It is about one year ago that Bruce MacLeod and myself started our E-Bike Africa expedition from Glasgow to Cape Town on electric bikes powered by solar energy. We stopped at the UN Climate Conference COP21 in Paris to introduce our ambitious project to the international audience that had gathered to safe our planet as we know it. This is a key aspect to E-Bike Africa as the 20,000-km journey is aimed to raise awareness of climate change and its human and environmental cost.
In many places in Africa, climate change can be felt far more than in the countries of the big polluters. But the boomerang is coming back. In the acts of violence that happened just before COP21 in Paris and most recently in Berlin as well as in the waves of migration we are facing the results of social and economic injustice, anger and fear. This is a global challenge that refers to all of us and tightly connects to climate change among other factors.
African leg delayed due to injury
As urgent as it seems to act, we sill had to postpone the second leg of E-Bike Africa from Paris to Cape Town as Bruce was suffering from an ongoing shoulder injury over all of last year. In early December 2016 he finally had an operation. The estimated post surgery recovery time is 4-6 months. The surgery went well and we hope that in about two months from now we can make a prognosis about the further schedule of the tour.
Time to act
In the light of a climate change denier taking the presidential office of the United States today, we are more than ever convinced that action towards the protection of our planet is a must - in private and in public life. And while the media keep predicting the “end of the world as we know it” (Spiegel) the nations of the world (except for one) stood together in a consensus on climate action at COP22 in Morocco last November. A moment of global encouragement and inspiration …
Believe us, we can’t wait to get back on our bikes and continue our journey via Alexandria down the eastern side of Africa. Fingers crossed!
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