Guests: Marc Peruzzi; Maria Caffrey; Salvador Rueda
It’s been a rather outrageous week here in the U.S. – and, while I like to keep things on an even keel, I’ve had to acknowledge that the “outrageousness” appears to cross all lines.
One of the themes of this strange and unsettling time is lawlessness – it seems to be showing up in the sheer number of deaths of both cyclists and pedestrians where drivers are beyond careless and distracted.
This week, we hear from Marc Peruzzi, a freelance journalist who covers many aspects Cyclists Are Migrating To Dirt, sparked a very lively conversation on our Facebook Page as comment after comment agreed with him that the roads have become scary and paths, gravel, and dirt may be the only things savings the sport.
Another discouraging theme of the times is the concerted effort to discredit science and suppress facts. It never occurred to me that I would be saying climate scientist and whistleblower in the same sentence; but, when I read about Dr. Maria Caffrey, who worked at the National Park Service for 8 years, had her work censored, and finally filed a whistleblower case this past summer, it became too compelling a story not to follow.
Recently, Maria published an article for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ blog, titled Cultivating Censorship at the National Park Service: New Acting Director Issues Controversial Memo”. Since we just learned that the NPS is allowing eBikes in all the parks, I wanted to know if there was any connection.
Lastly, I am able to offer a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Our friend in Florida, Christine Acosta, spent some time with Salvador Rueda, the urban ecology director in Barcelona, Spain. Christine and her family traveled to Spain a few months ago and Christine was able to corral Senor Rueda for a chat. She had originally learned about him and his work at the Vision Zero conference in NY a couple of years ago.
Mr. Rueda has some far-reaching and forward-thinking ideas about how to make our cities more livable, from calming traffic to adding trees. The conversation is filled with ideas we can adopt.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:40 — 30.8MB)