 2014, the Ukraine witnessed a revolution which started as a nonviolent protest by students against the autocratic behavior of President Viktor Yanukovych. Shortly thereafter it turned into a bloody, full-fledged revolution.

This movie, which is only available on Netflix, provides a gripping view from the streets, streets which look very modern, very westernized. Imagine a situation where your favorite sushi restaurant has been turned into an ad hoc aid station for injured protesters.

It's a cautionary tale containing a message of hope, especially for anyone who feels the slide of our society towards authoritarian rule. Important lessons:

1. The protesters eschewed politics and politicians. They had few demands, but those demands were non negotiable: the removal of a President that was aligning the Ukraine with Russia without the consent of the people, and the return of free elections.
2. Patriotism motivated people of diverse backgrounds to join the revolt. People of all political, ethnic and religious affiliations saw this opportunity to express their love for their country, fighting a current regime which did not represent the nation's interests. While protesters were brutally beaten by government security forces they sang the national anthem.
3. Nonviolence was preferred but not mandatory. The authorities easily corrupted protesters' initial use of nonviolence through the use of agent provocateurs, and then they retaliated with their own increasingly-violent repressions.
4. Protesters have to embrace their struggle and their willingness to sacrifice. The public is galvanized against the authorities once they see how far the authorities will go to smash people just like them.
5. The revolution only works when cultural institutions are all-in. Students were amongst the first to join, and as usual religious leaders are amongst the last.

Ultimately Winter on Fire leaves us on a sad note, as the successful fight for Ukrainian self-rule was not sufficient in preventing further Russian interference in their affairs, as the bloody civil war there continues to prove.

For Ukrainians this is nothing new, and I hope they someday find the peace they deserve.

An Earth Day Greeting Card

I was never a big fan of Hallmark holidays, and today feels like another one of them. Earth Day was not always like that. The first one in 1970 had real significance.

45 years ago the world seemed to be changing for the good. The actions of the baby boomer, flower power generation were nudging industrial civilization away from the abyss.

The early 1970s would see a Republican (!) President establish the Environmental Protection Agency, giving the environment near Cabinet-level importance. We also saw passage of two most important environmental laws, The Clean Water Act and The Clean Air Act.

But then something happened. Industrial civilization fought back both politically and culturally. The environmental activists who helped win us those early victories were drawn into the political economy they were out to change.

I had opted to work within the system at the Natural Resources Defense Council, but I believed that our legal advocacy was on the path to deeper changes to our economic and societal systems... the Clean Air and Clean Water acts created major opportunities for lawyers and others, but in pursuing them we were drawn ever more completely into the system. ...We opted to work within the system of political economy that we found, and we neglected to seek the transformation of the system itself.

-- James Gustave Speth

Enter the era of greenwashing. Greenwashing provides the appearance of action without meaningful results. It also is a clever blame-shifting maneuver.

Remember, pollution is your fault, not the fault of those who profit from it.

In these and other ways industrial civilization co-opted the environmental movement and placed it at heel, where it has remained until today.

When viewed on a broad, planetary scale, humanity has never seen the Earth in greater peril. We place our faith in science and technology to solve our environmental problems, in hopes that we may avoid making inconvenient changes to our living arrangements.

In service to these hopes the term “sustainability” has become unavoidable in business, governmental and academic sectors, but with little context. Now get a load of this: none of the world’s top industrial sectors would be profitable if they were paying the full cost of their activities, if they fully paid for the Earth's finite resources they rely on such as clean air, fresh water and healthy soil.

They take what is a birthright for us all, and then privatize the economic gains. This is why our neoliberal, materialist economy is consuming the planet. It assumes that growth (in population, material wealth, consumption) must and will continue indefinitely. It is the very definition of unsustainable.

This makes the whole notion of “sustainability” as currently practiced a bad joke. If you are not in the business of changing the way we value and measure “progress”, you are not in the sustainability business. It's like bailing out the Titanic with teacups.

So go ahead. Celebrate the day. Send the Earth a card, one printed on 50% recycled-content paper.

Or for true inspiration, read the Blue River Declaration and celebrate a greenwash-free Earth Day.

The Urban Amphibious

A Civil War battle. A conduit for Atlanta's waste. A watershed that drains most of Atlanta north of Dekalb Avenue and east of Marietta Boulevard.

Each of these describes Peachtree Creek, and each a motivation to pull the Creek out of the obscurity that it harbors in the minds of most who live here.

David Kaufman's 2007 book of the same title is a must-have for current and former Atlanta residents wanting to develop a stronger sense of place, for Peachtree Creek (along with other creeks) defines this City over a longer and more historical respect than even its famous highways do. Kaufman demonstrates a profound curiosity for the sights, history, physical dynamics and people associated with the Creek.

Moreover he shares with the reader his sense of adventure, and by experiencing Peachtree Creek first-hand his accounts of it become alive. For thirteen years Kaufman explored Peachtree Creek and its tributaries by canoe, braving the hazards of flash flooding, polluted water, and human activity largely ungoverned by civilized existence occurring on the stream banks and bridges above.

While I have limited experience paddling, there was much in this book that felt familiar to me. Several years ago a friend of mine and I bicycled the Atlanta BeltLine while it was still mostly kudzu and abandoned rails. Had I read Peachtree Creek beforehand, I probably would have made more of an effort to document what turned out to be an epic journey. Sadly that moment is now gone.

Let this book stoke your sense of urban adventure, a desire to find a grounding with your surroundings, and a curiosity to learn what might be hidden literally underneath your feet.