Wednesday, November 7, 2007

An Inconvenient Truth

I rode over to Bantam Bakery in Plainville this evening for a showing of Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The showing was organized by the Plainville Greenway Alliance and the Plainville Conservation Commission. They had a good crowd and you can't beat Bantam Bakery for snacks.

In order to do the ride I had to get the trike's lighting system set up. I'm running a 20w Halogen headlight off of a 12 motor cycle battery. Like the rest of the trike its a home built set up. The light is actually a car fog light with a white bulb rather than the yellow that it came with. For visibility I'm also using a planet bike strobe mounted mid way up my flag pole. A 5 LED red light on the back of the fairing and just for added 360 degree visibility a xenon strobe at the top of my flag pole. I runs off of a 9 volt transistor radio battery. Finally I've mounted a headlamp to the visor of my helmet which I usually run in the flashing mode. Over kill you say? I was glad to have some extras as I watched the front headlight dim to dull glow as the battery ran down. Maybe someone will get me that killer LED headlight I saw over at REI for Christmas (Hint, Hint).



So watching the Nobel Prize winner's movie it's really hard not to think about how much different this country maybe the world would be if the supreme court hadn't given W the presidency.

Calculate your carbon foot print with the handy online tool on the Inconvenient Truth web site.

Obviously the more you can leave the car a home and walk, ride or take the bus the smaller your footprint will be.