Posted here for fair use and discussion purposes. The news article is below.
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The Chronicle recently published an article regarding the RideShareMT competition. I have some thoughts.
The proponents of this competition are described as "local alternative transportation advocates," but is this what they really are? I did a little digging and learned RideShareMT is actually a front group. There’s an agenda.
First, we have government funding for this carbon-footprint-reducing contest. Despite the folksy presentation, this is not a grass roots group of people who care deeply about the planet. It’s a government-funded program spending your tax dollars. According to their website, RideShareMT.com is funded by the Montana DOT and the DHHS, with additional support from MSU's Campus Sustainability Advisory Council and the City of Bozeman.
Enter Ecology and Environment, Inc. (ENE.com), a for-profit business out of Lancaster, NY. They’re the company behind RideShareMT. Apparently ENE has quite the ingenious business strategy. Get people on board with their initiatives, line up some government funding, and then move in with their corporate solutions and make a tidy profit. Very slick.
ENE probably arranged a meeting where local activists sat down with their cups of wheatgrass juice to brainstorm strategies on how to get us to think about how we all are selfish polluters who need to severely change our lifestyles for the sake of the planet. "Let's make it fun," they exclaimed. "Let's have a contest and let people participate voluntarily.” They probably laughed at their ingenuity.
We participants are supposed to report our activity to the website. Activity the government wants to regulate; activity the corporation want to make money off of. But the article carefully notes the information is kept private. Why is that important? Is there some concern that information about peoples' habits might get into the wrong hands? Is it to ameliorate the potential fear of a Big Brother operation?
Or, is it to acclimatize people to the idea of reporting their own behavior? When you’re pursuing an agenda, incremental steps must be taken in order to gradually change peoples’ attitudes. So after the contest runs its course, we will be informed that ENE has made some recommendations to the City. Personal data will no longer be anonymous so that ENE can study it and make recommendations. It will remain strictly confidential, of course. Later, a system of taxes and credits will be installed, perhaps with ENE as vendor. After that, people will be required to purchase permits in order to use their cars as a result of infrastructure studies performed by ENE. And ultimately, a vehicle ban will be imposed, since the implementation of mass transportation recommendations made by ENE will mean personal vehicles are no longer required.
Oh, and visionary government partners are needed, like the City of Bozeman and its cheerleading sustainability coordinator. Your tax dollars are being spent on a government department dedicated to changing your behavior! Not coincidentally, the City of Bozeman signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which wants CO2 levels reduced to 1990 levels, the implementation of the egregious Kyoto treaty, and the adoption of a long list of prohibitions to which you and I will have to conform.
MSU also has a cheerleading sustainability coordinator, who recently moved here from California. Not content to devastate just the economy of California, now those ideas are being imported here. She is quoted as saying that the RideShareMT.com competition is "...very important for an individual's personal carbon footprint."
So it’s about you, lest you think that all they want to do is make the city government more environmentally friendly. In actual fact it's all about modifying our personal lives to conform to an extremist viewpoint. The irony is, it's all funded by you via your tax dollars, simultaneously enriching corporation coffers. Your own money is being made to come to bear on your behavior, whether you agree or not. That's tyranny.
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Local alternative transportation advocates have thrown down the gauntlet, challenging area commuters to find alternatives to driving solo for the next month.
Today through Feb. 10, the city of Bozeman, Montana State University's Campus Sustainability Council and the Western Transportation Institute want people to carpool, use public transportation, walk or ride bicycles in the Drive Less Save More Challenge.
Friendly competition between businesses, institutions and government agencies, the program asks employees to "find, use and track their commutes on the state's RideShareMT.com" website.
At the end of the month, employers will be ranked by the percentage of employees who sign up on RideShareMT, which helps match commuters making similar trips at similar times.
The site shows only first names and last initials and gives an approximation of the users's addresses on a map. The system only shows that information to potential carpool companions and allows them to contact each other.
In addition to reminding people of the alternatives to driving alone, the challenge lets people log their carpool, bike and bus trips. They can then see how much gas and money they saved and how much carbon dioxide they avoided pumping into the air, said Rebecca Gleason, research engineer with WTI.
Natalie Meyer, Bozeman's sustainability coordinator, is recruiting city employees to participate. She said the challenge is "a really great opportunity well-suited to Montana, where people sometimes travel long distances to go to work and public transportation is not always available."
"This is one of the recommendations in our climate action plan," Meyer said. "So it was a good opportunity for the city to fulfill our commitment."
Kristin Blackler, MSU's new sustainability director, recently moved to Bozeman from San Diego. There, her choices for commuting were sitting in traffic jams alone, carpooling or cycling on dangerous roads. She had positive things to say about ride sharing.
"It's easier than we think and also very important for an individual's personal carbon footprint," she said. "Even just carpooling once or twice a week makes a significant difference."
"This challenge is ideal for people who travel long distances to get to work but would like to support clean air, save money and reduce fuel use," Gleason said.
Gleason has convinced some of Bozeman's largest employers to enroll in the challenge, including Bozeman Deaconess Hospital and MSU.
Participating businesses will be recognized at an event at the end of the competition, and participants can also win prizes. More information is available RideShareMT.com.
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