The Sustainability Trip from Marz
In accordance with the Omnivite Nutrition Inc mission, I, Dr. Marz, am pursuing a fully car-less travel experience. When planning my most recent trip, my vision was to avoid one of the most toxic and environmentally unsound forces: the automobile.
The car is the most common cause of death to humans in the U.S. and other countries in people under the age of 25. The amount of pollution that cars are responsible for is quite unbelievable, when considering all of energy spent collecting oil from the earth and then burning of all that oil in car engines. Considering the wars that have been fought over this oil, furthermore, is simply mind-boggling. Automobiles further hurt the plant by contributing to global warming.
In The History of Oil (available online), Robert Newman explores the “other” cause of World War I. Mr. Newman, a historian and stand-up comic, presents the argument that the mission of WWI was to stop the Germans from gaining access to oil in the Middle East. I will later recommend a number of books and films pertinent to this issue, but one that begs to be mentioned right away is Who Killed the Electric Car? This film is a very interesting and head-scratching movie that explores the 1996 introduction of an amazing, fully electric car, and then exposes the political reasons that resulted in the vehicle being literally and figuratively scrapped.
My most recent trip started in Portland, Oregon on Thursday, February 11, 2010. I bicycled to the airport with my luggage, a task made possible because a folding bike by the name of Bike Friday. All of the gear that I needed was totally self-contained, including books, computer, movies, and educational materials, along with enough clothes to survive the cold and wind of Chicago in mid-February. After a 45-minute bike ride to Portland International Airport, I took my clothes out of the trailer that I was hauling in my Bike Friday, folded up my bike, and put it into the suitcase with the rest of my accoutrements. I checked my bike in the suitcase and took the rest of my things to the gate.
I chose to fly to Chicago non-stop, because air-travel is another major contributor to pollution and global warming: it has been calculated that a multi-stop flight uses almost 70% more energy than a non-stop flight of the same distance. A cross-country flight round-trip, furthermore, uses more energy than the average car uses in 6 months!
After arriving in Chicago O’Hare Airport, I unpacked my bicycle and placed all of my belongings back into the suitcase. A student met me at the airport on his bike. Together we rode back to the National University of Health Sciences in Lombard, Illinois, where I would be giving an eight-hour seminar to about fifty medical students that weekend.
Biking from the airport in Chicago, I realized that the infrastructure of our country is not laid out to accommodate traveling large distances by bike. This is certainly done from a very conscious intention. For example, the passenger railway system laid out across the U.S. was systematically destroyed to make way for automobiles. The oil industry purchased much of the old railway tracks and put them out of commission to make way for the automobile. (There is no more apparent example of this than in the city of Los Angeles. Without a car you are dead in the water trying to get around.) Thus it was with biking from the airport: we were not expected to attempt the ride.
Our first trial of getting out of the Chicago O’Hare Airport was met with a police car patrolling the area, radioing to a tow truck that stopped us while we were biking out of the airport because, “It’s just not done.”
I have been doing triathlons and bike racing for almost 30 years and normally on a good day I can bike 25 miles in an hour, but it took us about three and half hours to travel about 25 miles in the freezing cold. We had taken our lives into our hands and we succeeded, but not without a price (mostly to our hands and feet). Arriving at my hotel near the university, I was met by the hotel staff, who were overcome with disbelief that I had actually biked from the airport.
The next day I biked over to the university to give a one-hour lecture. Again, I was greeted with awful traveling conditions, even though it was only about a mile to the school. None of the side roads went through, and the main roads had absolutely no shoulders. If there was anything at all it was covered in snow.
Saturday’s lecture went well. I presented my case on sustainability, pointing out that the manner in which we conduct our lives will cause the mass extinction of more than half of ALL of the species on earth within the next 75 years. This to me is just mind-boggling and heart breaking. (I refer you to the documentaries The 11th Hour and The Call for Life: Facing Mass Extinction.)
Since February is also Black History Month in the U.S., I gave a presentation on Percy Julian, one of America’s greatest scientists. Percy Julian is considered to be the Jackie Robinson of the science world, as he overcame a tremendous amount of adversity and contributed to some of the greatest discoveries in hormone chemistry in our history. (Unfortunately, his discoveries also paved the way for pharmaceutical corporations who now dominate the American economic system.) This lecture will soon be partially available on my website, OmniviteNutriton.com. (I also recommend the film Percy Julian: The Forgotten Genius.)
To conclude my trip with a bang, I set foot on a train to go visit Percy Julian’s house. I was able to go right up to the house and get video taped by someone who stopped his car to tell me about his company that is involved in sustainability. He informed me that the house was actually on the market to be sold. It certainly looked vacant from what I could see. As I was about to ring the doorbell, a neighbor from across the street came by and chastised me for going up to the house and terrorizing Percy Julian’s daughter, threatening to call the police if I didn’t leave.
It would have been great if I could have interviewed Percy Julian’s daughter but as it turned out again, My trip back to the airport took a lot longer than expected. I thought I had given myself more than enough time, but again the biking conditions were less than optimal, this time for other reasons. I took mainly side streets, biking through Chicago neighborhoods. I passed some interesting factories, such as Mars Inc, the famous candy manufacturer (whose gigantic plant seemed more like a military installation than a friendly candy factory). I thought I was pretty early, arriving at the airport about two hours before my flight, but there were no signs directing me to the airport terminal. I bicycled almost around the entire circumference of the airport trying to get in! According to my GPS and my maps, there appeared to be access to the airport from the north. My unexpected foray into an inability to find any signs directing me into the terminals was very frustrating.
After biking around the circumference of the airport for over and hour in the freezing cold and wind, I ran into a police car at a railroad crossing. When I asked him how to get into the airport, he literally could not tell me. He told me that I would somehow have to take the train into the airport terminals. How could it be possible that you cannot bike to the terminals? Finally, after asking several people, someone told me that I could go down this road that was lined with barbed wire fences and had absolutely no signs for several miles. How could there be an airport with no signs to the airport terminals?
I finally arrived at my terminal, about 30 minutes prior to the departure of my flight. I was told that it was too late for me to take my flight, but fortunately I was able to secure a seat on a next flight out. I now will get back to Portland after midnight, when the light rail will be closed for the night. Oh well, I might as well finish the trip on my bike!
Dr. Russell B. Marz
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