So. The planet.
It seems slightly absurd to explain why I love Earth. After all – it’s home to everyone and everything that anyone has ever known. You’d think we would all love it.
Every story of humanity has played out on this little planet. Okay, sure, we’ve sent a few people to the moon and some robots and satellites further afield. But even those stories started here. There is nothing in our entire collective history that has ever begun somewhere else.
This planet gives us life. And without life, what else is there?
It would not be a stretch to say that I am wildly, irresistibly in love with Earth. It is the great love of my life, my one and only, the thing that has been there since the very beginning. I was the kid saving earth worms from drowning in puddles.
I have always led a privileged life. I would never deny this. I have seen so many parts of the world, met so many amazing people, and had countless incredible experiences. In the last twelve months, this has been especially true.
I rode a bike from Vancouver to San Diego – the entire West Coast of the USA. And then, a few months later, I rode the same bike from Santiago, Chile to Punta Arenas, Chile via Argentina and Patagonia. There are no words that truly describe how amazing either of these experiences were. There were hard times and moments when I straight up wanted to quit. There were moments where I didn’t really feel very grateful for the earth (heat waves and rainstorms, anyone?). But the standout emotions were an almost overwhelming sense of how huge the world is, and a bottomless feeling of wonder at the infinite beauty of planet Earth and all the life therein.
I’ve travelled a lot. More than most people. It’s one of my greatest passions, and I’m also just a lucky person who has the means to make it work. I appreciate every trip I’ve been on, and I always try to learn and experience as much as I can, but travelling by bike just hits different. On a bike, it’s almost like you’re going the same pace as the planet. Everything slows down. The uphills are real. The wind is tangible. The texture of the earth means something in a way it never can in a vehicle.
And you see everything. Tiny desert flowers blooming in the sun. Hummingbirds buzzing from bush to bush. Elk at sunset. Beams of light shining through old growth forest, the sun reflecting off the Patagonian fjords, an Andean Condor alighting on the pampas.
But you see everything. Clear cuts that extend as far as the eye can see. Mining trucks churning up dust and hauling load after load of the Earth itself down from the mountains. What seems like half the animal species in California splattered across the road. Places where a beautiful landscape has been replaced with strip malls and parking lots, the maps of where all the California Redwoods used to be, and millions of acres of irrigated farmland in the middle of a never ending drought.
The other thing about travelling by bike is that you get a whole lot of time alone with your thoughts. Hours and hours of pedalling through magnificent and desecrated landscapes alike – some days finding yourself in what feels like the Garden of Eden and other days wondering if you’ve accidentally time-travelled to some post-apocalyptic hellscape where the last days of humanity are playing out. Get yourself a bike trip that can do both, right?
Anyway. What I ended up thinking about, over the course of literally thousands of kilometres, was what mattered most. To me, but also maybe to everyone, even if they don’t realize it. Via this thought process and also via reading the book Bewilderment by Richard Powers, I drew a conclusion. I also think that maybe I missed the point of Bewilderment. I’m not sure what the point was supposed to be. Feel free to comment if you came out on the other side of that book with something totally different.
But what I got from the book was that we are living in a world that is designed to benefit those who don’t care. That we have structured our lives in such a way that to be too sensitive, to love the Earth too much, is to have a great weakness. We are encouraged to go through life without noticing the small, beautiful things – the softness of new spruce tips in spring, the sounds of wind through long grass, and the collective parenting practiced by the mighty and terrifying Canada Goose. Among other things.
So I was riding, and thinking about this book that I was reading, and ultimately I started to think about what I was doing for the world. The answer? Not much.
And I didn’t like that. How could I say I loved the planet while taking so little action to support it? I was deeply uncomfortable with my own hypocrisy.
On a cloudy morning while cycling from Entre Lagos to Puerto Octay, I hatched a plan. There are several aspects to this plan, but one specifically that I would like my readers to know about:
In the remainder of 2023, I am pedalling for the planet.
As of writing this, I have cycled 3297 kilometers in 2023. I hope to get to 5000 kilometers. Well, I actually hope to do more, but we’ll see. I’m biking to work, I’m biking to do errands, I’m biking pretty much everywhere I go. Whenever possible, I’m doing long rides in the evenings and in the mornings, because I’ve realized that life is best experienced on a bicycle.
And I want to use my lofty cycling goal to raise money for the cause that is most important to me – the Earth. The thing that should probably be most important to all of us. Because, you know, we need it to survive and all that.
So, in an act of shameless self-promotion, I am asking you to donate. If you love the planet on which we live, and you want to see it thrive, and you want to see a better world, please donate.
I am funnelling donations to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. I took a long time to decide which organization to support, because there are so many doing good work. Ultimately, I chose the Nature Conservancy because they are so action-focused. There are lots of organizations that work to raise awareness – this is important too, but I wanted something that was doing direct, on-the-ground work and having a tangible impact. The Nature Conservancy also works with communities and Indigenous groups, so they can find solutions that work for the people who actually live near protected areas. A top-down approach can never be as successful as one that involves people directly in the process.
The Nature Conservancy is largely focused on protecting and restoring natural areas. I’m the kind of person who cries when I see trees get cut down, so apparently this is a cause close to my heart. This work supports biodiversity, maintains and creates carbon sinks, and keeps our ecosystems functioning the way we need them to. This work is important – for everyone, not just for teary-eyed tree huggers like me.
So please. Support my cause. But honestly, don’t do it for me. Do it because we need this planet, and everything on it. Do it because Earth as we know it is in crisis. We got ourselves into this mess, and we need to find a way out of it.
Here's the link to my fundraiser:
Donate as if you can, but please don’t stop there. Ask yourself – what direct action can I take? What kind of future do I want for the Earth, for myself, and am I acting in a way that supports that?
And maybe just… ride a bike.
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