Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Bloomberg Green advocating voluntary poverty and a return to 19th century transport solutions, to solve the great climate crisis.

It’s Time to Treat E-Bikes Like Vehicles

As gas prices surge, electric bikes — especially cargo models that can carry kids and groceries — could be replacing car trips and saving fuel. Why won’t federal officials promote them? 

By David Zipper 15 March 2022, 22:00 GMT+10

With gasoline prices surging following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. elected officials are trying everything from gas tax “holidays” to dipping into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves to placate drivers worried about overstretched budgets. The Biden administration has suggested that long-term salvation lies in dumping gas-powered vehicles entirely: “When we have electric cars powered by clean energy, we will never have to worry about gas prices again,” the White House recently tweeted. “And autocrats like Putin won’t be able to use fossil fuels as weapons against other nations.”

In the meantime, Americans are rediscovering classic fuel-saving habits, like opting for smaller vehicles or taking transit. But one promising approach is all but absent from policy discussions: shifting car trips toward increasingly popular e-bikes and e-cargo bikes, which run on pedal power augmented by rechargeable batteries. It’s an omission that speaks volumes about how underappreciated battery-boosted bicycles remain in Washington, even among the most climate-friendly politicians.

…

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-15/the-electric-vehicles-we-need-now-are-e-bikes

What a sad, small minded vision of the future – the United States of America withering into a nation of energy impoverished peasants.

What happened to reaching for the stars, flying automobiles, a life a leisure and luxury that even the emperors of old could never have aspired to?

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people choosing to ride an e-Bike. I used to ride bikes for leisure, until an injury stopped me. But riding a bike should be a choice, one of many options, it should not be a choice which is forced on us because we cannot afford anything better.

Wealth is choices. You can choose to ride your e-Bike. But if you are wealthy, you can also choose to drive your automobile, without worrying about the cost of fuel.

Poverty, the opposite of wealth, is having your choices limited by cost, feeling constrained by fuel and energy you can no longer afford, living small lives with a limited outlook, like a bunch of medieval peasants tilling the land for our betters. Or like 19th century wage slaves working like battery hens in their warehouses, packaging or producing the products which make them wealthy.

Going by the number of private jets which clutter our airports during climate conferences, our “betters” have no intention of giving up any of their privileges. There is no reason any of us should fall for their climate falsehoods and give up any of our privileges, while they laugh in our faces.

The current sky high price of fuel and energy is totally fixable. All our politicians have to do is get out of the way, and let our entrepreneurs drill for the oil we so badly need at this time. Supply and demand. Up the supply, and the price will drop, as it did under President Trump.

If and when some technical genius comes up with a better solution than fossil fuel, we’ll listen. My only loyalty to fossil fuel is convenience. But living small lives and accepting substandard solutions because we can’t afford better is not a vision of the future I want to embrace.

Until that day something better is available, start drilling, and stop messing with our lives and stop inflicting needless misery on ordinary people like ourselves.