Every Day Adventurers

Brad Lancaster, author of Harvesting Rainwater, lives in Tucson Arizona, which receives less than 12″ of rainfall a year. Brad has been riding an Xtracycle for nearly a decade, and well, it shows. This post was lifted from his blog, and we encourage you to read the full article there. If you are interested in rain water harvesting, consider Brad god, and his book the bible.

Years ago at a red light I looked into the car beside me and saw the frowning driver’s hair blowing into the back seat as though she were leaning into a mighty storm. But her windows were up. The gale was coming from her air conditioner — on a beautiful day when an open window could just as easily cool and refresh. Then I coughed, and looked back at her tail pipe spewing out toxic exhaust. I was on a bicycle, and loving the day, except for the coughing. And that’s when the simple realization hit me.

Everything we do, every choice we make, has consequences. And no matter how seemingly simple, they can be profound. We can choose to be and live problems — or solutions.

I realized every time I drove (or mechanically cooled myself) I was directly poisoning air, water, soil, and myself. However, every time I rode my bike, my exhaust was never worse than a flatulent. When I drove my car, I fueled it with toxic gasoline from a distant corporation. When I rode my bike, I fueled me, often with a burrito made from locally grown tepary beans and cooked in my backyard solar oven. A burrito I would’ve eaten anyway now tasted even better.

>>read full post here