A year ago, it seemed possible -- likely, even -- that President Barack Obama would sweep into the international negotiations on climate change at Copenhagen and make serious progress on the tangle of issues at stake. The reality was quite different. This year, the expectations for the United Nations Climate Conference in Cancun are less exuberant.

Congress couldn’t get it together to vote even on the smallest of possible energy bills -- the renewable energy standard -- before the October recess. That doesn’t change the reality that our energy dependent society needs to find alternatives quickly. Changing up our approach to transportation, one of the biggest sources of energy consumption, is a good place to start.

If more Americans used bicycles as a primary mode of transportation, the country would be closer to getting its energy use under control. So how can we make biking safer, easier, more mainstream? Infrastructure, safety, and education are key. It also helps to replicate model behaviors.

“To find ultimate security in an ultimate vulnerability, this is to be loved.”

-Howard Thurman

A profound quote, that holds  truth on multiple levels, from the personal to the community to the planetary.  Indestructible vulnerability is how I often term it –- the ability to face the stresses of an era of accelerating change -– some positive, some trivial, some downright terrifying.  And yet, by keeping out hearts open, even in the face of crisis, the impossible sometimes becomes possible…

It’s a sunny spring day in San Francisco, and I am packing, getting ready to go to Bolivia, to attend the World Peoples Congress on Climate Change.