Chiang Mai is once again talking about how to make our city livable. In the first week of February 2010 a one day meeting was held under the auspices of Tessaban Nakhorn Chiang Mai and the German consulting agency GTZ.
To the annoyance of some of the long time Chiang Mai activists GTZ organised speakers in the morning to tell us some facts we already knew and then insisted on spending the whole afternoon playing childish games to get us to decide on a “vision” for Chiang Mai. Practical suggestions were vetoed by the strong-man “facilitator”, a consultant who had not heard about the 350.org message. The veto was on instructions from the organisers,he said in private, when asked to broaden the scope of the meeting.
Specifically the suggestion to “Make Chiang Mai a Bicycle City” was vetoed. One of the participants suggested that the real agenda of GTZ was to sell German technology to Chiang Mai. Sounds like traditional foreign aid?
Meanwhile in China, one city, the lovely city of lakes Hang Zhou, opts for bikes as shown in this Al Jazeera video:
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China city banking on bikes 2 min 39 sec – 4 days ago www.youtube.com |
If that is what GTZ wants to sell us let them say so up front? If not why are they wasting our time?
On Feb 15-16 th at the Chiang Mai Orchid Hotel in Huey Keow Rd the next stage in their community participation program continues. If you are free to visit some time please do go and take your bicycle and enjoy a delicious hotel lunch.
For years Dr Duangchan has been pointing to air travel as bringing excessive pollution to Chiang Mai. When I suggested to a GTZ advisor that we need to scrap aviation, his response was that proposal was quite ridiculous and “we wouldn’t be able to travel to Europe”.
One leading European environmental writer reluctantly supports scrapping aviation:
in “Heat – How to Stop the Planet Burning”, by George Monbiot, Penguin Books 2007, p.188 he says:
“I have sought the means of proving otherwise, not least because it would make my task of persuading people to adopt the proposals in this book much easier. But it has become plain to me that long-distance travel, high speed and the curtailment of climate change are not compatible.
If you fly, you destroy other people’s lives.”
Chiang Mai as a bicycle city is an excellent idea. How about making the entire old city car free and having Samlor (three-wheel bikes) as the only public transport?
You could still allow residents and deliveries to enter, but limit everyone else.
I can only see an initiative like this stimulating Chiang Mai’s very important tourism industry. Does no one else see what a pleasant place this would make the city for tourists and residents alike?