Monique Richoux's Story

Well, here's my dirty little secret: I am not really a cyclist! I used to cycle a lot while growing up in Armstrong, but when I moved to Vancouver to go to university, I tried biking once or twice and was terrified. All that traffic! Later, when I met my future husband, I didn't even own a bike but we wanted to do a bit of biking and he had two bikes - a mountain bike and a BMX. I laughed my head off when I saw a full grown man riding a BMX. But his mountain bike felt too big and awkward for me. I tried his BMX - and was hooked. When I was pregnant with our first son he gave me my own BMX - and that's what I still ride, badly, along with my sons, who are 8 and 5 and show me up on a regular basis. I will swallow my fears and my pride and I WILL show up to ride on my little BMX with my son (no gears but oh, so maneuverable), and this is why:

I have realized that climate change is not some kind of possibility. It is not something that my children can spend their lives trying to stop. It will be too late if we haven't taken serious measures by the time they are old enough to vote. I used to think that by living as sustainably as I possibly can (consuming less, buying only organic food, growing what we can, driving as little as possible, etc.) that I can do my part and make a difference. And yet when I watched An Inconvenient Truth and saw the ice falling away, I realized that my actions alone are not enough. They are important and they are good, but they are not enough. I have been aware of and worrying about environmental devastation for 20 years now - and it is not enough. (The warning cry was first shouted in 1962 by Rachel Carson, and 45 years later we still aren't "getting it" in any large-scale way). Some people worry that attending to climate change will cause a massive loss of jobs in Canada. I say this is an illusion. Climate Change itself will cause job loss, along with massive life loss. When all the trees die from bugs that start multiplying exponentially (as the pine bark beetle already has been doing) there will certainly be a loss of jobs, not to mention all the other losses that accompany that. The oil fields won't last forever either - why not phase out that form of power now before our very lives are threatened?

There are plenty of ways in which we can all live sustainably with our needs met, through industries that perhaps we haven't even invented yet, industries that support a restorative form of commerce rather than the destructive form that we currently operate under. For those of us dependent on our cars - lets remember that we are an ingenious species - very intelligent, very creative. We CAN start re-imagining our world, while there is a livable world left to re-imagine. Consider our dependence on oxygen alone: "Oxygen has hovered around 21 per cent of the atmosphere, a propitious level, since 25 per cent oxygen could well ignite the atmosphere; if the atmosphere contained only 15 per cent oxygen, it would be lethal to life." David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance, p. 49. So what will happen to this balance as we keep releasing carbon into the atmosphere? I don't want to find out. Realizing that I actually have to do something about it has been hard for me - I have shed tears and lost sleep. Denial is so much easier. Easier but deadly (ala The Matrix).

Here is one last quote that really hit me, that has moved me to go on the actual ROAD on my little bike, with my child:
"Author Ivan Illich has pointed out that the average American is involved with his or her automobile - working in order to buy it, actually driving it, getting it repaired and so on - for sixteen hundred hours a year. This means when all car mileage in a given year is divided by the time spend supporting the car, the average car owner is traveling at an average speed of five miles per hour. To attain the speed of a bicycle, we are devastating our cities, air, lungs, and lives, while bringing on the threat of global warming." Paul Hawkin, The Ecology of Commerce (1993),

One last note - I think it's important that we not be fooled by the Conservative government's "green plan". They had in their hands a not-too-bad plan, Bill C-30 which was drafted up with the input and cooperation of all parties. When they backed out of it I protested to my MP. He replied that the opposition made it too hard to implement. That is rubbish. The current plan is a smokescreen, one that people such as David Suzuki and Al Gore have seen through (and stated so publicly). We need to see through it as well. It is not enough. So let's get on our bikes and see how big a statement we can make, together, as Canadians.

(And if you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth yet - go watch it now!)