Centro Patria Educativo and my message in Mexico

December 12th, 2005 by David

   Today I visted my first school in Mexico, a private school near Ensenada where most students spoke English about as well (ok ok, better) than I speak Spanish. I gave one presentation in English and one (!) in Spanish. I encourage you to click on the movie on the left.

   Right now, I am embarrassed to be from the United States. This past week Montreal held international talks about what to do after the Kyoto treaty expires. The representative for the United States, at the critical end of the talks, stood up and walked away. This is disgraceful, as the United States uses one quarter of the world’s fossil fuels.
   Stopping global warming requires the countries of the world to work together – both rich and poor. Here is why: consider a situation where the United States continues using fossil fuels but Canada imposes limits on fossil fuels. Businesses, finding fossil fuels cheaper than alternatives, will move to the United States. This would both hurt Canada’s economy and cause the United States to emite more carbon dioxide, partially offsetting Canada’s efforts.
   Here in Mexico, my message is that we must all work together, as a world, to solve this problem. I also share that there are many people in the United States who are doing something about global warming even if our president is not. I am proud that my governer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is trying to pass legislation that would help California reduce its emissions. There are mayors across the United States that have made pledges. I also share stories of student initiatives such as urally.
    I am sensitive that I cannot tell people in Mexico what to do, and that there are many problems perhaps more pressing than climate change here in Mexico. Nonetheless, even if the United States has to act before Mexico, eventually, especially in the lifetimes of the students I am visiting, we will have to work together with Mexico to reduce emissions.
   This is my message. (Of course, the students are often a bit more interested in passing around my home-made camping stove or helping me out with my Spanish.)

Posted in Climate, Schools | 8 Comments »

San Diego to Ensenada – 3 days, 130 miles

December 12th, 2005 by David

   After a week of preparation, I left San Diego at noon on Saturday, riding east through hilly suburbs. I took inland roads to avoid the busy highway along the coast near Tiajuana. As night came, I camped off the side of the road so that I could cross the border the next morning.

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   Bicycles, it seems, are not stopped when traveling into Mexico (see movie on the left), and I felt just a little silly for waiting for a week to get my passport. Biking through Tecate, I noticed immediately that Mexicans use far less gas per person than Americans – every car that passed me had at least 3 or more people sitting inside.
   Biking the dry hills south of Tecate, I passed through many small and fairly uninhabited valleys before reaching a valley of vineyards near the coast. As dark approached, I asked local residents if there was a place I could pitch my tent. Julio quickly invited me to stay at his house, which he shares with his wife, daughter, and parents, and which they built themselves 20 years ago. They spoke no English. My Spanish is rapidly improving.

   The next day was a short ride to Ensenada, where I checked the internet to see which school I was going to visit (from email), and then biked to Centro Educativo Patria. Afterwards, the prinicipal as well as the partial owner of the school (they are married) generously invited me to stay at their ranch. At the ranch, although they only recently purchased a refrigerator and use electricity sparingly, the family lives well. They make their own wine and olive oil, laugh often, and managed to feed a hungry bicyclist extremely well.
   I am fearful of the number of postcards/thank you cards I will have to send down the road….

Posted in Mexico | 4 Comments »

** Monthly Update ** California

December 10th, 2005 by David

   Below is my first monthlty update. If you sign up for the email list, you will get an email like this once a month. Some of it is repeated material from the rest of the journals.

   Welcome to the first official mass email of A Ride for the Climate. These once-a-month updates are for your enjoyment. I provide all-caps headers below for a number of different topics. Feel free to read only the parts that interest you!

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QUICK SUMMARY
   I have biked over 800 miles now, arriving in San Diego via the cities of Monterey, Fresno, Ventura, and Los Angeles. I took a week off for Thanksgiving to be with family, and I have taken another week off in San Diego replacing a stolen passport See a map of my route at www.rideforclimate.com/now.php.
   From the redwoods in the bay area to Monterey Bay to the dry hills between the ocean and the central valley to the friendly tractor drivers in the central valley (all of whom wave to cyclists) to the 6,000 ft mountains near Ventura to the Pacific coast from L.A. to San Diego, California continues to amaze me. For a slide show of this adventure-by-bike, click here . (You can increase the picture resolution with the button just above the pictures.)

YOU WENT TO FRESNO? THE CENTRAL VALLEY?
   I biked to Fresno to make a statement — climate change is going to be bad for California’s central valley.
   The central valley grows a majority of the United States’ fruits and nuts, and I enjoyed biking through seemingly endless fields of vineyards, orchards and other crops.
   The strangest part of biking the central valley was the language — should I talk to people in Spanish or English? Mexican immigrants make up (I think) a majority of the population, and conversations were a mixture of Spanish and English, especially with the many friendly farm works I talked to while biking across the valley.

WHAT DOES GLOBAL WARMING MEAN FOR CALIFORNIA?
   No, we are not all going to die (this is a common response from students). The biggest problems are going to be with our water system. The Sierra Nevada mountains store an incredible amount of water as snowpack during the winter, and then release the water as snow melt during the spring and summer. We are going to lose this snow pack, and water, which is so essential to the cities and agriculture of California, will be scarcer.
   It is also likely going to get much warmer in the summer — between 4 and 15 degrees F. The lower estimate assumes we are good about reducing carbon dioxide emissions this century. The higher estimate assumes that we keep doing what we are doing. It is not hard to see that 15 degrees warmer in the central valley during the summer will be bad — it is already hot, and agriculture will likely suffer. Heat waves will be a problem, as well as increases in heat-related diseases. To read more about these findings, go to www.climatechoices.org .

SO DAVE, WHAT DO PEOPLE THINK ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
   I have asked many people what they know about global warming. It is interesting that a large portion of the those I have talked to say ‘it is happening and it is bad.’ I think less then a quarter of the people I talked to said ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ and a smaller percentage (notably a farmer I talked to in the Central Valley) told me it was all made up.
   While people are aware of the problem, they don’t always equate their actions with the problem. The bus driver who talked for 5 minutes about global warming screwing up the world then talked about buying a large RV and driving it around the country. We need to better equate the problems of climate change with our individual actions.

CARS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

   There are a lot of them. The short story: L.A. is the least bike friendly city I have ridden in. I have put together a photo essay of cars. To read about biking L.A. go here.
   It is sad to see so many large cars on the road — SUVs and trucks use far more gas than sedans, and the single easiest way to reduce your global warming impact is to drive a smaller car. If you are looking to get a new car, I encourage you to try to get a more efficient one.
   I understand why people want bigger cars — more space, higher off the ground, and, given the design of these cities, you will spend a lot of time in your car. These large cars, though, are not safer and also cost much more. If you want to drive a large car, I encourage you to consider buying carbon credits.

TAKE ACTION
   Please consider signing the following on-line petitions:
   www.undoit.org
   If you are a student, I encourage you to consider joining the urally pledge:
   www.urally.org
   I also encourage you to consider ways you can use energy more efficiently- whether it is turning off the lights or taking the smaller car to the grocery store instead of the bigger one. It will save you money as well as help the Earth’s climate.

SCHOOL VISITS

These are schools that I visted in the United States.

   I have visited 17 different schools now, talking to almost 1,000 students.. These visits have been immensely enjoyable, and I hope those of you students on this list learned something about the world from the visits. There are pictures of every school I visited here.

THANKS TO THE GENEROUS
   Thanks to Kirsten and Tom, Luke and Heather for helping me out with meals, showers, and morale. Thanks to Heather (other Heather) for riding to Monterey with me, the Telles family for housing and feeding me, Anne Morningstar for housing and feeding me, Julia Goodnough for storing my bike and letting me crash at her place, and Sheila Walsh and her housemates Lauren and Milenia for letting me stay at their place an entire week (!) while I got a new passport. This support is the greatest way to be sponsored, and a trip like this reaffirms your belief in people.

DON’T LEAVE YOUR WALLET UNATTENDED
   Well, not all people. I left my wallet on top of my bicycle for 5 minutes at a convenience store in Camp Pendleton Naval Base just north of San Diego. My wallet, with passport inside, was stolen, forcing me to spend this week in San Diego, waiting to get a new passport.

DO YOU HAVE YOUR PASSPORT NOW?
   Yes! And now, I will now make a run for the border armed with a bicycle, four panniers, and my Spanish-English dictionary. Stay tuned!

   This trip has barely begun, and there are so many more stories down the road. You will likely get an update of travels another 1,500 miles down the road, as I pass Mexico City.

David

Posted in California, Climate, Travel Summaries | No Comments »

A week in San Diego

December 8th, 2005 by David

   I have spent the past week in San Deigo, waiting for my parents to mail me necessary documents (birth certificate, various identification forms), filling out forms, and then waiting for my new passport to arrive. The week was enjoyably spent with a friend from college, Sheila Walsh, and her two housemates, Milania and Loren. They had an extra room for me to stay in, which was great, except when I wanted to sleep after biking far and there was a party (no, that picture on the right is not staged).
   While in San Diego, I visited Scripps Institute of Oceanography, a world class research institute. This is the home of Dr. Keeling, who first measured how carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere, producing the now famous “Keeling curve“.
   At Scripps, I attended a student-led environmental seminar, where an international relations graduate student talked about the global politics of oil. Oil plays a huge role in global politics, usually for the worse. I will revisit this topic when I visit Venezuela, a poor country where oil is one third of the economy.

   I also talked with a few scientists about their research. John Holecek, a graduate student studying aerosols, showed me around his lab. Aerosols are small particles suspended in the air, and humans are increasing their abundance. Most aerosols have a slight cooling effect on the planet, although some do contribute to warming. The effect of aerosols on the climate, although significantly less than carbon dioxide, is fairly uncertain, and a lot of current research is directed to understanding aerosols.
   I also visited David Perice, a climate modeler and programmer. He shared with me a study he recently published in the journal Science showing that the Earth’s oceans have warmed significantly in the past few decades. He remarked, “People don’t think there is a problem because we can’t see carbon dioxide. If you could see carbon dioxide, you would see the atmosphere slowly getting darker as we burn more and more fossil fuels.”

   After these discussions, I decided to explore the ocean myself. My friend Sheila and I took two surfboards, and enjoyed the waves just a few hundred yards from her office, which overlooks the ocean.

Posted in California, Climate | 3 Comments »

Oakcrest Middle School in Encinitas

December 2nd, 2005 by David

   Today I biked to Encinitas, a nice northern suburb of San Diego, and talked to four classes of seventh and eight graders at Oakcrest Middle School. Students crowded into the library for the talk.

Posted in Schools | 2 Comments »

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