Now, although I am the one of the people least qualified to make this suggestion, having just bought a (13 y.o., s/h) CAR (gasp!), something which I haven't owned for about 8 months, and a new CRANKSET (bigger gasp!!) I'm about to mention the "t" word.
What if, instead of getting into bigging ourselves up about our new Christmas-acquired consumer durables (mea culpa), we send the cost of our next (next two, half-dozen, dozen?) envisaged bicycle (or otherwise leisure)-related purchase(s) to the
International Bicycle Fund
<www.ibike.org/>
which helps people in the poorest countries find, fund, fix and use bikes as their means of transport. No doubt this will include the areas affected by the tsunami, if not now, then in a few months when people are a bit more settled again, and roads have been cleared, and people need to get their means of subsistence and livelihood happening again. Not only will this directly help, but it'll get these countries along the way to reducing the growth of car use, and set the transport system upon more of an equal footing, with bikes being recognised as useful, and not just a shameful, poor people's means of transport. Regrettably, it often is, especially when car usage is rising in the train of slightly increasing prosperity (World Bank 'development' loan money, tourism, IMF "structural adjustment" funding temporarily raising the bar for the select few, for everyone else to aspire to? Pardon my slightly hazy geopolitics).
They do good work in Africa and South America as well, and are affiliated with several sustainable development organisations as well.
There seems to be a fair bit of immediate aid available and dollars going to water tanks, plastic sheeting, medical supplies right now, but what about in a couple of months, when people have mostly forgotten about muddy, salt-ruined fields and coastal villages full of poor people, when the aircraft carriers have gone home, or back to Iraq? How do they get to their work then? How do they carry water from the only remaining clear well for miles? Where do they get petrol from? I'd want to ride a bike if I was there, and I'd like people who were left with nothing to have that chance and utility as well.
M "trying to practise what he preaches" H
What if, instead of getting into bigging ourselves up about our new Christmas-acquired consumer durables (mea culpa), we send the cost of our next (next two, half-dozen, dozen?) envisaged bicycle (or otherwise leisure)-related purchase(s) to the
International Bicycle Fund
<www.ibike.org/>
which helps people in the poorest countries find, fund, fix and use bikes as their means of transport. No doubt this will include the areas affected by the tsunami, if not now, then in a few months when people are a bit more settled again, and roads have been cleared, and people need to get their means of subsistence and livelihood happening again. Not only will this directly help, but it'll get these countries along the way to reducing the growth of car use, and set the transport system upon more of an equal footing, with bikes being recognised as useful, and not just a shameful, poor people's means of transport. Regrettably, it often is, especially when car usage is rising in the train of slightly increasing prosperity (World Bank 'development' loan money, tourism, IMF "structural adjustment" funding temporarily raising the bar for the select few, for everyone else to aspire to? Pardon my slightly hazy geopolitics).
They do good work in Africa and South America as well, and are affiliated with several sustainable development organisations as well.
There seems to be a fair bit of immediate aid available and dollars going to water tanks, plastic sheeting, medical supplies right now, but what about in a couple of months, when people have mostly forgotten about muddy, salt-ruined fields and coastal villages full of poor people, when the aircraft carriers have gone home, or back to Iraq? How do they get to their work then? How do they carry water from the only remaining clear well for miles? Where do they get petrol from? I'd want to ride a bike if I was there, and I'd like people who were left with nothing to have that chance and utility as well.
M "trying to practise what he preaches" H
) is only going to have the effect of making some overpaid lackey of the corporatist hegemony (but I did watch "The Corporation" on SBS last week - it's on again tonight) that passes for our government more narky than usual, and he'll just up bank fees, or write more obscure and crippling legislation, or slap a premium on your legal/medical/insurance/plumbing bill. He may even drive his OTHER fatarse car more aggressively than usual, and splatter poor li'l you or I against the pavement. 
