RE-Cycle: Where To Post Blame?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Where To Post Blame?

"Hot enough for you?"
Yea, annoying. But more and more this may become the standard greeting given to passerby's, ousting "Good Morning!"
Wherever you land on the "Global Warming" argument you gotta admit summers are getting longer and hotter and in some cases fatally so! Ever since 1950 global temps have been on the rise. Now I'm no scientist but I'm gonna speculate here. highways started popping up in the states around the '20's, then we had the post war prosperity in manufacturing to name one source, which then lead to the baby boom, which lead to the creation of the suburbs, which bread more roads and highways which lead to more jobs, then more cars, and more highways.... you get my point. Now the changes in our environment did not go unnoticed even in the later half of the 19th century but like so much in our human history we don't respond until we are looking down the barrel of a gun. To coin an old therapist "reactive as opposed to proactive!" Now we fast forward to today and we have what we feel when we step outside our AC. Our average temp has increase by 9.5 F.
(As a sign of the irony and hypocrisy we live under, I just took a pause to help a customer and as I was saying goodbye I happened to glance out the window as a big panel truck was passing the shop and emblazoned across its side was the company logo 'GREENERGY"...as it passed belching out blackish exhaust!)
Currently we average 650 deaths a year related to heat. That's more then Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Lightning strikes and floods combined. Last year in four states in a two week period 32 folks lost their lives due to heat. That's 4 times the amount in previous records. The CDC predicts that by 2050 our annual numbers will increase by 3000-5000 deaths. And at current rates the global temp will increase a steady 9-10 F by the end of the century effecting some 100's of millions of people in ways ranging from displacement, loss of real estate and death.
If asked what is the cost of progress, you're looking at it!
And where are we making changes? The government spouts figures of emission standards, both for cars and industry but imposes little to no effective penalties for not abiding by standards. All growl and no teeth! And what are YOU doing? At the very real risk of sounding like I'm trying to use a tragedy of global proportions to sell bikes just imagine the impact we could make by everyone out there leaving their car home for just day!
Why Imagine when you can have fun with math!
Here's the equation!
There are an estimated 230,000,000.00 cars on the road today.
The average vehicle pumps out an average of 6.66 pounds of carbon dioxide a day (no...I didn't make up that number for the religiously astute folks out there!)
so....that's....
1,531,800,000 pounds a day.
WHEW!
I'll leave it to the climatologists to figure out that boondoggle but I can only imagine it would help!
The point is, there are changes we can make individually and to inspire others but the next time you want to complain about the heat just remember, you're part of the reason why.
ANYWAY!
I want to thank all the folks out there for coming by to visit yesterday and all the wonderful compliments! One in particular gave me a real smile. Seems we had another referral come in yesterday and even though he didn't have a needed repair that day he just wanted to stop by and let us know he would DEFINITELY be in when he did! A friend informed him that a few weeks ago he brought his ride into one of those "other" bikes shops for needed repair and they charged him $70.00! And it STILL didn't work right! After a couple weeks he was getting frustrated and happened to be passing by our joint and thought he'd stop by and see what we could do. Well 15 minutes and $8.00 later and the problem was fixed properly! I do so much appreciate the kind gesture of coming in and giving us that special kudos!
We also managed to put out two new gems yesterday, and as promised the SWEET '77 Peugeot Rod bike! Check 'em out below and I'm gonna get at even more goodies today!