The Ultimate Motherfuc***

For those who know me, I’m talking about cyclists.

First, I don’t hate all cyclists, if you’re doing some biking in the mountain without disturbing anyone why I would hate you?’ But if you’re the kind of cyclist taking cars’ roads even if you have a bike path literally 10 meters away, I hate you. If you’re using your horn aggressively to signal to pedestrians that you’re arriving, I hate you. If you think that you’re the king of the road, that the Traffic Laws aren’t for you, you are the worst and I hate you. Or if you’re lecturing people because you’re saving the planet with your stupid bike. First, you are the worst people in the world. And second, let met prove you’re wrong.

We often make the critics that our cities (in Europe) have not been built for cars. So, cars’ circulation is complicated, we have issues with parking etc. And now, 70 years later after cars’ democratization, we are doing the exact same mistake with new mobilities instead of pushing for a lot of alternative mobilities we are going all in on some. We invest a lot in our cities to adapt the infrastructure to cars and now we are destroying all of that to build cycle lanes. I know that sounds stupid. Why would we have to make new paths just for bikes if they are perfectly able to use the same road as cars? Because bicycles are an ancient technology, they are slow, delicate, and most important, cyclists are not able to cohabit with drivers because they don’t understand traffic laws. Montpellier is investing 150 million euros on bikes (mobility plans, all bike related investment) for four years. The goal is to increase bicycle movements from 4% to 10% by 2026.

Apart from that, here’s some additional information about the issues of cycle lanes, they are creating traffic jam in the cities because you have less roads and less parking for cars.

If you don’t want cars in your cities that’s okay but you know who that hurts the most? The weaker people: those with a disability, the poor people. Hidalgo Paris Mayor is hated in Ile de France: why? Because the one who can’t afford to live in Paris now has to do 2 hours of RER to go to work in Paris even if without them Paris will not be the same. You could say that that’s great, at least now you have more walking space in Paris, sure if you can afford the rent. Moreover, Paris is disgusting. That’s one of the filthiest cities.

Maybe cycling is better for the environment than driving a car, but you take all your practices into consideration, for example if you’re taking the plane often that’s not so good either.

We are not only talking about bike paths, but we are also talking about one of the most important issues in our society regarding ecology. We tend to separate ecology and economy. That’s simply impossible, you can’t do that if you want to operate the energy transition.

Media loves too much « The sensational »: when we read about climate change, they talk about the end of human civilization, massive migration etc.

Honestly, I don’t know if that will happen. There is still a lot of unknown about climate change effects, like the ice-shelf meltdown’ speed, the effect of clouds on climate heating. For a 100 years scenario they are pretty accurate, but we don’t know exactly how that will play out.

What we know however is that the transition to a cleaner energy will take at least 50 years, it’s a huge challenge as we need to shift our entire economic system to a non-carbonated based economy. That will hopefully happen a little bit quicker in the most advanced countries (OCDE), but we never know.

So, it’s fair to say that the CO2 cycle is a long one to a carbonated economy to a non-carbonated one even if we can act right now, like replacing coal by gas, but more on that later.

Today with science we can’t say that the exceptional weather events are due to climate change. However, they exist, and we need to prepare for them. So, on the short term we should focus more on becoming more resilient to climate change. Most of the catastrophes are because we built at bad places, with bad materials. We are creating vulnerability to climate change, like with houses on the beach in Florida, houses in Pakistan around the Indus River. Those changes are the only one on the short term that will make a difference, better zoning, better managing of water resources, etc. Instead of focusing a ton of resources on the mobilities we should use those same resources to address one of the biggest threats for our civilizations: the threats climate change provokes on our food system. That’s maybe our greatest vulnerability and we are not focusing enough on it.

We can’t dissociate ecology and economy and that misunderstanding coming from our politicians make them establish a lot of contradictory policies. For instance, on the mobility side, with the inflation, we are going through. On one hand, we in France are subsidizing gas. On the other hand, we are also subsidizing electric vehicles (EV). On an economic standpoint, that doesn’t make any sense if the alternative to gas car is EV: why would you subsidize both at the same time? That is just a waste of money. In California they are subsidizing EV and at the same time, they are asking owner not to charge them to not take down the grid. That’s stupid, invest in your grid first. If you want to reduce EV prices, you need to make the materials more affordable, and to do so you need to encourage more the mining of lithium, nickel etc. If you want to reduce gas prices in Europe, you need to pump more oil, and to do so you need to authorize fracking, that’s cost effective and that will have another benefit. We will be able to stop relying on coal and replace it with gas that emits a lot less CO2 for 1 kilowatt of electricity with gas CO2 emission are 443g against 1058g for coal. When we know that coal represents 27% of the primary mix energetic that’s a huge deal. So fracking is one of the better ways to reduce CO2 emissions.

To recap, we need a lot more pragmatism toward our approach to climate change. Just for you behind your screen unable to understand the most basic arguments. Yes, I’m talking about you with your helmet on your head. No, I’m just kidding, you never wear it, stupid cyclist! A simple recap with basic words to help you understand why you’re doing no good to the environment, you’re wasting public money with shittiest infrastructure, you’re voting for the wrong policies for the future of the planet, you’re slowing the economy, that’s to say the only thing that will finance the energy transition, and finally you’re judging people.

Please don’t forget that cyclists are the stupidest people on the planet. And what I found so amazing about them is how a single category of people can be so wrong.