Doing something about climate change (and a lot of other stuff): Biking in Reno

Tom and his wife Katia return from the supermarket on their e-bikes.

Most research in the Lab for Conservation Biogeography is at least partially tied to understanding the consequences of climate change. This is partly motivated by the hope that science can support good management choices to minimize negative effects of climate change. We typically call such actions climate change adaptation.

However, we are in a climate emergency and adaptation is not enough. We need to aggressively reduce the concentration of greenhouse gasses (GHG) in the atmosphere, mostly by reducing emissions. This is what we call climate change mitigation.

So where does biking fit into this? There are many, many ways to reduce emissions (and a few to enhance carbon sequestration, which helps remove GHG from the atmosphere). I'm a big fan of the Project Drawdown, which provides excellent analysis and cool videos about such climate solutions. Among their 100 or so solutions, quite a number of them deal with reducing transportation-related emissions and two of them are explicitly about bicycling. Bicycle Infrastructure is all about how safe, welcoming, efficient, and connected our roads are for people who choose to get around via bikes (and other forms of mobility). It turns out that when you make your streets friendly to bike riders, you get a lot more people who choose to bike. Electric Bicycles combine one of the world's most efficient machines (the bike) and adds a battery-powered boost. Not only is scooting around on an e-bike super fun, but it also shrinks distances, flattens hills, increases cargo- (and kid-) hauling capabilities, and makes it easier for people with all kinds of different bodies and disabilities to join the fun. The combination of improved bike infrastructure and the advent of affordable e-bikes have the potential to REPLACE A LOT OF CAR TRIPS and thereby reduce GHG emissions.

Beyond climate mitigation, bikes bring a ton of co-benefits to their riders and to the communities they ride in!

• Safety: Transportation networks that are bike friendly are safer than car-dependent ones.

• Equity and economics: A community that basically requires its residents to own a car, effectively imposes an $11k/year tax on them. Together with a better transit system and walkable communities, bikes can provide more choices for people, including those with limited economic means. Further, many people who have trouble walking, riding transit, or driving cars, can use bikes to get around.

• Good for business: Some people fear that bike infrastructure will take away parking and be bad for business. It turns out that bike infrastructure is more likely to be good for business.

• Quality of life: cities that prioritize bikes and pedestrians prioritize people and create places that more people want to spend time in.

• Pollution: Aside from GHG, cars emit other forms of pollution and are noisy.

• Healthy activity: Riding a bike to schools, work, errands, or just for fun is an excellent way to integrate physical activity into our lives, bringing both physical and mental health benefits.

• Happier motorists: Yes you read that right, the country in the world with the happiest motorists is also the one most famous for creating bike friendly cities: The Netherlands.

• Plus riding them is FUN! (no citation necessary!)

So what exactly am I doing about all this biking stuff? After about a decade of designing and teaching my Climate Solutions course, I realized that I really wanted to do something locally to increase climate mitigation. As someone who's ridden his bike for fun, competition, and/and transportation pretty much his whole life, biking was an obvious choice! Since 2020, I've gotten back to relying almost exclusively on my bike to get me to and from work, and since getting an e-bike, my trips have expanded into everything from grocery shopping to cross-town vaccination runs. I've also stepped into a co-chair role with UNR's Bicycle Working Group and joined the board of the Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance. These are so I can help my community become safer and more welcoming to people on bikes, including folks and neighborhoods that have been excluded by bike advocates and are more vulnerable to being hit by people driving cars and trucks. And, while you'll continue to see LCB do work in conservation biogeography, don't be surprised if you start to see some new collaborations and projects dealing with bike and micromobility transportation safety and access.

So how about you? Are you interested in contributing to climate mitigation solutions or expanding your research into sustainability and environmental justice? We'd love to hear about it: talbright@unr.edu or @AlbrightLCB.