Hurricane Irene left an astonishing mess on Vermont and elsewhere, and I would never minimize that. One community there has had paved access to the rest of the world cut off, so they have taken to using an unpaved path into town, largely by foot. They drive or shuttle to one end, walk the half mile through the forest, then catch school buses or whatever on the other end.

The New York Times wrote about it here.

Hurricane Irene had washed away large stretches of the road down from Killington, Route 4. Huge craters left Route 100 impassable.

But on Wednesday, Aug. 31, at 7:55 a.m., three days after the storm closed down much of the state, the four school buses pulled up right on time, and off hopped 18 children from the dark side of the mountain (their electricity was still out).

“They were so proud,” Ms. Prescott said.

They had reason to be. Their families had discovered a half-mile-long forest path that they could walk, from Route 4 across the mountain to their school bus. At first, the woods were still and unsettling. “My hands shaked a little bit,” said Jillian Bradley, a second grader.

. . .

Porta-Pottys donated by A1 Sewer and Drain have been placed at each end of the forest trail. Volunteers sit under tent canopies supplied by Celebration Rentals, giving out sandwiches, beverages, doughnuts, gummy bears and red licorice. Six golf carts from Green Mountain National Golf Course transport the elderly and infirm. All-terrain vehicles from Central Vermont Motorcycles and the Hendy Brothers John Deere dealership are used for safety patrols.

Okay, so I’m a churl. But safety patrols? Nourishment? Porta-Pottys? For a half mile walk?? Are we really that helpless and pitiful when a half mile of our pavement is taken away?

–EBR

In other words, when we force auto manufacturers to improve the fuel efficiency of their offerings, we invoke market forces that will cause more fuel, not less, to be consumed. Same with anything that increases energy efficiency, from light bulbs to steel production.

Sounds wacked, right? But consider, when you make the change to energy-efficient light bulbs, what have you done except decrease the amount of money you have to spend to achieve a particular quantity of light? At least after the initial outlay, you have made electricity cheaper. And what happens to services and products when their price falls? Consumption increases. QED.

An example from my own life is the solar modules I am about to have installed on my roof, at tremendous cost. Once they are up, my electricity is going to be essentially free. And what am I going to do with that money and free electricity? One thing I’m not going to do is freak out about leaving my computer on overnight, like I do now. And most likely I am going to use my extra cash to buy more stuff — most of which will probably have been assembled in China at huge human and environmental cost, and then wrapped in a mountain of plastic and shipped across the ocean to my door.

When you think about it, just about the only thing you can do with money that is not environmentally repugnant is burn it in your yard.

And so the earth graciously provides us with yet one more argument for fatalism.

–Erik Ryberg

More and more often though, these scammers are not from floor polishing companies as they are from law offices, which depresses me. It seems that the economy has hit lawyers and they are doing whatever they can to increase business.

One site, which appears to be some kind of nascent lawyer portal that isn’t even fully functional yet, has been bombarding me with pretend comments in the past few days, and I’ve gotten really tired of sending their messages into the trash. Check these internet lawyer scammer folks out: www.tempe-lawyer.com. If you click on the “Criminal Law” tab you see this:

THE LAW OFFICE OF [Your Tempe Law firm here!] is a professional corporation engaged in the practice of law and is committed to the defense of individuals charged with a crime. The firm focuses its scope of representation . . .

And if you click on the “Personal Injury” tab you learn all about a law firm that will FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS in all capitals. Except they are based out of Los Angeles, not Tempe. They are Crane Flores, LLP and can be found at www.cranefloresllp.com. I don’t know if they are an internet scamming law firm or not.

Anyway, these unsavory tempe-lawyer.com folks have taken to the internet and are most likely using robots to find blogs that contain keywords like “law” and “tempe” and comment on them. When they get enough they’ll probably sell the website to some Tempe lawyer who doesn’t know better. And hopefully the highest ranked link will be . . . this one. You’re welcome, guys.

–Erik Ryberg

One thing — and I know we have these here in Arizona too, in spades — was a sign I saw at a Tea-Party rally in Alamogordo. The rally was to show support for Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070. One of the folks in the demonstration was wearing a bold red, white, and blue shirt and waving a sign that said simply, “It’s Time to Take Out the Trash.”

That sort of thing sends shivers down my spine. It makes me wonder if lynchings aren’t just around the corner.

I don’t care what you might think about immigration policy, the vast majority of undocumented workers/illegal immigrants are people who have come here seeking a better life for themselves and their families, just as my own ancestors did a short century ago. They work very hard for very little pay, and they send huge portions of their earnings back home to their families. These people do not seem to warrant the term “trash” to me, and seeing a person gleefully and proudly waving such a sign in public was pretty unsettling. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Luckily, the beautiful Capitan Mountains are right next door, and I spent the night camped at 9,000 feet in the pines, watching huge thunderclouds roll through the hills. It was magnificent.

–Erik Ryberg

I just returned from two weeks in the mountains of New Mexico. It was a work trip, researching an environmental lawsuit I am working on, but because I got to be in the mountains camping, walking and riding my bike, most of the time it seemed a lot like a vacation.

One thing I decided though is that my beloved Surly Karate Monkey mountain bike is badly in need of a front suspension. Last year on a similar trip I flew over the handlebars into a rockpile; this year that didn’t happen, but I nearly rattled my teeth loose and shook my eyeballs out on endless miles of rocky, bumpy trails and roads. Sometimes I felt like I’d spent the day locked inside a giant paint mixer.

Anyway, in case any of my readers are considering a mountain-bike trip to the Guadalupe Mountains of Southeastern New Mexico, a few words of warning — the place has been grazed by cows to within an inch (or less) of its life. You will have to physically move cow shit aside in order to make room for a tent, and the place is absolutely saturated with flies, newly hatched from that cow shit. Interestingly, the moment you cross the Texas state line, the very same place becomes a National Park, and is protected from cows, cowboys, cow shit, and flies. But on the New Mexico side — watch out.

Below is a picture of the current starting point of one of the legions of eroding hillsides. Cross the state border into the National Park and that grass, clipped to the ground here, is nearly waist high!

But that’s all a little off the subject of bikes and bike law . . . .

–Erik Ryberg

That was a courageous thing for him to do.

What a different era.

-Erik Ryberg