Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
As of 2016, we’d produced over 320 million tonnes of plastic and there was estimated to be 165 million tonnes of plastic circulating in seas and oceans. Not good considering plastics have only been around since 1950. Imagine how bad it will be if 320 has become 600 million tonnes by 2030. Will the seas then hold as much plastic as we have ever produced today? Will we be locked-out of sterile seas, lakes, rivers and canals?
Intro: I stumbled onto the notes for this post on a back-up disk. I’ve re-worked and expanded them today. The 15 year old grandson is now 19. He just built himself a new rig for gaming. A lesson in delayed gratification, it took months for all of the parts to be delivered in this era of pandemic.
Back in the 1980’s, I was involved in a group charged to implement three-dimensional seismic imaging technology for a service company. My qualification for membership in the team was the prior two years working in another seismic 3D start-up company, where innovation and determination became failure and frustration which manifested as constant corporate re-organisations.
Today could have been the 81st day of our walk from Manchester to Rome. We could have been at the highest point on our trek (2,469 m) on the shortest night of the year north of the equator. We should have reached and crossed the Great St Bernard Pass.
I was sitting alone in a cold, damp bed-and-breakfast type bedroom in November 1995. It was a dreich Scottish night in Aberdeen and I started to read The Beak of the Finch (1995). It remains a stand-out science read and one of the most influential books I’ve enjoyed. The room was cold enough that I felt the need to wrap myself in blankets pulled off the bed, wishing I was like the Tierra del Fuegans who needed no clothes. Darwin was a great diversion when I was undecided; besides being cold, I couldn’t be sure if I was humiliated or amused.
‘The mind is our beak, and the human mind is ever more variable than the brain’ wrote Jonathan Weiner in The Beak of the Finch.
The numbers 7, 34, 46 and 93 probably don’t mean much to you. They represent four of my favourite motorcycle racing champions who carried those numbers for most of their wins. Texan Kevin Schwantz only won the world championship once and though he carried 34 the rest of the time and it’s been retired in his honour, he chose to use #1 for the 1994 season. Who?
You may already know of the efforts of urban planners to preserve the view of specific places or historic buildings in some cities around the world. These protected views or vistas can have binding legal status for enforcement purposes. You also may be aware that there are thirteen such vistas in London protected by the London View Management Framework.
