Al Gore's Nobel Prize, and a British report on obesity, both indicate growing awareness of the need to change our lifestyles. Bicycles have a big part to play
You may not have read it here first, but I still think Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize is worth a comment. Former US Vice-President Gore shares the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in recognition of their work in spreading awareness about the human causes of climate change and the need for far-reaching action to combat it.
I watched Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth recently. There have been (disputed) allegations that it contains a few factual errors but this barely dilutes the overall impact. As its focus is mostly on understanding the causes and consequences of climate change, rather than what we need to do about it, there’s only a brief mention of cycling at the end.
Last week a Committee of UK Members of Parliament produced a report on another growing problem, that of obesity. One of their recommendations was that the Government should do more to ensure that it meets its existing target of trebling the number of people who cycle by 2010.
Whether anything will actually happen remains to be seen, but I do get a sense, at least here in the UK and across Europe, that more and more people are becoming aware of the far-reaching consequences of a culture that, for far too long, has been excessively focused on the car. Cycling is not the only answer but it can have a big role to play in improving both our own health and that of the planet.
