Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Surely you will weave your own ?
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Surely you will weave your own ?
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
matticus
Guru
I've offered my weaving skills to TeamGreta - they're pretty new and have had a lot of interest. Not sure how many riders will want to ride for 17 lentils an hour, but maybe the free team kit will tempt them in?
Jameshow
Veteran
Whose she?!🤣🤣
steveindenmark
Legendary Member
Shell, an oil company ? Eh ?
What's going on ? Not very ethical is it.
Cyclings biggest advert, the Tour de France. Without the flights getting the circus from Denmark to France. Without all the team coaches and support staff vehicles. It took 17 seconds for the pelton to pass my house. It took hours for all the advertising vehicles, French motorbikes etc to come by. Behind the peleton, it took 7 minutes for 2 helicopters and dozens of team cars to come by in a solid traffic Jam.
Cycling is not as ethical as we would like to think.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
True, except I'd say "Professional cycling sport" is not as ethical not "Cycling" as a general term, including utility transport and recreation.
And here's the rub: BC have fingers in both pies, including campaigning for active transport and organising recreational activities. But now they have taken Shell's sheckels they have landed themselves with a big conflict of interest.
No one will be able to take any policy statement they make at face value because they will be speaking on behalf of their paymasters, not their members.
The only way I can see that they can square this is to retreat to their original remit of cycling sport: Just governance of cycling sport and issuing race licenses and drop all of the other mass-membership stuff because they will be too conflicted.
Jameshow
Veteran
I doubt most cyclists are that savvy?
The boycotting of shell will begin when they stop eating cake cooked in the cafe gas oven!🤣🤣🤣
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Huh? Where did you think I mentioned any kind of boycott of anything by anyone? Or even what "most cyclists" should do?
Smokin Joe
Squire
- Location
- Bare headed cyclist, Smoker
Cycling is nothing to do with being ethical, and it never has been. It has always been something you did as a sport or recreation, a quicker way to get to work in cities or because that was all you could afford. The fact that it is a relatively benign form of transport is a plus, but hardly anyone does it purely for environmental reasons, although many claim to in order to qualify for the Holier Than Thou Badge.
We ride bikes because we enjoy riding them, but most of us also drive cars and do far more miles in them than on our bikes.
matticus
Guru
so where is the problem with having a mix of reasons for riding? I mean, that's hardly unusual for decisions we make in life is it?
Do tell us the one single reason that made you join Cyclechat. Or post on this thread.
Kind Regards,
Matt (HTT Bar)
DittonBayesian
Active Member
Few would deny that we still need oil, as few would deny we must reduce the amount of energy we use and switch to sustainable sources.
The question is of the pace of change—we can go slower or quicker. Shell would prefer the pace was slower to protect their legacy business.
Those who have an interesting cycling as a pastime or a sport have some good reasons for wanting the pace to be quicker and an end to cheap fossil fuels. These include fewer journeys taken by car, better air quality, preservation of the natural environment, and a more predictable and less extreme climate.
This is why this partnership makes little sense to me from British Cycling's perspective.
The question is of the pace of change—we can go slower or quicker. Shell would prefer the pace was slower to protect their legacy business.
Those who have an interesting cycling as a pastime or a sport have some good reasons for wanting the pace to be quicker and an end to cheap fossil fuels. These include fewer journeys taken by car, better air quality, preservation of the natural environment, and a more predictable and less extreme climate.
This is why this partnership makes little sense to me from British Cycling's perspective.
steveindenmark
Legendary Member
A lot of people do it for genuine ethical beliefs. Just because you dont, does not take away from their conviction.
No has said that anyone cycles purely for environmental reasons. Many people do, however, change or want to change their behaviour for environmental reasons - that's why companies and advertisers make such a deal of it. Reducing private motor vehicle usage is an obvious way of reducing one's environmental impact and cycling is an obvious way of doing that (especially when public transport in car-centric countries is usually woefully inadequate for most people). Some people cycle as a cost-effective alternative to private motor vehicle usage/ownership too.
This is nothing to with claiming to be "Holier Than Thou" - that is just your interpretation and possibly speaks more about you than the "many" you have attributed that to.
Irrespective of professional cycle racing and it's environmental impact, what stops a lot of people from taking up cycling as active transport is the down to the perceived dangers of busy roads designed primarily for cars to go as fast as possible.
I dare say that many people do far more miles in their cars than on their bikes but this is not necessarily because they don't give a fig about the environment nor that they haven't the inclination to change their behaviours but because of practicalities and opportunities - and I don't think that you can deny that a significant reason we live in a society that makes it impractical or inopportune is down to companies like Shell actively promoting and lobbying for a car-centric power-hungry society. According to the Forbes article I linked in a previous post, Shell have spent $49million lobbying to control, delay or block policies to tackle climate change
Shellwatch.nl hasn't been updated since 2019. The Forbes article is from 2019. The Huff Post is really the only interesting one and that's from early 2021 suggesting that in 2020 Shell broke its promises. It does seem to be progressing along with other energy companies to meet the goals of the Paris Accord however.
If you look at the 2022 reports from InfluenceMap (the source of the 2019 reports used in the Forbes article), it does seem that BP, Shell etc are moving towards complying with climate goals and changing the landscape of their business.
In the scheme of things, 2019 is still very recent. When was the human contribution to climate change widely acknowledged by the scientific community? Why only now do they appear to be moving in the right direction? It's very late in the day, there is a lot of political and public pressure despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the energy companies have spent fighting against moving in that direction. It's a bit like tobacco companies getting into the vaping market after they could no longer fight against scientific and public attitudes against smoking - it's all to do with their own profits, survival and they still protect what remains of the fossil fuel market. One of those reports said that "the investment plans for the years 2017 and 2018 reveal that still only 4 per cent of Shell’s 50 billion dollars in total investments go to sustainable energy"- this is when they were making big statements as to their commitment to reducing carbon emissions (albeit largely through concentrating on natural gas instead of oil). A move in the right direction could be that they've increased their gas to oil ratio or that they've doubled their investment in sustainable energy - meaning still over 90% in fossil fuels - that's speculative and arbitrary and I don't know what the figures are but whatever they are, I imagine the spin would be of that ilk and I would be surprised if they truly are transforming the basis of their business from fossil fuels.
I'm not familiar with the nitty gritty, but isn't a lot of meeting the net zero goals of the Paris Accord not so much about reducing carbon emissions now as it is about gambling on future carbon fixing and speculating on technology allowing lower emissions in the future?
