Why not bike?

Why not bike?

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The weather couldn’t be better. Gas prices are sky high. Do you need any more inducement to save a trip or two in the car by getting out your bicycle? Here’s why I think you should.

Bicycling is good for the planet. It requires no fossil fuel, and so alleviates all of the environmental damage caused by drilling for, transporting, and processing oil. It uses no biofuel, and so exists outside the complicated push and pull over using crops for energy. It emits no greenhouse gasses to degrade the planet over the long term, or other pollutants to degrade human health in the short term. It creates no noise pollution. It decreases traffic congestion. It decreases wear and tear on roads (which cost more and more to fix as the price of oil rises.) It decreases the need for parking, which frees up space for higher purposes, and provides the host of other benefits that come from having less pavement.

Bicycling is also good for people. It gets you out of the artificial environment of your car and puts you in touch with the natural world—the real world—even when you’re riding in the city. It allows you to see and also smell the gorgeous magnolias as you ride by. It allows you to hear the songs and calls of birds. (And if you’re attuned to birds, to be reminded of how life in the Midwest is connected to life elsewhere as spring migration progresses.) It allows you to connect with other people who are walking or cycling, even if it’s just to say hello. Think of how different it is to pull up next to neighbor or coworker on a bike than to pull up next to them in a car.

Bicycling allows you to reconnect with yourself through contemplation, away from the pull of a car radio or CD player. Bicycling gives you the satisfaction of getting from one place to another by the power of your own body, a deep satisfaction, but one that can be forgotten when it’s experienced too infrequently. Like any other form of physical activity, bicycling regularly is energizing, not draining, an antidote to the sluggishness that can come from working in a store or office.

If you are hesitant about biking because of how drivers of cars behave or how poorly the traffic patterns on some streets accommodate it, take heart. The cities of Champaign and Urbana have both recently approved well thought out plans to facilitate cycling in the years to come. [Links to plans for Champaign and Urbana.] These plans include a mix of re-marking streets where cars and bikes can operate together well, along with creating side paths for cycling next to roads with high speed limits and few crossings. Of course Illinois law already treats bicycles as vehicles, and it is perfectly reasonable and legal for cyclists to use the streets as vehicles already. The point of marking routes for cycling is to help clarify for drivers and cyclists alike how they should behave on the road.

If you want further encouragement still, know that May is National Bike Month, which will be marked by a slew of activities in Champaign-Urbana. You can kick off Bike Month with the second annual Bicycle Festival set to take place Sunday May 4th at Hessel Park in Champaign and hosted by the group Champaign County Bikes. From there, you may just want to see where your wheels take you.

All Welcome at Environmental Horizons Conference on U of I Campus, April 23rd & 24th

All Welcome at Environmental Horizons Conference on U of I Campus, April 23rd & 24th

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Back in 1987 a report commissioned by the United Nations defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In the years since then, the concept of sustainability has come to serve as a focus for thinking about a wide range of environmental questions. In that spirit, the 10th annual Environmental Horizons conference, hosted on campus next week by the University of Illinois Environmental Council, has been conceived of as a "sustainability summit." According to Environmental Council Director William Sullivan, sustainability means that something will last and that it is equitable. In his words, “environmental sustainability ensures that social, economic and ecological processes are maintained so that both the short and long-term quality of life and the health and diversity of natural ecosystems are not compromised.”

Daytime sessions at the Environmental Horizons conference will feature panels of University of Illinois faculty who are working to define and resolve the greatest environmental challenges the world faces today. Topics for these panels include everything from land and water use to biodiversity, energy and climate change. If you take an interest in such issues these panels provide an excellent opportunity to engage with experts who are working right here in east central Illinois on issues that are of consequence worldwide.

The Environmental Horizons conference will also offer opportunities to learn about the exciting environmental research being conducted by University of Illinois undergraduates and graduate students with poster displays where they will be on hand to explain their work. This work includes everything from the challenges of developing water supplies in Nigeria, to the impact of native planting for sustaining bee populations, to the role of natural environments in curbing symptoms of AD/HD.

Evenings at the Environmental Horizons conference will offer opportunities to hear from nationally recognized speakers on two of the central questions of our day. On Wednesday evening Richard J. Jackson, former director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, will speak about the ways patterns of suburban development based on travel by car degrade human health. Jackson anticipates that an understanding of the connection between the environments we build for ourselves and our well-being can put us on a better track for the future. He looks forward a world in which “our children and grandchildren will be able to walk or bicycle home from their workplaces through attractive communities.”

On Thursday evening Majora Carter, executive director of Sustainable South Bronx and a 2005 MacArthur fellow, will talk about what she terms “greening the ghetto.” Carter will address both the how and why of green development in America’s low-income urban areas, and talk about the broad consequences to our society if we fail in this endeavor.

The Environmental Horizons conference will take place next Wednesday and Thursday, April 23rd and 24th, at the Illini Union on the University of Illinois Campus. Members of the campus community and the general public alike are welcome to attend, and no registration is required. Further details are available www.uiuc.edu/goto/horizons

Champaign-Urbana's Boneyard Creek the Focus for Earth Day Celebration, City Plans

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Champaign-Urbana's Boneyard Creek the Focus for Earth Day Celebration, City Plans

How close are you to the nearest stream right now? I bet it’s not as far as you first think. That’s especially true when you consider that in central Illinois our waterways begin wherever rain falls and doesn’t soak into the soil. On the U of I campus and in much of Champaign and Urbana there are reminders of this fact attached to the storm drains, medallions that read “No Dumping – Drains to Creek.”

These medallions are also a visible reminder that there is a growing appreciation for the Boneyard Creek, a waterway that has been abused and overlooked in the past except when it drew attention to itself by flooding. The medallions have been installed by volunteers at past celebrations of Boneyard Creek Community Day, an annual event that you are invited to take part in Saturday, April 19th.

Volunteer activities for Boneyard Creek Community Day will take place at a number of sites on the creek, but begin with registration at 9:00 a.m. at Scott Park in Champaign. There, participants will be able to choose from a number of options. [Boneyard Creek Community Day co-chair Eric Robeson pitches in at the 2006 event. Photo by C. Eliana Brown.]Some groups will fan out from the park to pick up trash. Others will work with staff from the Urbana Park District and the Champaign County Forest Preserve District to naturalize the stream corridor by removing invasive, exotic species and replacing them with native plants. Volunteers will also continue the project of marking storm drains to remind people that whatever goes into them winds up in the creek.

Organizers for the event ask that volunteers wear closed-toed shoes (not sandals) and that they bring their own water bottles. Volunteers will receive free t-shirts, and, after the work is done, they are invited to stay at Scott Park for a free lunch, along with free entertainment thanks to Chad Dunn and Recycled Rhythms.

The Boneyard Creek Community Day can be seen as part of the greater appreciation being shown for the Boneyard Creek by the local community.

The U of I led the way in drawing attention to the creek with its makeover of the stretch that runs through the Engineering campus, completed in 2004. There, what was formerly a straight, concrete channel has been replaced by a more natural looking corridor, with a grassy slope that allows people to approach the edge of the stream from one side, and in-channel features that vary the depth and flow of the water. These features also make the creek more inviting to wildlife, and depending on the time of year you may encounter fish, bullfrogs and snapping turtles in the stream, along with the many different birds that are drawn to it.

The Cities of Champaign and Urbana also have plans to incorporate a more naturalized Boneyard Creek into public spaces. In Champaign, the City Council approved a plan last year to create a naturalized flood control basin between downtown and Scott Park. In Urbana, the just-completed Boneyard Creek Master Plan calls for transformation of the creek “from a highly urbanized drainage ditch into a place for people—a destination for the local community with spaces for leisure and enjoyment.”

From my perspective, there’s not much more you could ask for.

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The public is invited to learn more about Urbana's Boneyard Creek Master Plan at an informational meeting in Urbana City Council chambers from 4:00 to 6:00 pm on Monday, April 14th."

More information about Boneyard Creek Community Day is available at www.boneyardcreek.org, or by calling Prairie Rivers Network in Champaign at 344-2371.

Presentation by Ken Cook of Environmental Working Group calls attention to industrial chemicals found in humans

Presentation by Ken Cook of Environmental Working Group calls attention to industrial chemicals found in humans

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By my count nearly 60 people came out to the Champaign Public Library this past Tuesday evening for a presentation by Ken Cook, who is president of the Washington D.C.-based Environmental Working Group, an organization that describes itself as using “the power of public information to protect public health and the environment.” If you weren’t there you missed hearing from an articulate and entertaining speaker about how industrial chemicals show up in human bodies, and about changes in individual behavior and public policy that could help to reduce our exposure to such chemicals.

The title of Cook’s presentation, “10 Americans—287 chemicals” referred to a 2004 project conducted by Environmental Working Group, which analyzed blood samples taken from the umbilical cords of ten newborn babies from around the country and found in them 287 industrial chemicals. The point of working with such samples was to show that these chemicals show up in people’s bodies when they are most vulnerable and before they are ever exposed to pollution directly. Among the chemicals found were many that are known to cause cancer or other threats to health at some level, as well as many whose impacts on people have never been studied.

In the original press material from the “10 Humans” project Cook acknowledged that “detection of a chemical is not [itself] an indication of a risk to health.” But in his presentation Tuesday evening he implied that the ubiquity of industrial chemicals may explain some disturbing trends in the health of Americans over the past three decades, including everything from our high rates of cancer to increasing incidence of certain birth defects and ADHD.

Cook took pains to address the chemical industry’s standard response to reports such as “10 Humans--287 Chemicals” which is to question whether compounds found at levels of parts-per-billion could really have an impact on the functioning of the human body. In doing so he pointed out that many useful and widely known pharmaceuticals—including hormones used for birth control, as well as treatments for depression and many other conditions—achieve their desired effects at levels of parts-per-billion.

Cook allowed that highly conscientious individuals can avoid many chemicals by the consumer choices they make. But he also acknowledged that it is difficult and time-consuming to figure out what’s in many of the products we buy. In part that’s because the only federal law regulating chemicals in consumer products—the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976—doesn’t require testing for potential impacts on human health and safety in the same way laws governing pharmaceuticals or pesticides do.

Cook concluded his presentation by pointing out that there is legislation on the horizon at both the state and federal levels that would remedy the shortcomings of the 1976 Act, which has never been updated. In Illinois, State Representative Naomi Jakobsson, who sponsored Cook’s talk, plans to introduce a bill to ban phthalates, which are a particular concern in plastic products made for babies and small children. At the federal level legislation dubbed the Safe Kids Chemical Act, which was first introduced back in 2005, is likely to be brought up again in the next couple of months.