Monday, March 28, 2005

in like a beggar, out like a light

the view from here - mesh

in like a beggar, out like a light



sighting and marking are both
passive joys and dedicated mysteries
for delighted reflection
locked inside to arrest
all inquiry and ability

it is a ghost for all seasons;
free these little remains
this sepulchral filter of words
for the next sorry person
to click and pass away

Friday, March 25, 2005

sharing is caring

Canada appears poised to introduce legislation to curb file-sharing networks. The amendments would force ISPs to monitor file transmissions and inform police services of copyright infringements. The Canadian Recording Industry Association has been trying for years to get Ottawa to ratify treaties by the World Intellectual Property Organization which would allow a drastically increased surveillance and police jurisdiction over the internet use in regard to filesharing. For example, If you make a copy of a CD or DVD that you own and leave it on your hard drive in a shared directory, then the new law would target you as a pirate.

This seems in direct opposition to the previous ruling on the matter by Judge Konrad von Finckenstein in March 2004. "The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution," Finckenstein wrote. "Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying." Important in this regard is the concept of “fair use”, which basically allows people to use copyrighted material for any means, except for the accumulation of money by reselling the product. I myself believe filesharing to fall under fair use provisions for several reasons, principally the creative use of samples within future cultural productions.

The real problem at the heart of filesharing is that the entertainment industry is finding it difficult to translate their business into the digital era. Television has relied on its linear broadcast nature, brought about by the technological limitations of the analog transmission frequencies, to become a more or less fascist means for proliferating singular ideologies to a more a less consenting audience. This hyper-extended yet centralized network could have been used in a variety of ways. And yet, it is hard to ignore the impact of television as a delivery mehanism for the dissimulation of a consistent, and in many ways destructive, impulse. I personally view passive and constant consumers of formulaic network television akin to pigs at the trough, complaining about the consistency of their food while wallowing in the effluent of their own consumption.

We’ve all gotten used to getting television “for free”, and this sense of freedom is what will ultimately undermine corporate strategies. North Americans are used to watching tv without paying for it beyond monthly subscription fees; shows just magically appear on the screen. And yet we must forever remember that shows are driven by their advertisements. Our attentions have been diverted by such entertainments for the purpose of mortgaging part of our mental landscape to advertisements and product knowledge. This “free choice” that we all got used to over the 20th century is in fact the means of controlling us as consumers and manufacturing our consent as citizens. Digital culture allows people to have more power over their consumption habits, and this scares most corporate media producers. Many have responded with fascist controls over their products. Disney is typical in guiding viewers through 5-15 minutes of previews, advertisements, positive self-appraisal, and other “informational” content before getting to what they had actually chosen to rent or buy.

Smart consumers who realized that they no longer have the time to commit to network schedules – and many who do not wish to burden their lives with more advertisements – have fought back with the TiVO evolution or through filesharing networks. Indeed, this process has allowed many shows such as

Futurama
Six Feet Under
the Office
Mr. Show
the Newsroom
Twitch City
the Sopranos -- how many ppl saw VCDs and VHS dubs of this one from the States???
Family Guy
Arrested Development
to reach beyond the intentions of short-sighted network executives and limited cable programming variety. This proliferation of viewership consequently resuscitated creative teams and kept shows in circulation long before any talk emerged of issuing complete seasons on corporate DVDs. Filesharing is about choice, as consumers exercise their right to authentic culture over imposed (corporate) culture. Interestingly enough, this process of judgement and execution is what many political philosophers regard as the fundamental right and responsibility of citizens of democratic states.

Additionally, in ecological terms filesharing makes sense. Traditional media-based products such as CDs and DVDs are proliferating at a hyper-saturated rate, finding themselves on cereal boxes and multiple release editions. Unless an adequate infrastructure for recycling these products is put in place on the consumer side of things, then let the digital revolution continue. Do we need 17 different versions of the Lord of the Rings films, with bonus materials strategically scattered over all the editions so that LOTR fans own multiple copies of the same film? While working at a video store, I actively encouraged people to hold off buying any LOTR DVD until the full extended editions came out. Some listened, others bought five copies of the same damn film, all of which but one will shortly be poisoning our landfills.

Filesharing allows people to try things before they commit to purchasing them. Watch it, then buy it if it's actually worth the effort. And yet the entertainment industry tends not to approve of this loss of the “impulse buy”, frankly because most of the products that they talk about when “losing money to filesharing networks” are the shitty market-friendly pap that serves no purpose other than to make money for its creators. I usually like to bring Stars Wars Episode 2 in this context. I bet most people would have avoided going to see the film if they could see it in advance, not because they saw it “for free”, but because they could see that it was a shitty movie. The film made a fair amount of money at the box office simply because people wanted to see the new Star Wars product, with all the nostalgic excitement that would entail. When the public began to understand how crappy the movie was, it started to tank; DVD sales have been relatively weak for such a huge property. Maybe LucasArts and other film producers would avoid such elements of the traditional marketing scheme as a trite love thread in this film, Phantom Menace's Jar-Jar Binx, and cute but unbelievable child stars and standardized pacing and plotting of both movies. Explosions punctuate every few minutes to keep the audience “interested”, and consequently the narrative seems manufactured “just cuz”.

The entertainment industry teases us all with so many trailers, clips, tv spots, blurbs, and cross-platform placements to the point where such advertisements have of themselves become cultural items. The music industry wants desperately for its products to be heard, with major labels naturally and opulently staging public advertisements, not simply through airtime in other media, but also in people hired to talk about songs and bands in downtown centres, malls, or on the bus. Music companies are “legally allowed” to inundate us with songs from every angle, on every tv show, every film and video game, every bar and sports arena, every urinal, every cellphone, every company phone service, every public place which plays radio stations, and every ad for everything else. It doesn't take long for me to encounter songs that make me want to avenge Satan when I'm in public -- malls, offices, stores, lobbies found everywhere. I never asked for a headache and yet here one is thanks to a radio placed in my doctor's office. And yet, if I were in a fit of abject madness to decide to hear a song on my own without buying the CD, then I have committed an illegal act of piracy. Hey, bullshit record companies peddling bullshit:

fuck off


Generally speaking people want substance, and they actively seek to downplay their exposure to garbage. The problem is not their desire, it’s the fact that they have no other way to express this desire than through filesharing. Maybe some types of culture will begin to disappear in favour of more authentic (re: not lowest common denominator) art production. Or maybe the typical will keep happening: a generation gets out of popular culture after 40 years of life. Parents stop looking for music to hear because they know that "it all looks and sounds the same". Films and television are naturally a bit more easily sold, but at the same time experimental forms of the same are almost universally rejected whenever they reach popular awareness.

I know for a fact that through filesharing people have been exposed to music which they would simply not hear under the traditional model. This has caused sales of “good” music to increase, while sales of Britney/JLo-type pop fluff has gone down. That fact alone should be regarded as the basis for cultural progression, and may serve to be the first silent revolution of the 21st century.


update 27/03

things to share or search out --

Keith Fullerton Whitman
The Taste of Cherry
Moebius
Twitch City
The End of Suburbia
Terre Thaemlitz
The Story of Menstruation
Trailer Park Boys
Fassbinder
The Corporation
Mego

Monday, March 21, 2005

The Passion According to Terri




For a captivating Where's Waldo adventure, try imagining the picture above with the following captions:

--> War in Iraq, 2003
--> Budget, 2005
--> Iran, Syria, maybe Sudan, 2005
--> Social Security, 2006
-->Our Mothers and Children of the Holy Rescinded 14th (Protection Clause) and 19th Amendments, 2007
-->Nukes for Dead Enemies Trade Pact, 2008


It's interesting how the 24-hour news networks have transformed the debate of Terri Sciavo's removal from life support into a single gesture: gazing, we will watch her die on television. I see it as a form of absolution. For a long time there was talk of putting public executions on television, not only as a potential(ly bullshit) deterrent to aspiring criminals but also as a further revenue stream for the increasingly privatized prison and law enforcement markets.

Perhaps a more humane death would in fact be an important television moment. The White House's refusal to allow the full effect of the war in Iraq to be broadcast in the mass media has created a vacuum of sorts, in which the ever-voracious gaze of the viewing public -- the paying public -- is left unfulfilled while simultaneously docile. Death permeates the breath of many people during times of war. The Rodney King Trial, followed by the LA riots, were a similar antedote to public outcry against media censorship during the 1991 war in Iraq. It seems as though America is ready for its next tributary. If Terri is to die in public, hopefully it is through attentive paliative care and not the give and take farce of life support that has been the norm of late. What has been occuring in the courts over the past few years should have itself been the focus of the news media, but soundbite revenues ensure a lack of concrete analysis.

Hopefully, Sciavo will be allowed to die within the confines of her family, but the media has provided more of a renewal of her life support systems than any governmental policy on the matter. If we aren't careful and this poor woman is allowed to vindicate conservative values by being a televised martyr, she might end up as a Java-enabled video ticker in the corner of many desktops: a CNN new$ presentation of the highest order.

***UPDATE 29/05 *** I've seen footage of an attempt by some children to bring water to Terry in small cups. Oh. Holy. Martyr.

The Christians who are pleading for the renewal of life support might benefit from a little bit of science: SHE CAN'T SWALLOW WATER WHEN SHE IS NOT ON LIFE SUPPORT. That means that the little bit of charity that you are ritualizing for the news cameras is in fact an implicit mockery of her actual condition.

Real nice, you Saints of Misplaced Benefaction.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

automotive statistics and other games of symantic barbarism

automakerad

response

American auto manufacturers have never been ones to face the reality of the changes required by sustainable economies. Now it seems that they are prepared to "educate" the public about the science that they like to believe. It's not that you can bring any real material evidence against what they are publishing; such an exercise would be merely academic. The point is not even whether Ford or General Motors themselves trust the actual words that are being used.

In case you can't read them, the actual words in the ad are as follows: "Autos manufactured today are virtually emission-free. And that's a dramatic improvement over models from just thirty years ago. So if you want to know what it really means to drive a clean car, look beyond your back seat. [Gosh Uncle-Science Man, you're Uncle-Science right to learn me that all chemical compounds ever in the history of ever are visible to the naked eye. Nothing invisible can ever harm us, right Mr. Federal-Budget-Is-One-Crazy-Fucking-Deficit Man? Wait, Gays can spread their homo aids with invisible perversions! And terrorism: TER-ROR-ISM!] See what's under the hood of every new car and light truck we make."

If the medium is the message, then it becomes clear that what is being sold is not the car, truck, or SUV, but rather safety itself. Car buyers need to be reminded of the assurity of their investment, in terms both financial and self-reflexive. See, I bought a good vehicle. I know what I'm doing, and all major decisions in my life are under control. I can afford this vehicle, but more importantly, I can't afford not to have and use it. The underlying ideology behind this ad -- if not advertising in general -- is that the consumer be made aware that a gesture of affirmation to the status quo is a guarantee for mutual success. Of course your kids will be safe, the Auto Alliance tells us: buy into us and we'll drive them to the future in the fast lane.
Publishers need money to do their work, and the importance of advertising revenue to this process has serious consequences for objective journalism, and by extension to the democratic process as a whole. Where can ideological justice be found in such a closed system of accountability, otherwise known as publishing driven by advertiser revenue? Maybe we should begin to hold publishers accountable for (at least some of) the lies spread by their corporate clients.

After all, defamation laws might be turned upon themselves with the following logic:

1. Company X -- let's just lay the poop on the pudding tray and say it was the Auto Alliance -- publishes an ad which tells people that their product follows certain physical laws as determined by the scientific literature.

2. An actual consultation of the scientific literature demonstrates the opposite.

3. Company X reminds the public that they never made any claims to science in their ad.

4. Public watchdogs cry out that the invocation of statistics like 99%, as well as the car-under-the-microscope animation and all of the technology demonstrations from the company website, seem to demonstrate an appeal, maybe even a dependence, to what most come to understand as "science".

5. Company X reminds the public that it is a leader in innovation, growth, and scientific research.

6. An actual consultation of the scientific literature demonstrates the opposite.

7. Public watchdogs try to get media space to share their "opinions" (a kind of news that's always a tough sell if you don't own a 24-hour news-entertainment network).

8. Company X reminds everyone that

AMERICA'S AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY IS THE ENGINE THAT DRIVES THE ECONOMY.
-- http://autoalliance.org/economic/

by buying up ad spaces when other voices want to buy into the dabate.

9. Constitutional Ally (in some circles, known as Minuteman) gets gagged, hooded, and has his penis laughed at by yokels.

10. The general population is made stupider by the fact that they will almost never follow up on the information that they receive in a day.

Company X shouldn't really make fun of the few conscious people who somehow manage to keep their shit out of the swamp, at least in so obvious a manner as showing us all how dumb we are. It's kind of like telling Iraqis that they are free to vote in an election. Yup, Joe and Jane Iraq can say, we are, as you say in your country, free to vote in an election.


Long story short, my case of defamation rests on the fact that by appealing to intelligence and scientific knowledge, the Auto Alliance has incorrectly and quite negatively slandered the true nature of the general public. Let their lies fall like leaves from the sky.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Pita - Get Off

Pita
Get Off [Hapna, 2004]



music is sometimes as good as food...

I finally got the new Pita CD Get Off from the Swedish label Hapna. Well, not directly from them of course. Always a tough sell, especially to those friends of yours who think laptop music to be Reaktor techno beats. Peter Rehberg once again provides an argument against people who don't consider software manipulation to represent what has traditionally been called "instruments". As I see it, any technological implement that gets used to create sound is an instrument. Some people who are otherwise open minded about music get a little too caught up in the "looks like he's checking his email" visuals provided by laptop performance to get into avantgarde electronic music, and so be it.

Damn them; they will increasingly understand as the decades pass and they get increasingly distant from the technological zeitgeist. It seems to me that the potential of software synthesis and wave manipulation outweighs any sense of "stage" presence which is denied by a musician sitting in front of a computer. Besides, the Japanese were on to something when they started manufacturing digital pop stars to complement studio-made pop music. Maybe Pita could project that fucking awful dancer provided by Micro$oft in Media Centre Edition. Best. Seller.

Whatever, so you don't have to like it. Regardless, music should sometimes be regarded as seperate from performance. I mean, there's plenty that can be accomplished in a studio or computer setting that does not replicate in a live setting.

Gee Dad, wasn't that why records and CDs were invented?
Home listening is a different experience than watching a musician in a live setting. Deal with that fact and move on.

Can one person really make a whole symphony of noise?
Sure can, ask your mother's anorectologist.

So why do we need rock stars who pollute the earth with two transport trucks of gear and questionable sexual ethics?Listen: shutup.

Otherwise, the aesthetic treasures that artists like Pita provide will be lost to you. Get Off, like much of Pita's work, is intended for deep listening, with all of the consequent pretentions: long attention to minute detail, a good listening set-up, and thoughtful analysis and parodic self-reflection. "Ethernal" sits radiant, and one enters slowly into a mesmerizing reverie of sensual associations; music as escapism and a jouissance made decadent by its abiding nature.

Early in track two, Pita then blows all that garbage out your own ass with a glorious burst of hybrid noisebloom. Calm is restored by "More Break After the Terror": the sound of what I like to refer to as sheet-metal ambient. "Babel" brings a quick scan of what seem to be popular broadcasts, gloriously edited to infinitesimal precision. Pita ends with what can be seen as a morning alarm, an oscillating bell tone reflecting a Phil Niblock transfiguration-through-stasis.

I'm still mixed on this one, although that might have everything to do with my adoration of Pita's previous two albums in the series. While certainly not as strong as Get Down, Pita's new full-length doesn't dissapoint so much as become expected.

MP3: Pita - Like Watching Shit on a Shelf

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Arthur Tajber - Stable

Arthur Tajber in performance, Transit Gallery, Hamilton.

Starting in darkness, digital video was projected onto the performance space. Tajber then began to manipulate folding chairs and wooden tables in front of the video. Precise movement was emphasized, with particular attention paid to circular patterns walking around the central table. Placing chairs and tables became a percussive motion, and the sound was recorded and manipulated accordingly, bringing the spectator out from their comtemplative nostalgia. Chairs where slammed open and shut, and every object was placed rather violently to emphasize the sound that was made, a continual reminder of the absolute presence of the artist and of course the work itself. The video was a further temporal dynamic. It consisted of several instances of the live performance viewed with a delay, so that it appeared to interact with the live performance.

Is viewer nostalgia the locus of this piece? "I remember when he did that", you might ask yourself upon witnessing video of Tajber's actions as you remember them from a few seconds or minutes prior in the performance. This memory game was quickly interrupted, as some of the video that was projected depicted actions which the "live" Tajber had not performed. Over the course of the performance it became increasingly tough to temporally localize movements and their resultant forms. The projected video played with this ever-so-important component of contemplation, and indeed of ego in relation to the I of thought. Events in the video both foretold and hypothesized events of the "live" performance, rendering all of Tajber's actions to be both portents and ghosts. Linearity was brought into question as the hypereal performance of the video began to suggest a muddy existence for any sense of material causality.

I continually found myself challenged by this piece to justify my own existence against the limitations of representation. By this, I mean to suggest a mutual dependence on representation as fundamental to consciousness itself. Is contemplation an able-ity to create space and form that is both tactile and material, as suggested by Tajber's cross-temporal table manipulations? Tables piled to create space in both material and hypereal planes literally support the weight of the artist himself, as he himself appears to sit in contemplation of the work in situ (although, this pose is not a satirical gesture to philosophical thought itself, nor to the sculpting tradition by referring to that famous thinking statue).

More importantly however, this piece serves to delineate an argument countering the agency of the viewing audience. We must never forget our own inaction when allowing art to be experienced, and perhaps Tajber seeks to indict the fascist tendencies in much of modern screened culture: the ability of the screen to wash over any sense of individual agency, to allow and to not question what is presented or the process by which it is experienced. All television advertisements, after all, are stylized performances which themselves question viewer agency by deconstructing their sense of identity and representing it back to them as frayed wires, exposed for manipulation. By and large, the viewing subject does not question this subjugation -- or seen in a more extreme light, this loss of identity to a beautiful and ever-occurring annihilation. Is it this fascism which stands between the modern subject as interpellated by contemporary culture -- the consumer of all that is visible, and indeed of visibility itself -- and a true post-modernity wherein subjects attempt to counter their inscription as consumers and assume a voice and sense of public agency that is more in line with their own interests rather than those of the (mostly corporate) producers of visual culture?


A final note: please forgive these images as I was without tripod and the light levels required an 8 second exposure; add the very limited amount of audience space, and thus frame content could not really be selected in any more or less controllable manner.


P1010146

P1010145

Thursday, March 10, 2005

when you declare a state of war you get a war state

when you declare a state of war you get a war state

On Thursday March 10, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein threw out of court a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of roughly 4 million Vietnamese people who have suffered birth defects, ailing health, and a poisoned rural economy as a result of American use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. "There is no basis for any of the claims of plaintiffs under the domestic law of any nation or state or under any form of international law," he wrote in his verdict. Furthermore, he outright dismissed the links between Agent Orange and the health problems of the Vietnamese represented in the lawsuit.

Wait a minute here. Wasn't Agent Orange supposed to poison organic life? It was devised as a means not only to "remove" the dense jungle that the Vietnamese used for cover against an invading army, but also to destroy farmland and otherwise demolish the moral and economic resistence of the Vietnamese population. It was a chemical engineered to destroy organic life. Arguably, it figured in a policy of chemical warfare which has yet to be matched on the planet. Dow Chemical, Monsanto Co., and others knew the effects of dioxin in AO, and indeed engineered these effects. Isn't that alone cause and support for the "claims" of the plaintiffs? Judge Weinstein’s decision argues that these companies were operating in effect under direct orders from the pentagon and other chiefs of staff. That they were operating under orders can no excuse, as the Neuremburg Trials following WWII demonstrated culpability even (and perhaps especially) during times of war.

You might counter that maybe the Vietnamese deserve their suffering for attempting to counter American imperial intentions. How dare they defend their own country and indeed their own health made deleterious as a consequence of this invasion, and then use the international and US courts to further this cause. It was war after all, and therefore wasn't it a time when much of what we, under peace, call human compassion disappeared like so much hot air?

Maybe it’s a given then, that countries will not allow their histories to burden their present budgets, although both Germany and Japan were held accountable for their aggression after the second World War. The American government certainly does not want to pay for the actions of a previous generation, and most certainly does not want to have to side with a group of foreign complainants against the interests of contributing members important to the military-industrial complex. At the very least, the transfer of wealth from American corporations to foreign citizens as represented by this lawsuit is definitely not allowable given the current state of the American economy.

More to the point however, the dismissal of this lawsuit seems aimed more at diverting corporate involvement in possible war crimes violations levelled against American forces that are currently operating in Iraq, Cuba, and Afghanistan. The last thing that many in the Bush government want to see happen is the imposition of a legal framework with which to judge or otherwise curtail their actions. For this reason, America has routinely avoided joining international courts, and rescinded their involvement in international arms control treaties. It seems likely that the Bush “everything’s on the table” strategy for foreign policy will only increase American military involvement in the Middle East, with the obvious consequence of an even higher number of human rights violations occurring.

With the knowledge that the events normally classified as war crimes will only continue, and may indeed escalate beyond all reason in the coming year, then the attempts by the Bush government to move the legal system in their direction seem logical enough. If, for example, Dow and Monsanto were indeed found guilty of war crimes(or even war profiteering, a crime which has become virtually a non-issue since WWII) for their involvement in the Vietnam war, then so too would Haliburton and its subsidiaries, who are building and supplying the ever-so-friendly prisons in Iraq where torture and murder has been normalized and systematized. So too would Lockheed-Martin, one of the principal contractors for the development and manufacture of real weapons of mass destruction, ie: the bombers and their bombs (which have to date killed roughly 120,000 Iraqi civilians), as well as the long-range tactical and ballistic weapons that the US seems poised to deploy in the Middle East.

It seems apparent enough that the American government is trying to legalize the actions that tend to be classified as war crimes. The first shot in this particular battle was the labelling of prisoners of war captured in Afghanistan as "Illegal Combatants", thus ostensibly removing from these POWs their rights as outlined in the Geneva Convention (if one were to follow the Bush train of thought, that is bureaucratic nomenclature supercedes rights to humanity). We might be able to interpret the Patriot Act as a secondary phase, by provisioning state authorities with the tools to control the domestic US population should any coming aggression against foreign populations foment Ukraine-style civil disobedience.

Vice President Dick Cheney used to control Haliburton, and so the circle of accountability seems to close in upon itself. Any rational observer might question a government’s simultaneous involvement in both corporate and military concerns, and wonder whether a corporate autocracy is indeed the way to allow the functioning of a state which calls itself democratic. In previous generations, it took major conflicts to separate those interests and impose restraints on the system; Japan, for example was forced to accept a new constitution to remove the power over government, economic, and military systems from one controlling interest. The Republican Hawks have a similar control over government, much of the legal process, and of course the military; this is course in addition to the corporate interests they either control directly or represent by proxy.

Allowing a legal framework for escalating violence, repression, and inhumanity can be interpreted historically as a prelude to the outbreak of a fairly major conflict. I myself think that the entire Middle East should seriously consider itself as game for the PNAC (www.newamericancentury.org) strategy. That alone should be regarded as the end of modernity as we know it.

Monday, March 07, 2005

like i never even cared

So there is this thing that i like to call progress.

It sits and waits patiently while I encircle its reach,
fumbling lecherously in front and behind.
Unfurled and delectable she brings me to a fold and a eyelash:
I am made humble in this divine presence.
After every look is a bite, at the end of it all.

I look and cannot help myself.

Others see passage where I only see isolation and false depth,
probed to the extent of its necessity.
We put all our hopes and dreams into this preternatural evolutionary path,
wanting a future like the warm, friendly hug of a straightjacket.
We turn together and find pleasure in this, in it all and everything that it is not.
"Does the vulture believe in progress when it finds another carcass?"
-- once this had been asked, there was little comfort
with typical and daily tragedies.

Instead of revolution, I learned absolution to be necessary:
a way to forgive oneself for one's own transgressions,
rather than those of a vocal and sociable past.

We bring ourselves to the height of it all and lie fallow.

Spent, I waited for my income to rise again.
It became quite clear to me that dialog was impossible.
She never felt the same again.

A diner once taught me that after every individual, all of society is a mute point and simultaneously an in situ violation of the self. It took a positive regression for me to fully understand this.

Friday, March 04, 2005

cars should fuck off after spitting in yr face

another consumptive round of innocent behaviour...

Canada finally seems to be getting a little serious about adopting a more Kyoto-friendly environmental strategy in 2005. The federal budget, for example, has $1billion earmarked for “cost-effective initiatives” to reduce carbon emissions in industry. Of course, it seems somewhat likely that this money will be used to buy emission credits from countries which are “cleaner”, rather than actually doing something to make our industries sustainable. So where do us little people fit in? As a matter of fact, everywhere. After all, we shouldn’t think of Kyoto as a “governmental” policy, but rather as one for all energy use.

The reality is this: reducing emissions will require changing energy sources. The vast majority of the North American population has been willfully avoiding changing lifestyles, largely thanks to the efforts of oil lobby groups and reactionary conservatives. Note that neither of these groups represents the scientists who actively study the biosphere or industrial systems, and who have themselves been the principle catalysts for change in the media. Maybe I’m a bit wacky for this, but I’ll trust the biologists who study tree rings, ice cores, and coral formations for climate change rather than politicians and industrialists who have shareholders to address. Britain’s New Scientist magazine had a recent article on climate change which noted that 19 of the 20 warmest years on the scientific record have occurred since 1980: “the bottom line is that we will need to cut CO2 emissions by 70% to 80% simply to stabilise atmospheric CO2 concentrations”.

So, knowing that many shortsighted industries are going to drag their feet on this issue, isn’t it time that citizens became empowered and actually took control of their own negative influence on climate change? Over the next few articles, I’ll outline a few simple ways to – how can I say it – join the 21st century and not ignorantly pollute like all those pricks who lived in the 20th.

One of the more positive changes that you can make for both yourself and the environment would be to adopt cycling into your lifestyle. This alters the energy source that you use for transportation from the oil and gas in your car to the food that you eat daily. It’s really not as impossible as you think. I can speak from experience that once you attain even a marginal level of fitness, then every part of Hamilton is accessible by bike within an hour or two at the most. Those of us who ride regularly can get from Westdale to Stony Creek in about 30 minutes. Granted, it does take a bit of willpower to go riding when the weather’s not the best – winter tends to leave only a few diehards on bikes. But then there’s all that “character” that gets built if you do become a year-rounder. I’ve noticed over the years that most people are impressed by the callous disregard of personal safety in the face of extreme danger, and these same people are easily convinced that heavy rain or a cold wind are terminal challenges.

Naturally I don’t really expect every car off the road and every family on bikes all the time. There are indeed many times when a car is decent option, but I bet that if you are travelling alone in your car, then that moment is not one of them. How often are cars used when they are not required, like most work or school commutes, short trips to the corner store or a friend’s house, vacations along routes where buses or trains are available, or trips to city downtown areas? You can shop for almost everything you need by using a backpack. When you do buy large items, get a cab or use the bus. Hey parents: let your kids walk home with friends. Not to be a grandad or anything, but in my day friends and I either rode a school bus, biked, or walked the 1.5km to our french school almost every day. The few kids who had “nervous” parents would always be driven to school, and picked up immediately afterward so they couldn’t get into “trouble”. These kids grew up to be special people. Those of us who walked or rode never got accosted or abducted, because by and large our cities are safe places during the day.

There’s also the bonus of actually getting to see the scenery while you travel (a gift from rail travel as well, by the way...). Trust me, cycling through the wine country around St. Catherine’s is much nicer than going for a drive there, as you get to smell the grapes in the fields and not the gas in your tank. We are quite lucky to have a pretty extensive network of trails for cyclists in Southern Ontario, and accordingly one can get to any major city in a day trip.

There are two key problems, however, that might keep a lot of people from riding anywhere except in parks and on trails. Cars can pose a fair hazard, especially when you combine their inertia with driver error or arrogance. Many people that I have spoke with cite Hamilton’s manic drivers as the key reason why they themselves drive. It’s too dangerous to cycle on roads they say. I’ve been riding safely in the area for over 10 years now, and will admit that I have had a fair share of “incidents”. Usually these involve cars that don’t see you while turning or changing lanes. As a cyclist, make sure you are visible by getting some lights or reflective tape for your helmet. The easiest way to stay safe is to plan a route which uses as few large streets as possible.

To those drivers who think that bikes should not be on the road and want to make a point by “scaring” us: check the Highway Traffic Act, which hopefully you remember from driving school [aside: why aren’t drivers tested every few years to make sure they are actually fit and capable to drive?]. A bicycle is a vehicle, with the same rights and responsibilities as other users of the road; you may occupy any part of the lane if it is warranted by your safety. So if things are getting ridiculous on the road when you are riding, then slow cars down behind you, and make sure that they have to change lanes or wait to pass. Principally, you need to maintain a sense of calm. Enjoy the ride, but enjoy it by keeping aware of your surroundings. Nothing pisses drivers off more than cyclists who aren’t paying attention to what they are doing.

Sometimes, no matter what, there’s nothing you can do in the face of road rage. The other day, I was assaulted by a random middle age guy whose aggressive driving at the Main + Queen intersection caused me to impulsively throw a snowball at the back of his car (Little Man: that pop can you thought I threw at your car I had picked up to recycle, no more). Endangering other cars, he then spun around to try and teach me a lesson. Little Man: that cum-in-my-face of your spit was classy, and makes me wonder if you kiss your wife with the same lips. I chose to go home instead of fight you because I like challenges, and it was tougher for me to not care about what you did than give you a broken nose and a heart attack.

Problem #2 involves a larger project. Current urban developments are by and large car-specific, or in other words engineered with car traffic in mind to the exclusion of other forms of transport. Cycling is easy in cities that are not suburban track developments. As pointed out in a decent agit-prop documentary called The End of Suburbia, track developments can only exist when every citizen owns several cars and oil stays cheap. As such, for most people in these areas it’s virtually impossible to access public transit or commute with a bike. The only solution is to not purchase a home in these developments, and instead become more socially responsible in an urban setting. Developers aren’t evil men wasting the world’s resources on the most unsustainable communities that they can build. They build what makes them money, and right now a lot of people are buying into the suburban nightmare. If people stop buying, then companies will stop building.

Despite a few obstacles, riding is one of the most positive changes that you can make in your life. Think of it as cheap transportation with a lot of free exercise. Kids learn from example, so getting families riding at young ages is important. They have to get used to daily physical exertion in order not to get accustomed to laziness and obesity, which are arguably the biggest obstacles faced by sustainable transportation. Make a change, and you can feel a bit better that they might have a planet that’s in better shape then when our generation found it.