The Cause

This is my cause…11,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved

The challenge for the world’s population is to Stop Global Warming.  My intent is to ride to bring focus to the cause.  My challenge is to pedal 11,000 kilometers, riding continuously for an average of 110 kilometers a day. Your challenge is to make a personal pledge to save emissions of one tonne or more towards the goal…and in doing so, adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Our challenge is to get enough pledges to save a total of 11,000 tonnes of C0² emissions….one tonne for every km of the journey. 

That’s what I did in 2005 for the 12,000 km Tour D’Afrique from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa. With your donations, we were able to raise $35,000 for the Steven Lewis Foundation’s efforts to stem Aids in Africa, as well as for our own Sault Ste. Marie Cancer Society.

As I ride the Silk Route, we’ll accumulate all your emissions pledges. Collectively, we can generate a positive environmental impact that hopefully will inspire others in our community and around the world to do the same. 

What does an 11,000-tonne drop in C02 emissions mean to us and the world?

For starters, it’s the equivalent of taking 2,200 cars off the road for a year.  That’s a noble cause and a really big achievement. But if each of us says "YOU BET I CAN", we’ll do even better by pledging to save two, three or more tonnes of emissions for every kilometer traveled.  So, we could save 22,000 or 33,000 or 44,000 or more tonnes of emissions.  Wouldn’t that be an earthly achievement!

Is it difficult for a person or household to save 1 tonne of C02 emissions?

Not really – and you don’t have to do it all at once. Here are a few examples.

• Washing your laundry in cold water instead of hot water for a year can reduce your C0² emissions by almost .5 tonnes.
• Turning down the thermostat on your hot water heater to 49 degrees can reduce your C02 emissions by almost .25 tonnes.
• Replacing your shower heads with low-flow models can reduce your emissions by .3 tonnes.

What comes first -- the journey or the cause?

Organizing this plan has been harder than expected. The opportunity to be a part of the inaugural Silk Route Excursion really tweaked my sense of adventure. 

But I also need a strong reason to justify my bicycle trip.  Living in harmony with nature and love for our natural world have been integral elements of my life.  So it follows that I find the profound impact of global warming caused by human impact alarming. 

There is a growing awareness of planetary disruption caused by our "human" activities.  Hence, the decision to ride for something I believe is crucial to our lives.

Global warming issues give me lots to contemplate and a clear rationale for riding the 11,000 km Silk Route Excursion.  Nonetheless, I sometimes feel a sense of futility in assuming advocacy for such a daunting challenge.

Is it easier to stay neutral?

Deep within, I believe it is almost impossible for the world to respond in a timely manner to the havoc predicted for our planet by the year 2050 if global warming is not reversed. 

While it is easy to describe to people what they can individually do to help stop global warming, it is more difficult to fathom that they will substantially change their lifestyles.

We’re all too possession-driven….too much debris and too many excessive actions.

At the same time, it is almost overwhelming to consider the urgent and universal policies and decisions that are required by governments and corporations who must invent new ways, legislate more profoundly, and ultimately restrict choices – at the same time asking individual taxpayers to pay more to support substantial new policies that may help to reverse global warming.

With all the current expansion in the global economy (especially evident in areas where I will be bicycling in Asia), it’s no longer a matter of what we can all eventually agree upon – it is what we all have to do now.  At the same time, the irreversible threshold of Global Warming is about to be crossed.  Perhaps you share the same frustrations.

The human side.

What right do I have to encourage people to make fundamental and sustained changes in the way they live?  Under the cloud of the Global Warming Crisis…with the threat that many of our offspring will live to experience unprecedented human suffering and environmental challenges in the next half century, is it all as futile as it seems?

For me, the only way forward is to go back to the roots of my being...nature.
Perhaps you’ll justify this mission in your own mind by doing the same. We each have to think more deeply about our how our personal footprints affect the earth.

The only way this can happen is to return to a deeper consciousness of Gaia, the interconnected wholeness of the planet.  We ourselves are constructed of the same earthly materials, elaborately designed.  If the support system collapses, the delicate balance of earth, humans and atmospheric conditions are lost.

   
Gaia Theory: According to Gaia theory, all living beings in the biosphere are interconnected, keeping the planet in balance as if it were one living organism.  According to this principle everything we do affects the whole. Instead of being part of the problem each of us can be part of the solution towards a healthy planet and there are so many practical things we can do.

This is why we have to begin by feeling deeply about everything natural.  We can start by un-learning. We can question our "human-civilized" habits and find our own spiritual connectedness to life and to the habits and ideas that contribute to sustaining the earth.  Is all the material abundance necessary?  Do we live for your own values, or simply respond to societal influences?

It won’t matter in the long run…because either we’ll learn to live more thoughtfully, or the Global Warming issue will never be resolved.  We must feel deeply about every living thing, so we can re-connect to the natural world, the source of our evolution.

…so others become aware we are resolute about changing the world.

LET’S SHOW LEADERSHIP BY EXPRESSING OUR PLEDGES AS A CULTURAL COMMITMENT

JJ Hilsinger, July 25, 2007