In 2000 Paul Crutzen, an eminent atmospheric chemist, realised he no longer believed he was living in the Holocene. He was living in some other age, one shaped primarily by people. From their trawlers scraping the floors of the seas to their dams impounding sediment by the gigatonne, from their stripping of forests to their irrigation of farms, from their mile-deep mines to their melting of glaciers, humans were bringing about an age of planetary change. With a colleague, Eugene Stoermer, Dr Crutzen suggested this age be called the Anthropocene—“the recent age of man”.

If you don’t believe we are having a real impact, consider this from another page at the Economist:

Humans have become a force of nature reshaping the planet on a geological scale—but at a far-faster-than-geological speed. A single engineering project, the Syncrude mine in the Athabasca tar sands, involves moving 30 billion tonnes of earth—twice the amount of sediment that flows down all the rivers in the world in a year. That sediment flow itself, meanwhile, is shrinking; almost 50,000 large dams have over the past half- century cut the flow by nearly a fifth. That is one reason why the Earth’s deltas, home to hundreds of millions of people, are eroding away faster than they can be replenished.

The first article is well worth reading, and gives a very interesting perspective on the long-term impacts of climate change, one that reminds me of the better science fiction. Of course, the changes are interesting from a human race perspective; the lives of hundreds of millions of people will probably suck.

I like to imagine the conversation when officials were deciding whether or not to clear Contador:

I think it’s important that we acquit Alberto of these ridiculous charges.

Let me give you several reasons. First, there’s far too much focus on drugs in cycling. Everyone knows that most high profile track and field stars take drugs. And there’s almost no testing in other sports such as tennis, football (soccer), boxing, basketball, baseball, or American football. People want to see winners and they don’t care whether winners take drugs.

Second, everyone knows that all the top cyclists are taking drugs. You simply can’t win a race as difficult as the Tour de France without taking drugs. If we find Alberto guilty, it simply means that another drug-taking cyclist will be declared the winner. Where’s the justice in that?

Third, Alberto was playing by the rules. Everyone accepts that if they do something stupid they deserve to be disqualified, but if they play by the rules they should be okay. The rules state that the drug testing labs must be able to detect a certain quantity of clenbuterol, but this particular lab was detecting levels 1/40th of the required amount. Alberto was playing by the publicized rules, just as all the other cyclists were.

Fourth, cycling needs its stars and its exciting competitions. The 2010 competition between Alberto and Andy was thrilling and everyone hopes that 2011 will be another battle royal. How can we deny the public the battle between a three-time winner and the Great Challenger?

It’s a tough ride – a “challenge” in fact – because there’s so much climbing. In fact it’s enough of a challenge that several of my friends decided not to do it because they felt a bit intimidated. The course itself is a bit weird because it’s created specifically for elevation gain, and to do this it goes around a mountain neighborhood at the beginning and again at the end. Some beautiful houses and spectacular views, but as several people commented, why would anyone want to live that far out and up?

While the ride goes through some beautiful countryside, it doesn’t have the purity of the Triple Bypass, which is an incredible point-to-point ride that goes over 3 passes (although Vail Pass from the East hardly counts as a pass). Nor does it have the amount of climbing of the California Death Ride (129 miles and 15,000+ feet of climbing), but its claim to fame is that it has the most climbing of any Century in the country.

Some of the climbing is relatively easy – big chain ring stuff – but for a lot of it I was in my very easiest gear, and I heard people saying they’d get easier gears next year. I’m not the greatest climber when it gets really steep, but the reward is some lovely downhills.

The aid stations were great and two of them even had hot pizza which was wonderful. Several of the aid stations had GU, which I thought was a great idea because GU is always great to carry for a quick pick-me-up.

Because many of the roads are twisty and steep, there are speed limit signs all over the place. Many of the roads have 25 mph signs, and some are limited to 30 mph. Unfortunately, you’d have to be riding your brakes down some of those hills to stay at 25, which would be ridiculous given how fast and smooth they are. In addition to which, not everyone has a bike computer to tell them their speed. I don’t know if these speed limits were enforced at all, but hopefully they will never be enforced for this event. I know I’d stop riding it if I ever got a speeding ticket.

But I didn’t get a ticket, and I rode the downhills fast (how fast I don’t know since I’m one of those people without a bike computer). The ride was great fun and I’d definitely do it again.

It’s difficult to say whether you are riding or running on an Elliptigo. It’s like a bicycle in that it has two wheels, handlebars, gears and brakes. However, the action is more like running, and there’s no saddle. I kept reaching down for the saddle when trying to move the Elliptigo, but it was never there.

I met Simon Martin at the 29th Street Mall because we were going to show the Elliptigos to as many people as possible (he rode green, I rode black). We both wore Elliptigo T-shirts and had pamphlets to hand out to people who were interested. And of course, lots of people were interested. Simon and I rode separately to maximize exposure to the Elliptigos; I can’t speak for him, but I got lots of comments and questions. Kids loved it and several of them asked their parents to buy them one.

Both men and women were interested, and I’d say that women were perhaps a little more interested. I think men liked the Elliptigo because it’s another cool exercise machine. I think women liked it because more women use elliptical trainers at gyms and health clubs and the Elliptigo is a continuation of what they are used to.

I loved riding/running it. It’s not nearly as tiring on the quads as a bicycle, but it gives you a great aerobic workout. What I really like is that it seems so much easier to use than a bicycle. You don’t have to change into cycling shorts or put on special shoes; you can simply get on it in your regular clothes (although a helmet is a good idea for safety).

I noticed a few things that could perhaps be improved. As a bicycle rider, changing the rear gear means exerting pressure to change to an easier gear, whereas on the Elliptigo, exerting pressure on the gear changer moves it into a harder gear. Of course I only got this wrong when I was going uphill and wanted an easier gear

Second, for dusk or night riding you can easily attach a front light to the handlebars, but there’s no obvious place to put a rear light. There’s a rear reflector, and perhaps Elliptigo could modify this so that you can attach a rear light in the same general area. I clipped a flashing rear light to my shorts, but it would be good to have something you can permanently attach to the Elliptigo.

Also, it’s a lot noisier than a bicycle when you are running on it. It’s very quiet when you are just standing on the platforms and coasting but once you start to run it gets noisy. I imagine that different materials might soften the sound, although it’s not really a big deal.

All it all the Elliptigo was a lot of fun and a great way to get exercise. It saves the knee pounding that running gives, and it’s much easier to get up and go on an Elliptigo than a bicycle. Highly recommended.

The interesting thing is that sometimes things that cause us to suffer end up making us happier than pleasurable things. Satisfaction from sometime accomplished is, for many people, a greater source of happiness than is transient pleasure.

I came across a passage that describes this well in a novel called The Rider, by Tim Krabbé. I hadn’t heard of it until I was looking for Mark Cavendish’s book, Boy Racer, but apparently The Rider is a cycling class. Amazingly it’s all about one bicycle race. Here’s the passage.

Oh to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken an one-hour bicycle ride. “Good for you.” Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.

Of course, the reason I like this passage is that it reflects what I feel. I’d much rather exhaust myself hiking several mountains in a day than savor the delights of a gourmet meal, much rather do the Bicycle Tour of Colorado than spend a week sipping margaritas by a pool next to the ocean. But to each his own. And despite Krabbé, I usually wear sunglasses in the mountains, and have hiked 14′ers with an umbrella in my backpack

I, for one, am breathing a sigh of relief that the rich are happy. I imagine you feel the same way. How could you not?

Of course, it’s just possible that not everyone might feel the same way, especially since this great nation is increasingly becoming a nation of haves and have-nots, with an increasingly small, or perhaps decreasingly large, middle class. Not good news for the middle class perhaps.

I’m writing this after reading a comment made in Aspen by Bharat Balasubramanian, an Indian living in Germany, in the blog of James Fallows, an American who has spent a lot of time in Germany. A certain globalish perspective perhaps? (Ok, not a real word but I rather like it. And no, Balasubramanian is not living in Fallow’s blog; I read about his comments in the blog.)

Below are the comments and here is the link to Fallow’s posting.

“I will state that there will be a polarization of society here in the United States. People who are using their brains are moving up. Then you have another part of society that is doing services. These services will not be paid well. But you would need services. You would need restaurants, you would need cooks, you would need drivers et cetera. You will be losing your middle class.

“This I would not see in the same fashion in Europe, because the manufacturing base there today can compete anywhere, anytime with China or India. Because their productivity and skill sets more than offset their higher costs. You don’t see this everywhere, but it’s Germany, it’s France, it’s Sweden, it’s Austria, it’s Switzerland…. So I feel Europe still will have a middle level of people. They also have people who are very rich, they also have people doing services. But there is a balance. I don’t see the balance here in the US.”

Now, of course there will be knee-jerk in this country by the über-”patriots” who believe we can do nothing wrong, so let’s look at this picture from a few other perspectives.

First, a link that Fallow’s gives to an article by Andy Grove, one of the founders, then Chairman and CEO of Intel from 1987 until 2005, so perhaps someone who has some insight into U.S. high-tech business?

Grove’s main point is that we’ve lost our ability to manufacture.

How could the U.S. have forgotten? I believe the answer has to do with a general undervaluing of manufacturing—the idea that as long as “knowledge work” stays in the U.S., it doesn’t matter what happens to factory jobs.

Expanding on this a bit, Grove says:

The underlying problem isn’t simply lower Asian costs. It’s our own misplaced faith in the power of startups to create U.S. jobs. Americans love the idea of the guys in the garage inventing something that changes the world. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently encapsulated this view in a piece called “Start-Ups, Not Bailouts.” His argument: Let tired old companies that do commodity manufacturing die if they have to. If Washington really wants to create jobs, he wrote, it should back startups.

Friedman is wrong. Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter.

The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that’s the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.

The March, 2010 issue of Harper’s Magazine has an well-worth-reading article called “Consider the Germans” (if you can’t read it at that link, try here – also note that this pdf is actually a little more complete).  The article starts with the following:

For here’s a strange fact: since 2003, it’s not China but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors—China foremost among them—Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. Sure, China just pulled slightly ahead of Germany, but that’s mostly because the euro has soared, making German goods even more expensive, and world trade has slumped. Meanwhile, the dollar is dropping, and we still can’t compete with either nation. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They’re beating us with one hand tied behind their back.

Of course there have been attacks on the article from the free-marketers, but I’m sure the million of unemployed in this country would be prefer jobs and six weeks of vacation to the fear and lack of security that they currently experience.

You’ll notice that I’m not saying that Germany is better than the U.S., just that the focus on jobs, and especially manufacturing jobs, is better than our short-term focus on making money. It’s worth reading the two articles that Fallows references: How the World Works, for a description of the different economic beliefs of the Anglo-US world and the German-Asian world; and How a New Jobless Era will Transform America, for one person’s view of how our lack of focus on jobs will change the country.

Update: In today’s NY Times, Bob Herbert, the “guy who is always right”, talks about the job situation in this country. Sample quote:

What a country. We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the bankers keep living the high life and swilling that Champagne while at the same time we’re taking books out of the hands of schoolchildren trying to get an education.

Now, he’s not talking about manufacturing, but manufacturing is what created the American middle class, and it’s what is keeping a thriving middle class in Germany. Food for thought.

Update 2: There are two more paragraphs I loved in Consider the Germans, which I want to quote. I love the first one because I think Ayn Rand’s stories are wonderful for teenagers, but contain a terrible philosophy for the real world.

They have kept a tool-making, engineering culture, which our own entrepreneurs, dreamily buried in their Ayn Rand novels, have gutted. And now, thanks in large part to these smart structural decisions, Germany is not only competitive, it’s rich.

All my life as a labor lawyer I have read the same thing in The Economist, about the United States and its wonderful labor-market flexibility. What they mean is: Unlike the Germans, U.S. working people are completely powerless. But it’s precisely because of our labor-market flexibility that we can’t compete. Our workers have been flexed right out of their high-wage, high-skill jobs and into low-wage, low-skill jobs. That’s bad for the workers, of course, and it’s also bad for the economy.

Cavendish had a ghost writer for the book but it’s difficult to know who did what because the text seems so raw and passionate that it’s easy to imagine Cavendish writing it all. The book is well-organized, with each chapter reflecting a stage in the Tour de France, beginning with the start of the stage, then flashing back to some episode of Cav’s cycling development, then finishing with the end of the stage.

One segment of the book that I particularly like is where Cav describes the last few seconds of a sprint. Here’s some of it:

… But I don’t think of any of that, at least not when I’m winning. I think of the silence… In those moments – the speed, the noise, the color, the danger, the adrenaline – none of that matters. It’s just you, the bike, the finish line, and the silence… How can you have silence when you also have tens of thousands of fans screaming on either side of the road? It’s a good question, and not one I can answer; at every other time in the Tour, the crowd and its noise are the tailwind that whips you along faster than at any other race in the season. In those final few hundred meters, though, you notice the noise no more than you notice the air; maybe that’s why, if silence is what it sounds and looks like, you feel as if you’re riding through a vacuum.

It reminds me of how amazing our brains are. On the one hand we can shut out everything except what we are focused on (try this great example of people passing a basketball). On the other hand, we can be driving along, doing all the right things, then when we get to our destination we realize we have no recollection of the journey – our brains automatically made all the correct turns while we were busy thinking about other things.

Update: Cavendish has just won Stage 6, with a beautiful lead-out from Australian Mark Renshaw. I’ll wait for a YouTube video before posting this. It was amazing to watch because with a couple of tight turns before the final straightaway it seemed that Cavendish was too far back to win, but Renshaw is such an incredible lead-out man and he had such perfect timing in making his move to the front that Cavendish could hardly fail to win. Renshaw is known as “the World’s best lead-out man”, having previously worked in that role for Cav’s great Green Jersey rival Thor Hushovd in the 2007 TdF. I imagine it must be frustrating for Hushovd to have Renshaw working for Cavendish now.

I didn’t realize how short Cav is until I saw pictures of him. On the web most of the bios say 5′ 9″ but he seems shorter, and one bio lists his height at 5′ 7″. But talk about acceleration – he apparently has the best kick (initial acceleration) of all the riders. And his sprinting style is strange to watch – he gets so low that his head is significantly lower than his butt, and his back is angled downwards to the front. Other riders get low, but Cav just seems to get lower.

Okay, here’s a video of Cav’s Stage 6 win, so now I can post this. Note that you have to watch a 20 second advertising video before the sprint.

The simple idea is that the right wing persuades people to fight for things that either don’t affect them, or indeed, harm them. Sample quote:

[The new conservatism] blames the troubles of the poor not on economic forces – corporate and class power, wage cuts, tax cuts, outsourcing – but on cultural forces…The anger of the excluded is aimed instead at gay marriage, abortion, swearing on television and latte-drinking, French-speaking liberals. The working-class American right votes for candidates who rail against cultural degradation, but what it gets when they take power is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

So let’s look at this. If you don’t want to marry someone of your own sex, don’t. Other people choosing to do so affects your life not at all. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one. Other people choosing to have an abortion affects your life not at all. Perhaps you don’t like swearing on television, or seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple. Neither affects you, and be assured that your children have heard worse and seen more. And believe it or not, liberals actually have the interests of the middle and working class at heart.

Conservatives are really good at getting people riled up about things that have no impact on their lives, which then allows conservatives to implement the policies they really want – the ones that benefit them. It truly makes me wonder. 

Is it because people somehow believe that a country that doesn’t allow gay marriage or abortion is somehow a better country to live in? Perhaps they should try living in one of the Arabic or African countries where these things are banned. Is it because they ultimately believe that a Christian nation will be fair and just? They should have tried living in the Dark Ages, a time when religion ruled, and life was worth little.

Monbiot’s other interesting point is how ineffectual the left is. We prefer to talk and blog (as I am doing), hoping someone will adopt our brilliant ideas. The right, by contrast, does. It organizes, marches, gets people out there. As Woody Allen famously put it, 80% of success is just showing up, and that’s something the right does far better than the left.

Tea Party members who proclaim their rugged individualism will follow a bucket on a broomstick if it has the right label, and engage in the herd behaviour they claim to deplore. The left, by contrast, talks of collective action but indulges instead in possessive individualism. Instead of coming together to fight common causes, leftwing meetings today consist of dozens of people promoting their own ideas, and proposing that everyone else should adopt them.

So read the article.

Update: For another view of what things will be life after people like the Tea Partiers elect a Republican government, read the article Tea Party in the Sonora in the July 2010 issue of Harper’s Magazine. You may not be able to read the article if you are not a subscriber; if you can’t read it at Harper’s, click here.

Here’s one passage from the article to whet your appetite.

The general unsightliness of the capitol makes it a fitting home for today’s Arizona legislature, which is composed almost entirely of dimwits, racists, and cranks. Collectively they have bankrupted the state through a combination of ideological fanaticism on the Republican right and acquiescence and timidity on the part of G.O.P. moderates and Democrats. Although dozens of states are facing budget crises, the situation in Arizona is arguably the nation’s worst, graver even than in California.

While I don’t like what’s happening, it does make fascinating viewing. Since I’m one of those liberals who prefers to talk and blog rather than do anything about it, I might as well sit back and enjoy the show.

You may have heard of Sun Tzu, a Chinese military strategist who lived around 500 BCE and who wrote the classic book, The Art of War. This book got the attention of King Ho Lu who asked Sun Tzu if he could form the king’s concubines into an army. Sun Tzu said he could, and divided the concubines into two armies, each headed by one of the king’s favorite concubines.

When Sun Tzu gave orders, the concubines simply giggled and did not do as instructed. After a couple of attempts, Sun Tzu had the two favorite concubines beheaded. After that, all orders were followed quickly and accurately.

Of course, we can’t behead the people who run MMS, but Obama should fire those in charge while corruption reigned. Obama needs to get the attention of the people who are responsible for running the government departments and show them that it is no longer business as usual. And he needs to get the attention of the American people and show them that his administration is fixing things.