WORLDFIRE - Chapter 8
Tranquility Trail
“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz
The short hop from Lawrence to Kansas City landed me in a construction zone on the outskirts of the city with a reporter from CNN.com on the line. Not wanting to lose precious daylight riding time, I did the interview while weaving through orange construction cones. I was on my way to the Prescott Passive House, a modernistic structure designed and built by students at the University of Kansas to reduce energy consumption for heating and cooling by a stunning 90 percent. Even more impressively, their goal is to make airtight homes like this affordable for people earning 80 percent or less of the area’s median income. These students weren’t just designing green housing. They were democratizing green housing.
I was met there by a news van from a local Fox affiliate, which ran a nice story on the ride. Because I kept my cool, the news crew filming me had no idea how perilously close I actually came to tipping the trike onto its side while cutting a sharp curve on the steeply sloped driveway, which would have given them quite a different story! I couldn’t believe the high level of media interest in my trek, especially since I was operating with no organized media support. To be able to generate so much positive coverage with a cold call or unannounced drop-in made me wonder just how much coverage my mission might have produced with a fully staffed media outreach effort. Then again, maybe spontaneity was the key to my success.
Entering Missouri, I spent most of the day navigating the city’s traffic-clogged streets, where the unique sight of my little yellow pod elicited a seemingly endless stream of excited shouts and friendly whistles from people on front porches and walking down sidewalks. I waved and shouted my appreciation back. I was struck by how, in a racially diverse community, everyone hailing me was Black. The enthusiasm buoyed my spirits. Eventually growing impatient with the traffic, I pulled into a convenience store to inquire about the most bike-friendly route out of the city. Two different people recommended Highway 71, so I made tracks for it. Bad idea. Once on the highway, I encountered a shoulder littered with wood and metal debris and populated by tire-eating drainage grates. More dangerous still were the speeding cars recklessly racing off the countless exit ramps. It was a cyclist’s nightmare. After a mile or two of dodging the shrapnel, grates, and cars, I had had enough of the madness and just managed to peel off an exit ramp without getting flattened.
Free from the death trap, the ramp spat me out onto Prospect Avenue, a road I had been specifically advised to avoid due to it being in the “rough part of town.” As it turns out, Prospect would become one of my favorite stretches of the entire journey. Directly parallel to Highway 71, the avenue was a relative sea of calm in a neighborhood with homes with front porches where I could actually engage people. On the highway the only sounds I could hear were the roar of vehicle engines. Here, in what appeared to be a predominantly African-American community, all I heard were shouts of appreciation for the rocket trike. One group of locals was so animated, I did a U-turn to say hello and double-check my directions. Within minutes, a small crowd had gathered, excitedly peppering me with questions about the trike and what I was doing. The richness of that energizing interaction made me wish I had more time to spend in the inner cities, despite all the car traffic.
From Prospect Avenue I eventually made it to the outskirts of Kansas City, gunning for a campground with miles to go, but I was starting to lose the light on a hilly road that was already unsafe with blind curves and no shoulder to ride on. As my options for shelter began to fade, I spotted a large complex to my left called Unity Village. Wondering if it might be related to Unity Church in Boulder, I rolled down the driveway. More serendipitous synchronicity: it was not only the national headquarters for Unity Church, but it had affordable guest rooms available. Better yet, the Unity Village Hotel & Conference Center was one of the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified hotels ever built in the U.S.
Energy efficiency may not be as sexy as solar or wind power, but it is key to a green industrial revolution. Did you know that energy efficiency is America’s third largest electric power resource (behind coal and methane gas)? Here is why negawatts matter more than megawatts: the more efficient we make our homes, vehicles, appliances, businesses, and factories, the less energy is required to power them. We accomplish this by strengthening building codes, energy standards, and fuel standards. We also do this by reusing the huge unharnessed resource of excess heat in the industrial sector. Here’s something I didn’t know: nearly two-thirds of the energy produced in the U.S. is lost as waste heat! We can do better than this. Even more important than energy efficiency is energy conservation to reduce energy demand. The less we use, the less we need in the first place. But for the energy we do need, efficiency is the smartest, least cost option.
Buildings are responsible for nearly 40 percent of global carbon emissions. Think about how many American homes are at this very moment leaking costly energy because they lack basic insulation. Then think about how much money we would keep in our wallets and how many good-paying jobs we would create by simply weatherizing all of those homes. Consider all the industries out there that are currently wasting excess heat–a byproduct of most commercial and industrial processes–and how much energy we would save by capturing and reusing that wasted heat energy. Yet there is as yet no federal program to weatherize and maximize the efficiency of every home and business in America. The closest thing we have is the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program for low-income households, which boasts of improving the quality of life for 7 million families since its inception (saving the average household $372 annually). Imagine how many more lives would be improved with a comprehensive national program.
To put the efficacy of efficiency into perspective, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy calculates that absent the “energy efficiency investments we have made since 1990, we would need the equivalent of 313 additional large [500 MW] power plants today to meet the country’s energy needs.” More than 2 million Americans were employed in the energy efficiency sector in 2021, four times as many jobs as the solar and wind industries combined. And that is just current jobs. Research conducted by the group Food & Water Watch found that a $500 billion federal investment in energy efficiency would generate more than 20 million jobs in the next decade and a half, a roughly 20% uptick in overall U.S. jobs, with most of them high-paying construction and manufacturing jobs. What’s not to like about any of that?
Not content to wait for Washington, DC, the state of California has already created many of those green jobs by becoming the nation’s energy efficiency showcase. As reported by the Natural Resources Defense Council: “Thanks in part to California’s wide-ranging energy-saving efforts, the state has kept per capita electricity consumption nearly flat over the past 40 years while the other 49 states increased their average per capita use by more than 50 percent.” Amazingly, California achieved this while continuing to grow its economy. The state’s plan is for all new homes to be zero net energy starting in 2020, with all new commercial buildings being zero net energy starting in 2030. California defines a zero net energy building as one that “produces as much energy as it consumes over the course of a year,” achieved “through high levels of energy efficiency” and “the addition of clean, on-site renewable power generation, typically solar PV.” My home county of Boulder went even further by making it a law for all new homes constructed in the county to be net zero energy by 2022. The group Architecture 2030 has challenged the global building and architecture community to make all new buildings and major renovations carbon neutral (consuming no fossil fuels to operate) by 2030. So as you can see, the intelligent drive for maximizing the “resource” of energy efficiency is at long last picking up steam.
Settling into my quiet energy efficient room, I was relieved to be away from cars after 70 miles of pedaling, mostly on city streets. Lying there, I noticed that a sore right knee and a toothache that had flared up early in the ride were both inflamed again, but there was not much I could do about either. By now I had come to accept that managing pain was just part of the journey. My best medicine was sleep.
I spent the next morning at Unity Village editing videos and updating my blog before again hitting the road. It was another bright, beautiful day, with more special red-tailed hawk encounters (Hawks #10 and #11) reminding me of the mystery of it all. Occasionally I hit a stretch of road where the narrow shoulder forced me to ride on rumble strips, but these thankfully never lasted long. A regular bike could have negotiated them easily, but the trike’s two front wheels were spaced too far apart to circumvent the pesky bumps, which caused my craft to vibrate up and down like a jackhammer. The only way to avoid them was to occupy a lane of the road, which complicated my daily détente with semis and cars, which were never far away to begin with.
I no longer remember where it happened–my best guess is in Missouri–but there was one harrowing experience I didn’t blog about or mention to reporters at the time to keep from encouraging copycats. Maybe because it only happened once, I quickly put it out of my mind, but I was not a happy camper when it went down. I was pedaling on the shoulder of a rural two-lane highway when up ahead of me I saw one car pass another, both headed in my direction. I waited for the passing car to merge back into its proper lane, but it didn’t. Instead, it stayed in the passing lane and sped up. It soon became clear that the driver of the speeding car, set to pass me within inches, was playing a game of chicken. I briefly held my lane on the shoulder, then seeing he had no intention of veering away, swerved to safety onto the grassy median as the offending vehicle roared by only a few feet away. It was the only intentionally dangerous encounter I would ever have with a car or truck. More shocked than angry, it left me momentarily shaken, but I just chalked it up to mindless recklessness. No one was hurt, so I let it go. We’ve all done stupid stuff in our lives.
Rolling into Warrensburg, Missouri around dinnertime, I pulled into a sandwich shop to grab a quick bite to eat, with the hope of making a campground eleven more miles up the road before dark. As I was standing in line to pay, a man who introduced himself as Shane Collins said he had seen me on the highway and wanted to buy my meal. We chatted in line about my mission. No matter how often these spontaneous expressions of generosity occurred, they never failed to move me. Minutes later a woman walked through the door asking if I was the owner of the yellow trike parked outside. The woman, Kim Ream, told me she had seen me pedaling on the shoulder of the highway. “You should have seen the looks on the faces of the drivers you passed,” she said. But it wasn’t me people were looking at. They were gaping at the rocket trike. The trike had a magnetic quality all its own.
A short while later, I passed a sign announcing the Missouri Veterans Home at the next exit and felt a strong pull. Hoping the rocket trike might brighten up a few veterans’ days, I decided to drop in unannounced. Rolling the trike up to the front door, I walked in and asked if I could bring it inside to share with some of the 200 retired vets housed there. A staff member immediately got on the intercom and announced, “A rocket trike is in the lobby with a guy who’s supporting veterans and pedaling across the country.” You may recall that one of the planks in my online petition was “SUPPORTING OUR VETERANS: Veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan have earned retraining and re-employment in the green jobs sector.” What happened next is hard to put into words, but it was profoundly moving. Veterans from several different wars began rolling their strollers and wheelchairs into the lobby. To the dozen or so who mustered, I shared a few words about what I was doing and why and answered their questions about the trike, which everyone seemed to enjoy. This was followed by some very special one-on-one conversations with Americans who know the true meaning of sacrifice. I made a point of thanking each of them individually for their selfless service to our nation.
Since relatives are allowed to overnight in a guest room, one of the men, 94-year-old World War II veteran Frank Spicer, made a spirited attempt to “adopt” me as his grandson, but the staff wasn’t buying it. I would have treasured the extra time to learn more about the lives of these veterans, but before leaving that night I had the honor of interviewing this C-47 pilot about his heroic World War II exploits. As night descended, Frank recounted his harrowing experiences flying paratroopers, ammunition, and supplies to Omaha Beach on D-Day:
“The first trip we made with paratroopers and there wasn’t any activity on Omaha Beach… we put those first paratroopers down ten minutes after six on D-Day. And we made five trips that day. We flew 18 hours. We carried all kinds of supplies. The last trip we pulled a glider, and a jeep, and twelve men aboard the glider. I hope they got down, but there was a world of action on Omaha Beach when we started the second trip, and there was more action as the night went on.”
Here is what this member of the Greatest Generation had to say about transitioning off of fossil fuels and providing green jobs for veterans returning from tours of duty overseas:
“Mr. Weis has made a trip here from Boulder, Colorado, with his unique bicycle and we are so glad that he stopped by to visit with us, and we are of the opinion that we need to be conscious of trying to develop our energy sources to get away from fossil fuels and such things as that… we’re going to bring a lot of people back from Afghanistan and all around the world–we’ve got boys and girls and people in the service that are coming back home and we need to have some jobs for ‘em. And it looks to me like that we ought to be in the business of trying to figure out how to capture this solar energy that is going to waste. And it should not be a big problem with the science that we have available to us.”
What better way to thank our soldiers for their selfless service to our nation than to have their backs when they come home? How is it that so many of our vets, who have sacrificed so much for our country, including sometimes their limbs, end up being homeless and hopeless in America? How is it that they become invisible in our midst? Are they just considered heroes the day they come home or when they’re off fighting in faraway wars? What ever happened to the concept of taking care of our own? Too many veterans in our nation are living lives of quiet desperation with no hope. As I see it, the very least we owe our servicemembers for all they do for the rest of us is a guaranteed green job to every vet who wants one.
Frank ended the interview by talking about the need to protect our children and grandchildren and reminding me that “everybody was in it” during the war effort:
“Mr. Weis, he has an agenda that he thinks that his generation ought to be interested in, and I think they are, because we have lots of young people work here that seem to be a little bit apprehensive about what future years are gonna bring to them and their children. I’ve got a granddaughter and I worry about her, and if she has any offspring, and so forth, what kind of a future they will have. We need to be concerned about it and do something that is meaningful.”
A phrase popularized by former TV anchor Tom Brokaw, “The Greatest Generation,” is the title of a book he wrote about American men and women who came of age during the Great Depression and either fought in World War II or contributed to the war effort on the home front. He believes it is “the greatest generation any society has ever produced” because they fought and labored not for fame or fortune, but because it was the “right thing to do.” I believe that, too. The heroic sacrifice of the Greatest Generation serves as an inspiring model for how our generation can help save humanity from ecological collapse by becoming the Next Greatest Generation. Can you picture yourself as part of such a heroic cause?
Members of the Greatest Generation are too polite to say it, but I will: it’s time for our generation to toughen up. When our freedoms were threatened during World War II, the American people united to vanquish our common foes. Many made the ultimate sacrifice. Today we face an enemy even more lethal than what we faced then–a looming climate apocalypse–yet too many are pretending that no sacrifice is required. Today more than just our freedom, our survival hangs in the balance, and nothing short of an all-hands-on-deck national climate mobilization is going to save us. Just as during World War II, combating our common foe will involve collective sacrifice. Cultures are not transformed without something being ceded. But sacrifice is not a dirty word. Sacrifice is sacred. To give of oneself for the sake of others is noble. Earlier generations gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy today. Who among us would not forgo some of our habitual conveniences to safeguard the existence of everyone to follow?
It might surprise you to learn just how seriously America’s defense agencies view the global climate threat. The U.S. Department of Defense has identified the changing climate as an urgent and growing threat to our national security, one that is already contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over food and water. It has been identified by the Pentagon as a threat multiplier with immediate risks to our national security, and by the Department of Homeland Security as a top homeland security risk. In 2016, the National Intelligence Council asserted that national security risks linked to climatic changes would arise mostly from extreme weather events in coming years. They also warned that the possibility of abrupt, dramatic climate change could not be discounted. That same year, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a climate change directive establishing policies and assigning responsibilities to help safeguard the economy, infrastructure, and natural resources of the United States.
As far back as 2007, a national team of security analysts was warning the world that “outright chaos” could be the consequence of continued climate inaction. A non-partisan institute advised by 43 military, national security, homeland security, intelligence, and foreign policy experts called The Center for Climate and Security has similarly identified the changing climate as a high probability, high impact risk, with large and widespread impacts on America’s security. The group warned that changes to the climate threaten to make fragile states like Syria even more fragile, leading to the potential for destabilizing violence. In 2016, the Center’s Advisory Group recommended that the incoming Trump administration “comprehensively address the security risks of climate change at all levels of national security planning, elevate and integrate attention to these risks across the US government, strengthen existing institutions and create new ones for addressing them.”
In 2017, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis testified to the U.S. Senate during his confirmation hearing that the changing climate is a challenge requiring a whole-of-government response. In 2019, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commissioned a report called “Implications of Climate Change for the U.S. Army” that warned that “the Department of Defense (DoD) is precariously unprepared for the national security implications of climate change-induced global security challenges.” One challenge identified is the vulnerability of the U.S. power grid to “collapse,” which the report warned could “challenge the military’s ability to continue operations.” My point in sharing all this is that the national defense community is not debating the reality of climate breakdown. It is preparing for it. In a rational world, the U.S. Congress would be similarly scrambling to pass some sort of National Climate Defense Act.
After saying goodbye to my would-be grandfather, Frank, a short ride in the dark landed me at a run-down motel 44 miles from where I had started the day at Unity Village. I rolled up to my door only to find the room too small to accommodate the rocket trike without some assistance. Seeing my predicament, one guest helpfully backed his truck away from the door to make room for another guest to wordlessly help me lift the trike over a bed and into my room. The perceptive kindness of those two gentlemen was a poignant reminder to me that we are all in this together.
Rising early, I made tracks for the town of Sedalia, excited about the prospect of spending days pedaling through woods and fields on a dedicated bike corridor with no vehicle noise or exhaust to contend with. Stretching 237 miles through the state of Missouri, Katy Trail State Park is not only one of the state’s crown jewels, it is America’s premier rail-to-trail bike corridor. A converted corridor of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, much of the scenic trail parallels the Missouri River. Adding to the trail’s allure is how much of it follows the route of intrepid explorers Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition journey. Happily for me, many of the trail’s more than 200 miles paralleled my route east.
If every state in the Union had bike trails like this, people could safely transport themselves under their own power from sea to shining sea. Imagine a modern-day Civilian Conservation Corps (the wildly popular public works relief program established by FDR during the Great Depression to provide meaningful work for unemployed Americans) dedicated not only to greening America’s crumbling infrastructure, but to creating and maintaining a national network of bike trails like Katy, along with the campgrounds and other public facilities needed to support such a trail. With all the access such a network would provide to restaurants, inns, B&Bs, and other local businesses, states, cities, and towns could all vie for a slice of the economic pie and the jobs it would create. The Katy Trail alone attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. The Show Me State is showing how it’s done.
I have long been thinking about the need for a Climate Conservation Corps modeled after the original Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Part of FDR’s New Deal during the 1930s and 1940s, the CCC was dedicated to the conservation of America’s natural resources. In the nine years the program was in effect, three million young men were gainfully employed in countless public works projects, including controlling soil erosion, protecting streams and wildlife habitat, fighting fires, and planting more than three billion trees. If you have spent any time in a city, state or national park, there is a good chance you have benefitted from the handiwork of the CCC, as it constructed many of the recreational facilities we still enjoy today on our public lands. The need to put millions of young women and men to work conserving our climate could not be more pressing. 13 years after my ride, the Biden administration would in fact establish an American Climate Corps, but Biden’s plan only committed to putting a paltry 20,000 young people to work, not the millions we need. There is no end of critical work crying out to be done, from weatherizing homes and office buildings; to restoring forests; to regenerating the soil; to planting hemp victory gardens; to installing solar projects; to establishing zero waste programs; to restoring coastal wetlands; to building bike trails like Katy.
Rolling onto the Katy trail at one of its more than two-dozen trailheads, I entered cycling nirvana. Riding over a carpet of crunchy autumn leaves, I blissfully pedaled away for hours on a trail made of chat (soft crushed limestone) under a multicolored canopy of trees. Shaded by the beautiful forest, I glided past a series of stunningly beautiful limestone bluffs, my senses tantalized by the telltale fall leaf smell. Wanting my first experience with Katy to be pure, I did not engage the electric-assist motor once that day. Instead, I remedied a mid-day energy crash with a packet of almond butter, a handful of dried apricots, and a few sugary dates, ending the day at a trailside campsite in the town of New Franklin, 72 miles from where I had started. Rolling into camp just as the sun dropped below the horizon, I passed some Boy Scouts in a field shooting off a rocket, which sparked fond memories of shooting off rockets with my siblings when I was a kid. After pitching my tent, I strolled over to the camp of two friendly fellow cyclists who had passed me earlier in the day. Sitting around a blazing campfire, the three of us enjoyed some good fireside conversation over ice-cold beers. When we finally called it a night, so ended my most enjoyable ride day of the journey thus far.
Getting a late morning start out of camp, I rolled up to a water spigot to fill up my water bladder and was soon surrounded by Boy Scouts admiring the trike. Their scoutmasters rounded up some more boys and asked me to say a few words about my mission. The scouts listened intently to what I had to say (it probably didn’t hurt that I told them I used to be a Boy Scout myself), then a bunch of them high-fived me as I pedaled away.
A little further down the trail, I encountered the short but picturesque Katy Trail Tunnel, which creates its own kind of microclimate. About ten seconds before entering the tunnel, I felt the air suddenly get cool and stay that way until I popped out the other side. I later passed a cool-looking house made out of an old train car. Having missed breakfast, I pedaled for about an hour on an empty tank, before compensating for it with a big brunch at a trailside cafe/bike shop in the hamlet of Rocheport. Fifteen more miles of pedaling brought me to a trailside Thai stand everyone had been raving about. After topping off my tank with a second brunch there, I encountered a colorful display of old boats sticking out of the ground, aptly named “Boathenge.” Further down the trail, I spied a handmade sign on a post announcing a blues band, the “Naked Hippies,” were playing a free show down by the river. It was a little after the announced start time, I love the blues, and who could resist the lure of naked hippies?
So I took a short detour to check them out. Minutes later, I rolled up to a raised stage on the banks of the Missouri River with a band warming up and locals kicking back in lawn chairs and knocking back beers. But I admit to being a little disappointed to find them clothed. After enjoying a few songs, I rolled up to the stage during a break to drop a couple of bucks into the tip jar, which prompted some fun banter with members of the band who seemed as taken with my mission as they were with the trike. One even played me a little ditty on her saxophone, and another on his harmonica, as I made my way back up the hill toward the trail. Arriving as I was leaving was a friendly couple who asked if they could snap a picture. What transpired next was the kind of interaction I experienced pretty much every day.
Bob: “That’s quite a rig. Did you make it?”
Me: “No, I wish I could say I did. I guess I could say that, but it wouldn’t be true… I’m riding it to Washington, DC.”
Jan: “You are?”
Bob: “It’s mechanical, it’s not electric?”
Me: “It’s got an electric assist motor, but I pedal mostly.”
Bob: “It kinda helps along a little.”
Me: “Helps along, yeah, on the hills…. RideForRenewables.com. I’ve got an online petition calling for a 100 percent renewable America by 2020.”
Jan: “Sounds like a plan.”
Me: “I’d love it if you’d sign it.”
Jan: “I will.”
Me: “Thanks.”
Further down the trail, I encountered a cyclist I had met the day before who was writing a book about the Katy Trail. Gary told me about a bike hostel in the town of Tebbetts he thought I could probably make by nightfall. When I asked if he knew of any ATMs along the trail (many of the small businesses that populate the trail operate on a cash basis), he bowled me over by emptying his wallet so I would have enough cash to cover the hostel. I could not thank him enough.
Near the end of the day, I encountered a beautiful snake on the trail soaking up the last of the day’s warmth and pulled over to admire one of my favorite creatures. I fear for snakes and other wildlife, wondering how they will fare in a hotter world. For it is not just the fate of humanity that is at stake. Species too numerous to count have already been driven to extinction from human climate manipulation. As far back as 2004, scientists warned that up to 37% of the planet’s life forms (over 1 million species) could be wiped off the face of the Earth by the year 2050. The World Wildlife Fund and Zoological Society of London report a staggeringly half of the world’s wildlife has already disappeared in the past 40 years due to human impacts, including changes to the climate. It might shock you to learn that currently only a tiny four percent of the Earth’s mammal biomass is made up of wildlife. Humans constitute 36 percent, and domesticated livestock 60 percent. It is one thing to be knowingly driving ourselves to extinction. It is quite another to be taking down the rest of creation with us. Do not those with whom we share this planet have just as much right to live here as we do? It makes me wonder what this carnage to other-than-human communities is costing our souls.
Climatic changes and population pressures are leading to the planet’s sixth mass extinction. The extinction rate today is up to 1,000 times higher than the natural rate. A 2015 study reported “global society has started to destroy species of other organisms at an accelerating rate, initiating a mass extinction episode unparalleled for 65 million years.” The study’s authors warned: “Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species and to alleviate pressures on their populations – notably habitat loss, overexploitation for economic gain, and climate change. All of these are related to human population size and growth, which increases consumption (especially among the rich).” The lead author of the report, Gerardo Ceballos, said, "If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on." I hope you caught that last part. Even if you don’t care about other species, you probably care about your own.
In a 2016 New York Times op-ed pointing to “the great, wrathful demon that threatens all our lives, human-forced climate change,” Dr. E.O. Wilson, the world’s most famous biologist, proposed an audacious solution with the capacity to save not just humanity, but 85% of all species on Earth. He called it the “Half-Earth Project.” Contending that it “can be put together from large and small fragments around the world to remain relatively natural, without removing people living there or changing property rights,” he reminded us that this approach “has been tested on a much smaller scale at the national and state park levels within the United States.”
I had the honor of getting to know the late, great scientist when I served as executive director of the National Forest Protection Alliance and recruited him to serve on our advisory board. Here is what he wrote in Sierra Magazine elaborating on his exciting plan:
“The Half-Earth proposal offers a first, emergency solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: By setting aside half the planet in reserve, we can save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival. Why one-half? Why not one-quarter or one-third? Because large plots, whether they already stand or can be created from corridors connecting smaller plots, harbor many more ecosystems and the species composing them at a sustainable level... At one-half and above, life on Earth enters the safe zone.”
Ed made a case for his project similar to the one I make for an emergency climate mobilization:
“Half-Earth is a goal—and people understand and appreciate goals. They need a victory, not just news that progress is being made. It is human nature to yearn for finality, something achieved by which their anxieties and fears are put to rest... It is our nature to choose large goals that, while difficult, are potentially game changing and universal in benefit. To strive against odds on behalf of all of life would be humanity at its most noble.”
In 2019, another group of scientists proposed a similarly ambitious project, a “science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth.” They call it the Global Deal for Nature. It “targets 30% of Earth to be formally protected and an additional 20% designated as climate stabilization areas, by 2030, to stay below 1.5°C.” When asked by Newsweek how realistic he thought the plan’s goals were, the study’s lead author, Eric Dinerstein, replied:
“I think very realistic. So imagine this was 1940 and not 2019. When we saw what was happening with the rise of Nazism and totalitarian regimes, we overnight turned factories that were producing cars, boats and luxury appliances into making Jeeps, tanks, munitions and warplanes. That was a war footing, it was what was needed. So we already have it, I believe, in our societal and cultural DNA, to step up and make these dramatic changes. You just have to replace the move to war armament with building solar panels, wind turbines and developing new battery technology that solves the storage problem. And you do conservation at a scale we are capable of. That basically is the prescription for saving life on Earth and saving our climate.”
Rewilding initiatives like Half-Earth are just the kind of outside-the-box thinking we most need right now. Given how little we actually know about interdependence between species, it would be the gravest of errors to think our fate is not somehow married to that of our fellow planetary travelers, for there is no future for humans on a species-barren planet. We need to follow the lead of the Earth’s original conservationists. Despite comprising only 5% to 6% of the world’s population, Indigenous Peoples protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Protecting biodiversity also protects humans. Scientists now have evidence that saving wild animals like bison and whales greatly boosts natural carbon drawdown, meaning saving biodiversity is saving the climate, and vice versa. Individually, we can support biodiversity in smaller ways by doing things as simple as putting up a birdfeeder, planting wildflowers or growing a garden. I grew my first garden during Covid and totally fell in love with it. I had fun landscaping it with local rocks and logs, not knowing it would become a habitat for wildlife. A family of little toads moved in (before a snake moved in on them). If you have a yard, start your own Half-Yard project with the goal of setting half of it aside for wildlife. Join the organic lawn movement. Or convert your lawn to native vegetation. The critters in your yard will thank you.
After bidding my snake friend goodbye, it was a race against the light to make it to the shelter before dark, a race I would lose. As the sun set, the moon rose, and I pedaled the last of the day’s 63 miles in the dark. Soaked in sweat, with one headlight drained of power and the other not far behind, I was relieved to finally spot the Turner Katy Trail Shelter. I had expected to roll up to a darkened hostel. Instead, bikes were scattered across the front yard, with a warm glow of light in the window. Inside I encountered a group of friendly University of Nebraska students. We chatted about a green energy moon shot while they generously hooked me up with some pancakes for dinner. Several of the students shared their disdain for the two major political parties and thanked me for traveling to Washington, DC to be their “voice.” I told them the pleasure was all mine.
Taking advantage of a desk and Internet access, I spent the following morning at the hostel updating my blog and digging out of my email backlog. Office time always cost me valuable daylight ride time, but it was just as important as the pedaling. After fueling up with snacks at a trailside store, I hit it hard for the next four hours, eager to make a trailside microbrewery in the tiny town of Augusta by dinnertime. I even kicked in the electric-assist motor for some extra speed, but couldn’t resist the temptation of a trailside ice cream shop, where I pulled over for a vanilla malt. Around sunset, with 67 more miles behind me, I finally rolled up to the Augusta Brewing Co. and took a seat at the patio bar, ravenous for some solid food.
My plan was to pedal five more miles after dinner in the dark to a state park campground until the bar owner kindly offered to let me camp on his property at the bottom of the hill. After pitching my tent under a beautiful moonlit sky, I strolled back up the hill to the bar. As I was enjoying my dinner, I got to talking with a local Harley biker who, upon hearing about my mission, offered to put me up at his house. In the small world category, we learned we had both experienced the mystical Dunton hot springs in Colorado’s high country when it was still wild (the ghost town has since been developed into a luxury resort for the rich and famous). After finishing our beers, Mark and I loaded the trike onto the bed of his pick-up for the mile or so drive to his home. There I had a second dinner courtesy of his wife, Jan (in case you’re wondering, my Mom used to call me “Stomach” growing up, a nickname I never outgrew). I took this unexpected opportunity to wash my clothes and shower before collapsing into a feathery soft bed for a deep slumber.
With the exception of achy legs, I woke up feeling rested and refreshed the following morning. Mark and Jan both worked early, so I had the house to myself. Trusting people, they had urged me to sleep in and to just lock up when I left. I spent a quiet morning catching up on emails, making phone calls to St. Louis media outlets, and playing with their animal menagerie of five dogs and a cat. Later, on the leaf-covered trail, I came upon the Labadie coal plant across the Missouri River and made a short detour to a high point called Klondike Park for a better view. While climbing the hill to the park, a couple out for a walk flagged me down to talk. As it turns out, the man knew an anchor at Fox News in St. Louis, who he dialed up on the spot to pitch having me on their program. That serendipitous phone call resulted in an invitation for me to appear on The Morning Show with Tim Ezell the following morning.
Later that afternoon, I reluctantly parted ways with Katy at a Missouri River bridge crossing that dumped me out onto a bike path in the suburbs of St. Louis. The path looped for miles around a gorgeous lake, where I saw my first deer of the journey, landing me a few short miles away from the Fox studio. Despite being only 36 miles from the bike hostel where I started the day, the high-rise concrete jungle of St. Louis felt worlds away. I checked into the cheapest chain hotel available, where the friendly young man at the check-in desk cut me a generous break on my room.
After four blissful days together, my time with Katy was over. I would miss her sublime beauty, but it was time to rejoin civilization. After settling in to my room and rinsing off the dust of the trail, I went for a stroll in search of dinner, alone.
NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.