Bike vs Climate C.H.A.N.G.E.
NEWS
17th Tour of the Fireflies
November 2016
The 17th Tour of the Fireflies Underway The 17th edition of the Tour of the Fireflies is underway. The tour is already known as the largest and longest running, mass bicycling event of the country. Every Tour of the Fireflies has been designed to be a ride through parts of Metro Manila to show how practical, fun, and enlightening bicycling in the city can be, especially when you do it in a group. Practical because commuting on a bicycle can be the fastest way to get from any point in the city to another, avoiding the time-consuming traffic jams on the roads and the long queues and crowded conditions on the often broken-down trains (as the article by Pio Fortuno on bicycling versus other transport modes shows). Bicycle commuting can be fun as, legally high on exerciseinduced endorphins filling your brain, you smile past all the aggravated drivers sitting in their traffic-stalled motorized cages. Riding through the city is enlightening as you notice little details—the patches of green where people sit during their breaks to let out the stresses of work, the details of classic or even modern buildings that give a sense
of the wonders that proper architecture can achieve, the enticing smell of street food—little things that you tend to miss out if you are in a motorized vehicle. (See Pio's tips on commuting in this newsletter.) Every tour also has a serious side as it highlights topical issues of the day. This year's theme is climate change and how bicycling and other forms of alternative transport can be part of the solution for facing the challenges of a changing climate that threatens our very existence on this planet (as the accompanying article on cycling and climate change discusses). And every tour also has its lighter side, with participants dressed in costume, all eager to best epitomize the current theme and spirit of each tour. The best costumed participants get to win valuable prizes. The Tour of the Fireflies began as a small advocacy event to show that bicycling is an essential part of making a city more livable. Over the years it has grown to involve thousands of
cyclists celebrating the joys of urban riding, showing how the vision of a better city is shared by many people. It takes a lot of resources—time, volunteer work, money, effort—to put up the tour and we have been fortunate to have sponsors that have consistently supported the tour through the years. The Firefly Brigade also organizes a monthly critical mass ride, lobbies policy makers and local governments to create pro-bike policies and put up bicycle facilities, and networks with other NGOs to advocate for environmentally sound programs and technologies for transport and for redesigning our living spaces. All this work requires a tremendous amount of resources, and we welcome anything you can provide—your time, your skills, your knowledge, your networks, your financial contributions. Carmen, our resource generation officer, will be happy to speak with you on how you can be a part of the Firefly Brigade's advocacy. (Please read her article in this newsletter).
Cycling and Climate Change Will bicycling save the world from climate change? What a strange question to ask, you may say, since that is precisely the implication of the theme of this th year's Tour of the Fireflies (the 17 , by the way). Of course cycling advocates like ourselves will
definitely shout out a big resounding “Yes!” But even now a number of political leaders are saying, “What climate change?” So let's try to clear the cobwebs based not on our emotional biases but on science. Climate change, the increase
In 2010, 35% of GHG emissions were released by the energy sector, 24% (net emissions) from AFOLU, 21% by industry, 14% by transport and 6.4% by the building sector. When emissions from electricity and heat production are attributed to the sectors that use the final energy (i.e., indirect emissions), the shares of the industry and building sectors in global GHG emissions are increased to 31% and 19%, respectively. IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report.
and decrease in global temperatures associated with corresponding levels of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, is a clear cyclical pattern that scientists have observed from ice core analysis that covers the Earth's last 650,000 years. (Yes, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and was not created just 60,000 years ago by heavenly edict). Those changes in climate, occurring thousands of years apart, were caused by natural factors, such as changes in the Earth's orbit, variations in the sun's energy, even volcanic eruptions. The change in the climate that we are experiencing today, however, is largely caused by human activity. Climate change is happening because the atmosphere is being filled by heat-trapping (greenhouse) gases, primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, produced directly and indirectly by human activity. In 2010 carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels and industrial activities made up 65% of total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. CO2 emitted from various land uses including agriculture contributed 11%, methane (CH4) made up 16%,
nitrous oxide (N2O) 6.2%, and other gases the rest. In 2010 electricity and heat production contributed a quarter of total emissions, while agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) added 24%, industry 21%, and transport 14%. This is the scenario that is produced when people's appetite for goods that consume fossil fuels and transform forestlands keeps growing insatiably. Clearly, even though the Firefly Brigade promotes nonmotorized transport and bicycling to respond to global warming, it will take more than that to make a difference. What is needed is a radical transformation in our behavior, adopting a way of life that not only consumes significantly less fossil fuels but also certain agribusiness produce (livestock, plantation crops, etc.) the production of which has depleted our forests and natural carbon sinks. Only by consuming significantly less of such goods can we hope to transform our economy and production sectors into one that does not threaten our very survival as a species. Yes, it is about the economy, stupid.