Cool Planet

By Anne Stephenson
Campus Outreach Coordinator
Clean Air-Cool Planet

Anne has joined Brita Climate Ride, a five-day, 300-mile fundraising bike ride from New York City to Washington, D.C., which began on September 26. Anne has graciously provided us with updates on her journey so far.

Day One

The ride this morning through Manhattan was excellent. I loved it. Apparently Lexington Avenue is open for bikers and runners every Saturday in the summer. How great is that? The ferry ride to New Jersey was also very scenic. I only sang the theme song from Working Girl to myself a little bit.

I met some exceptional people today – Michael from World Bank, Alex from Rider University, and so many more. While it is great that we’re a beneficiary and events like these build a lot of awareness, the best part for me is to meet so many other professionals in the field who are on the ride.

Night One

All is well. I enjoyed my first day and spread the good word about our fellows despite having only one coffee approximately twelve hours ago. Take infrequent access to coffee as a true sign of my dedication to the cause. Jason Kowalski, alumni of Middlebury College and policy analyst  at 1 Sky, is here and sends enthusiasm to everyone. More or less everyone here is in the field. There’s a lot of diversity in age, size, and ability. It’s so much more fun and low-key than I had anticipated.

We heard from Ben from Climate Central who presented some compelling new ways to visually represent climate change. He had one depicting the U.S. with all of the states gone from a sea level rise equivalent to the current ice sheets . . . the East coast to the Great Plains, entirely gone. Jason K gave a great lecture on climate legislation. How amazing that he’s launched a great career from his climate action planning work at Middlebury! It rained all night but I successfully slept in a tent I pitched myself. I stayed dry except for the water bottle I spilt on myself!

Day Two

It rained all day today. It was super rainy and hilly at the beginning so we were a little slow. We were in beautiful horse country but I didn’t do much sightseeing. We have these amazing directional devices on our bikes that say things like “Mile 42.4. Turn right on Lower Mountain Rd.” They’re great but mine got wet and mushy at the start, resulting in a few wrong turns. It was no big deal but when I managed to get a dry one and stick it in one of the Ziplock bags my mom thought I needed (smart lady!) the mileage on my odometer didn’t match. Again, no big deal, but I had to do simple math for the rest of day – what’s 52.4 plus 1.9?  Tough to figure out while dodging potholes and such . . . I’m building muscles and brain power!

I met the girls from Rider University working on their Climate Action Plan. They came to cheer us on and tell riders about their green team at one of our water stops. I ate lunch with Kristin and Isabella, a mother-daughter team on a tandem who are going fast!

I also talked today with Eliot May from reverb.org about including climate action planning workshops in their tour. We could have a seat in the waste vegetable oil bus and visit 15 campuses on their annual April tour. Wouldn’t that be fun? This could also be a good new take on climate action planning. Sometimes green teams get stressed about their reduction targets because of barriers and such. It would be powerful to combine workshops with a fun and much anticipated tour.

I had a lovely time in Valley Forge but was glad to get to Phoenixville.

I popped a tube in the camp parking lot which was goofy but easily fixed with Erin’s help from the Environmental Defense Fund. She does communications for their climate group and is a super-pro bike fixer. She also managed to ride all day in Keds not clipped in. I’m totally amazed.

David Kroodsma spoke today. He bicycled from California to the tip of South America, then flew to the east coast of the United States and biked back to California, from 2005-2007. He has a book and a funny movie about his trip, which covered 12,000 miles. The photos are incredible and I hope we can all read the book.

I’m woefully ignorant on South American climate projections. I’m learning a lot on this trip!

That makes forty miles for today. Now we’re at Princeton for a great lecture.

Day Three

Today was a little hilly and rainy, and very windy, but also a lot of fun. We are staying at a Mennonite camp and slept in bunks last night . . . very warm and dry. They also had a Zipline which I did for the first time. I’m feeling very proud of myself. My friend Josh took a photo so I can prove I did it.

I’ve continued to learn a lot from my fellow riders. Brent runs pick up for a carpooling website that’s really cool. It is designed primarily for special events, like getting folks to carpool to U2 concerts. They can also set up special groups for university carpooling. This way, for example, faculty and students post on separate forums.

Watch for more posts from the road as Anne makes her way to Washington, DC.

Explore posts in the same categories: Fundraising, New Generation

This entry was posted on September 29, 2009 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Fundraising, New Generation. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: biking, Brita Climate Ride, Climate action, Climate Ride, Fundraising, Washington DC

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