Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125799
By J. G. Krol great "environmental-ecological craze sweeps across the poli tical landscape of America today, carrying public opinion before it like dust before a Kansas cyclone, dealing with occasional pockets of resistance the way a tornado disintigrates a clapboard outhouse. America, you may recall, is that amusing, land that undertook to save the Farmer from Economic Disaster by means of Free Silver; that unde.rtook to save the Workingman from Moral Disaster by means of Prohibition of Alcohol; that undertook to save the World from Political Disaster by making it Safe for Democracy;that undertook to save Our Youth from Moral and Psychological Disaster by means of Outlawing Filth and Pornography; that undertook to save the People from Economic Disaster by means of Busting Trusts. So it is hardly a departure from form for the Americans presently to busy themselves with a crusade to save Man kind from Ecological Disaster by means of Improving the Environment. A neutral Martian anthropologist peering keenly down from his flying saucer with all 32 of his eyes would no doubt classify the central pw:pose of American crazes as a way to!Kill Timc, and would rate their efficiency in this regard somewhere between the public orgies once so popular, and the mass human sacrifices and cannibalism so long enjoyed by the Aztecs...in the case of slave girls, something like killing 5000 birds with one stone dagger. He would note, however, that the ingenious Yankees have found a way to avoid the boredom of regularly scheduled rites of mass sex or cannibalism, which tend to become pretty ho-hum when repeated unchanged for generations. The American innovation is to pursue a crase just long enough to cause some minor and tolerable short·term damage, say a million war deaths for a few billion dollars in wasted GNP, but not so long as to have any lasting or permanen t effect...and then to take off on a new craze in some perfectly unrelated direction. Surely the endless novelty thus assured is more effective in killing time than having to trudge off on Festival Day, even if you have a cold, to the steps of the temple of the Great God Xylophone just to copulate with a A goat, as you've done every Festival Day before, and your father and grandfather did before you. After all, worldly friend of mine, whose veracity I have no reason to doubt, assures me that, "If you've humped one' goat, you've humped them all." During the temporary frenzy or a particular crase, of course, Americans do not want to be dissuaded by such irrelevant trivia as, of say, facts ...which have a way of taking all the fun out of life. What fun is it to know that you can eat a cereal bowl full of DDT without harming yourself? What fun is it to know that analytical chemists have discovered that the methods commonly used to measure DDT content in soil are in grave doubt. since they falsely announce the presence of DDT wher~ it couldn't possibly be, in soil sampled that been in sealed laboratory sample jars for decades before the invention of DDT. What fun is it to know that marine biologists have discovered about the same level of mercury in mounted fish caught over a century ago as exists in recently caugh t fish suffering for "mercury poisoning"? What fun is it to know that preven ting forest fires may, in the long run, do more harm than good to the sylvan plants and critters? And any idiot can appreciate the an ti-fun attitude of certain reactionary professional biologists who dare to suggest that the reason some flocks of coastal birds are laying thin-shelled eggs has less to do with pollution, and more to do with the alarm caused the birds by herds of amateur "ecologists" tramping through their nes ting-grounds to "observe" them. Liking to think of myself as fun-lOving as the next guy, I certainly have no word of criticism to .offe.r against the eco-eraze. But I am equally concerned that motorcyclists, and especially the opinion-leaders among motorcyclists, attain an accurate and consistent understanding of where their shared interests do lie. When I read the editorial in, as one example, the August 1972 "Popular Cycling" that says of eco-freaks, "Not everything these groups are trying to do is bad. In many instances I agree with them", I seriously wonder if Editors George Elliot and Dave Hetzler accurately and consisten tly understand where their interests lie. In Defense, of Freedom Being Americans, it is natural for motorcyclists to be caught up in this current craze, but is is suicidal for motorcyclists to carry these fun' and games to the poin t where they do them~lves harm. The crucial question is this: what attitudes do motorcyclists share with the all-out eco.freaks, and what attitudes can they not share? At least not if they intend to remain motorcyclists. Since the PopSickle editorial focuses on erosion as an example, let us do the same. The question then becomes, what is the eco-freak attitude towards erosion? Can this attitude be shared by motorcyclists? Now the most spectacular single example of erosion I am aware of is that mile-deep gouge in the face ofMother Nature called the· Grand Canyon. How do the eco-freaks feel about it? The answer is clear: they want to protect and preserve;t. If the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers were to propose land-fill reclaimation for the Grand Canyon every card-carrying member of the Sierra Club in the country would have, on signal, a floor-pounding fit of uncontrolled frenzy. Obviously, the Grand Canyon is good. The most economically important example of erosion I am aware of is the loss of agriculturally valuable topsoil from farms. Farmers, without prompting, have found various ways to combat this and to minimize it, since it represents dollars lost to their own pockets. What do the eco-freaks think? As far as.I can tell, their reaction 'lines between a sneer and a yawn. The most insignifican t, the most trivial, the most< irrelevan t to human concern example of erosion I am aware of is that minor alteration to geologic processes which ~akes' place on wasteland due to the passage of human beings in vehicles. By "wasteland" I mean that land for which no person or group of persons will voluntarily pay any significant amount of their own money in order to own it. How do the eco-freaks' react? With ou trage. With concern. With alarm. With dismay. With horror. Such erosion is bad. Can we detect any pattern in this set .... ID & rf. of responses which characterizes the N eco-freak? I think we can. Where .... erosion has already taken place, it is good; where it is now taking place, it is N bad. Where erosion occurs without the participation of man, it is I/;ood; where it occurs with the participation of man, if' Ul is bad_ ~ The pattern, then, seems to be that w whenever erosion celebrates the Z efficacy, worth, power, or value of a ~ human individual, it is bad; whenever U erosiom celebrates the limitation, ~ . worthlessness, impotence, or triviality of a human individual, then it is good. If this is the defining attitude .of an eco-freak, it is fundamentally irreconcilable with the attitude of motorcyclist. Bike riders are ordinary poeple and, like all other ordinary people, they generally disapprove of things that harm or injure. tangible human victims. Eco-freaks are different. Their objection to erosion is grounded in personal taste and abstract aesthetics. Thus when oridnary people and eco-freaks find themselves in agreemen t, this is due only to coincidence. The eco-craze is near its crest, and this is when the most damage is likely to be done. If motorcyclists can hang on for a while longer, they will be safe. For now, every cyclist should do his best to avoid being deceived by superficial similarities between his views and those of eco-freaks. Exactly. what about erosion, a cyclist should ask himself, do I object to? Is erosion just-an excuse for me to wallow in misanthrophy and masochism? Is erosion a proof to me of mankind's frailty, unworthiness, and essential evilness? Do I glory in erosion mainly as means for putting down all human beings? An honest eco-freak - if that's not a contradiction in terms would have to answer, yes. Few motorcyclists would agree. We must not be disarmed or confused by superficial similarities when there is so profound a gap in basics. Motorcycling is a celebration of human worth and skill, a festive display of individual character and competence. Whatever acciden tal coincidences may arise it is, in the deepest, most essential way, totally incompatible with current eco-freakery. '" g. ~