By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Climate change activists Mindy Ahler and Ryan Hall are peddling across the country, and that’s taken them right through what many would consider enemy territory.
The two bicyclists stopped Saturday in Bowling Green to do what they’ve been doing for the last 60 days and 3,400 miles, talk about the need to address global warming.
The two started off Aug. 27 in Seaside, Oregon traveling Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. They traveled a route mapped out by the Adventure Cycling Association, and adjusted based on suggestions by local cyclists.
Along the way they have talked to people. Those included supporters and volunteers who met them along the way. They also met people who skeptical about global warming.
“We’ve had these conversations even with people in the fossil fuel industry,” Hall said. “If we can have these conversations, we can find those solutions.”
What they’ve found along the trail, he said, is that people care about the environment, even if they disagree on global warming, its causes and solutions.
Hall and Ahler met each other this summer. She is a Minneapolis-based activist, who serves as the North Wind Regional Coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby and co-director of Cool Planet. Hall is just finishing his third year as an AmeriCorps volunteer. He met Ahler while working in Iowa weatherizing houses. He’s also spent a year working as a mentor and tutor in the Columbus city schools.
Ahler said the most impressive aspect of the trip is the “amazing people” they met along the way.
Ahler recalled peddling into a town in Montana, wet and cold, only to discover that the food and camping they expected to find were not there. “We were taken in by Dave, the superintendent of schools,” she said. “He put us up for the night. Dried us out and warmed us up and fed us.”
This was an example, she said, of “the kindness of people and complete open hearts even when we disagree on climate change and what has to happen.”
These conversations are important, the riders said, given the lack of interest in the national media in the issue.
“That’s what spurred us into doing this bike ride,” Ahler said.
They noted that in the three presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there was one question about energy and none about climate change.
In Nebraska they talked to one person who said she was concerned but no one else was. Then shortly after that someone else said the same thing.
“There’s a perception that no one is talking,” Ahler said. The transcontinental ride and conversations are meant the break through that perception of silence. “Once we hear more of the conversation, we need to get to debating what’s the best way to move forward and the best solutions.”
Citizen’s Climate Lobby is advocating for the institution of carbon dividends. This approach calls for a fee for carbon emissions to be imposed on producers by the federal government with all the revenue collected distributed to American households.
“We need to put a price on pollution, and then let the market figure it out,” Ahler said. Some people believe nuclear power should be part of the mix while others think the solution is in adopting alternative fuels.
“Let the market decide how to meet our energy needs with the lowest carbon footprint,” Ahler said.
She thinks this approach “will spur innovation.”
Because the carbon dividend will be imposed slowly, companies will have time to make adjustments.
The plan has attracted bipartisan support, she said.
From Bowling Green, the biking partners will peddle to Erie, Pennsylvania. Ahler said looking at the route she wondered why they were going to Erie. Then she heard from people at Gannon University who were excited about their visit and had planned a number of events. “That’s why we’re going to Erie,” she said.
The trip will end up in Washington DC to coincide with the Citizens’ Climate’s Lobby Days Nov. 14 and 15. They will visit with both their own members of Congress as well as those from the states they have visited.
By then the makeup of the new Congress will be clear.
“If we’re going to get anything passed we need to work in a bipartisan way,” Hall said. “This trip has really proven to me that we can have these difficult conversations, and we can find common ground.”
For more information, visit: LowCarbonCrossings.org
