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<ul><li>The iconic British bike manufacturer <keyword id="5965268" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Norton-Motorcycles">Norton Motorcycles</keyword> has been acquired by <keyword id="87196" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="TVS-Motors">TVS Motors</keyword>.</li><li>The company has said that it will help Norton <keyword id="6388987" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="motorcycles">Motorcycles</keyword> regain its ‘full glory’.</li><li>Norton Motorcycles will continue manufacturing from its existing UK facility.</li></ul>Indian bike maker TVS Motor acquired Norton Motorcycles, one of the oldest British bike manufacturers. In fact, Norton Motorcycles has seen the turn of two centuries already, as it was founded in 1898 in Birmingham. Norton Motorcycles is well known for its bikes which range from classic models to luxury motorcycles including super-bikes. The acquisition could put TVS Motor on the world map, much like the acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover in 2008 helped Tata Motors gain global prominence. You might be wondering what’s so special about Norton Motorcycles that TVS acquired it in the midst of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. What makes Norton such a valued venture? Is it just price or pride, or is there more to it? Let’s find out. Norton Motorcycles was founded in 1898 as a bicycle parts supplier <div type="image" title="Norton" msid="75251549" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Source: Wikimedia Commons&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> Norton Motorcycles was founded in 1898 by James Lansdowne Norton. For the first few years, Norton supplied bicycle parts. It wasn’t until 1902 that the company started building its own motorcycles. The first Norton bike was the Energette, powered by a 143cc engine that was sourced from Belgium. Norton took the next major leap in 1907 when it built its own engine – the iconic Big Four with 633cc capacity. It was so successful that it remained in production for nearly five decades. The last Norton bike with the Big Four engine was sold in 1954. It supplied the British army during the World Wars <div type="image" title="Norton" msid="75251577" hostid="261"></div> By the time the first World War was underway, Norton had gained a reputation for making sturdy motorcycles. It supplied the British army during both the World Wars. In the second World War, a quarter of the bikes used by the British army were Nortons. Dominator, Commando, Manx – some of the legendary Norton motorcycles Over its long history, Norton has come out with several legendary motorcycles. The Norton Manx set the race tracks on fire – it recorded two hat-trick podium finishes at the iconic Isle of Man Tourist Trophy in 1950. The Commando range set sales records on fire with over 5 lakh units sold in a decade. Apart from hot sales and speed, Norton is also known for its simplicity and elegance. Norton’s ownership changed more than five times since its founding Norton Motorcycles is more than 100 years old now, and it has seen several ownership changes throughout its history. The first time Norton experienced financial troubles was in 1913, just before the first World War. The company found a lifeline thanks to RT Shelly and Company. In 1953 as the motorcycle industry went into a recession, Norton faced its next major challenge as major shareholders started to quit. It was eventually acquired by Associated Motor Cycles. Subsequently, Norton Dominator Twins and Norton Atlas kept the company’s sales strong. Over the next few years, Norton went through a reformation and renamed Norton-Villiers. Another British brand BSA-Triumph was also going through financial difficulties. The UK government stepped in to merge Norton and BSA Triumph. A few decades later, Norton was acquired by Canada’s Wildrose Ventures in 1993. However, within a year, it was sold to another company Aquilini Investments. Until 2008, Norton was under American ownership. It was bought by Stuart Garner, a UK-based businessman in 2008. In January 2020, Norton went into liquidation. In April 2020, TVS Motor Company announced the acquisition of Norton Motorcycles. TVS says it will help ‘Norton to regain its fully glory’ Announcing the completion of acquisition on April 17, TVS Motor’s joint managing director Sudarshan Venu said, “This is a momentous time for us at TVS Motor Company. Norton is an iconic British brand celebrated across the world and presents us with an immense opportunity to scale globally.” “We will extend our full support for Norton to regain its full glory in the international motorcycle landscape,” Venu further added. Why is Norton important for TVS? Owning a classic motorcycle brand or range is quite a rage these days, as the successful comeback of Royal Enfield has proved. For TVS, the Coronavirus pandemic has presented the perfect opportunity to combine price, pride and potential in a single package -- that is Norton Motorcycles. While the price and pride factors are understandable, the potential with Norton is limitless. “It is a brand which gives us a huge opportunity to scale up and create value,” Venu said. Beyond this, TVS also appears intent on maintaining Norton’s distinctive identity. It will continue with the existing Norton employees and the manufacturing will continue at the existing Donnington Park facility in the UK. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/tvs-motor-acqusition-of-norton-motorcycles-uk-is-like-tata-motors-buying-jaguar-land-rover-jlr/articleshow/75216719.cms">TVS Motor and the Tata⁠ Group have something in common— the lure of struggling British icons</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/strongly-support-measures-announced-by-rbi-to-revive-economy-tvs-motor/articleshow/75199047.cms">Strongly support measures announced by RBI to revive economy: TVS Motor</a>

Here’s everything you need to know about Norton Motorcycles – the latest acquisition by TVS Motor

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The pandemic forced cities to remold their streets to give more room to pedestrians and <keyword id="24462" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="bikes">bikes</keyword>, but it also thrust their longstanding lack of good <keyword id="6359227" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="biking">biking</keyword> infrastructure into the spotlight. </li><li>A natural ebb and flow in <keyword id="6366594" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="cycling">cycling</keyword> popularity, car-centric and unsustainable planning practices, and the auto industry's effort to claim streets for cars all made US cities fall behind some of their bike-friendly European counterparts, experts said. </li><li>Cities have been making progress, however, and some of the temporary measures put in place during the pandemic are becoming permanent. </li></ul>Walk the streets of many major US cities today and you'll find cones, bollards, and barricades creating space for pedestrians and cyclists that, before the pandemic, belonged to cars. It's an urbanist's dream, but it's come at an immense cost. When COVID-19 hit last spring, cities from Oakland to Philadelphia scrambled to meet the needs of a public abruptly uprooted from its daily routine and forced to physically distance. Taking advantage of a steep drop-off in car traffic, <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="transportation">transportation</keyword> departments began closing streets to give people more space to roam while designating temporary bike lanes to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bicycle-lanes-cycling-pandemic-coronavirus-2020-10">accommodate a pandemic-era surge in cycling</a>. And although the pandemic highlighted some cities' ability to innovate, it also forced the US' longstanding lack of good biking infrastructure into the spotlight.After all, people didn't start biking when the pandemic began; it's been on the rise for years. And although lots of American cities have decent bike lanes, scores of cities outside the US - most famously European metropolises like Copenhagen and Amsterdam - have spent decades building out highly developed and widely utilized biking networks. <div type="image" title="Oakland streets closed" height="1333" width="2000" msid="79968199" hostid="261"></div>It's a wonder, then, that those ways of thinking haven't taken hold in the US, forcing the country's major cities to step up their efforts amid the crunch of a pandemic instead of remolding themselves over the course of many decades. But it's actually by design. Mobility and urban planning experts say that cycling's relatively brief periods of popularity, transportation departments' reactionary and car-centric planning habits, and the auto industry's war to cement cars as the primary way of getting around - both on streets and in the American cultural consciousness - made the US fall behind many of its European counterparts. <h2>The boom and bust cycle of cycling</h2>The current obsession with biking - extraordinary as its backdrop may be - is just the latest in a more than two-centuries-long boom and bust cycle, Dr. Evan Friss, a historian at James Madison University, told Business Insider. As biking saw brief surges in popularity followed by decades-long drops in public interest, Friss said, there was rarely enough sustained enthusiasm and momentum for lasting infrastructure improvements to take hold. Friss said the first major boom came in the 1890s, when the modern bicycle as we know it hit streets. The newly developed "safety bicycle" - as opposed to the high-riding and riskier pennyfarthing - exploded in popularity and led well-to-do cycling enthusiasts to push for paved roads and other ambitious infrastructure projects to make biking easier."Americans in cities across the country began dreaming up these cycling cities and thinking about how their lives, their culture, their society [would] be altered by having an affordable - eventually - private form of transportation, which never really existed before," Friss said. During the late 19th century boom, a 3-foot-wide path of asphalt was built along the gutter in Manhattan for commuters going down to Wall Street, some hundred miles of lanes were constructed in St. Paul, Minnesota, an elevated wooden path was erected in Pasadena, California, and a dedicated bike lane was established from the middle of Brooklyn down to Coney Island, to name a few initiatives.<div type="image" title="GettyImages 514881876" height="1856" width="2500" msid="79968205" hostid="261"></div>Interest faded around the turn of the century. By the Great Depression, when people flocked to bikes in large numbers again, the infrastructure of the 1890s had vanished. In the early 1970s, the oil crisis drove car owners to bicycles yet again, spurring a new emphasis on building bike lanes and bike-safety publicity campaigns. But, Friss said, that all died out in short order as well. "In many of these boom periods, bicycles are witnessing an explosion of popularity despite, ... not because, of the infrastructure in place," Friss said. "They start to build infrastructure, but usually the periods of popularity are so brief that there's not much staying power to them."Historically, US cities scrambled to catch up with demand rather than leading with infrastructure - and Friss said that, coupled with the natural ebb and flow of cycling popularity, is one of the chief reasons that major biking infrastructure projects never stuck.<h2>US transportation departments, in large part, don't prioritize bikes or sustainability</h2>Many European cities famous for their strong cycling networks were able to develop them because their transportation departments think top-down rather than bottom-up, Tabitha Combs, a researcher of transportation planning and policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Business Insider. If you build it, they will come, the European planners say.But that's not so in the US, Combs said. US transportation departments take into account anticipated demand when planning and funding new roadways, but they're much more reactionary when it comes to pedestrian and bike projects, Combs said. "When it comes to walking and bicycling, most state DOTs and most local DOTs wait until there is a demonstrated demand, meaning there's a worn path on the side of the road where people are walking, or - as dark and morbid as it sounds - enough people are killed crossing a multi-lane road that eventually action is warranted," Combs said. <div type="image" title="Temporary covid bike lanes in boston" height="1418" width="2500" msid="79968207" hostid="261"></div>Many cities that have succeeded in building out biking infrastructure overseas did so as part of a concerted move to get people on bikes and push their cities in a more sustainable direction - not just to meet existing demand, multiple experts said. European transportation officials, Combs said, understood the negative environmental impact of car dependence much earlier than their US counterparts, and they began shaping city streets accordingly.The key difference between US and European transportation authorities, according to Sam Schwartz, a transportation consultant and former New York City traffic commissioner, is that the latter "believe in science.""Amsterdam and Copenhagen are fabulous examples of cities that looked at their horizon and saw where automobile dependence was taking them - in terms of the environment, in terms of access to opportunity, in terms of financial cost, the financial burden of providing streets for cars, and they said, 'We need to do something different,'" Combs said. "Places like that built out their bicycling networks and their walking networks in advance of the demand, and they're still building out those networks."What US transportation departments historically missed, experts said, is that biking infrastructure can create demand by giving people more options. European cities have incentivized people to ride by leading with infrastructure for some 50 years, Friss said. The result is that biking there isn't so much a niche activity with a particular demographic - as it is in the US - as an established way of getting around that's embraced by all genders and ages, Friss said.<div type="image" title="biking in amsterdam" height="1583" width="2500" msid="79968209" hostid="261"></div>But the philosophy surrounding bike infrastructure has evolved somewhat in recent years. Friss said the latest bike boom - which began in the mid 2000s and continues to this day - has seen a substantial push for initiatives that don't just meet demand, but also promote sustainability and get more people to ride. That's partially why it has lasted more than a decade, he said, while previous booms tended to fizzle out after six or eight years. Although a lot has changed since Schwartz oversaw the construction of New York's first protected bike lanes in 1980 - which were met with huge opposition and were quickly torn out - the general attitude within government that road projects take precedence over biking or pedestrian initiatives persists, he said. "We have a budget in New York State and New York City over the next 10 years of about $25 billion for roads and bridges," Schwartz said. "The Queens Ribbon [Schwartz' proposed pedestrian and cycling bridge going into lower Manhattan] would be about $100 million. And I can't find anyone in government willing to take it seriously." <h2>Automotive interest groups worked tirelessly to claim city streets for the car</h2>The story of how bikes wound up sidelined from city streets is inextricably linked to the parallel tale of how cars came to dominate them. "As automobiles got prioritized on streets, they became hostile environments for everybody else," Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, told Business Insider.The prevailing historical narrative would have you believe that cars were so useful and attractive that they were destined to rule US roads, but Norton said that narrative was largely propagated by the auto industry itself. "The version of history that we've been told primarily comes from automobile businesses," Norton said. "They were the first historians of the car, and they're still the most vocal historians of the car today." In reality, Norton said, there was always strong opposition to the automobile - even from its earliest days - and auto industry groups have spent the last century reshaping roads and molding public opinion to better accommodate them. <div type="image" title="New York Street 1915" height="1875" width="2500" msid="79968211" hostid="261"></div>When cars first hit the road in significant numbers in the early 1920s, Norton said they faced a severe backlash as they disrupted the formerly pedestrian-friendly streets and began killing <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/11/23/104162618.html?pageNumber=179">thousands of people annually</a>. The laws, social norms, and planning standards of the time all put pedestrians first, and most major institutions agreed that motorists - not pedestrians - would need to make concessions to keep streets safe. Threatened by the budding anti-car movement of the 1920s, auto manufacturers, dealers, and enthusiast groups set out to redesign laws and engineering standards to claim streets for the car, Norton said. Around that time, automakers popularized the term "jaywalking" and lobbied to make it a crime across the country, Norton said - both as a strategy for keeping the roads free of pedestrians, and for <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history">shaming those who dared overstep that boundary</a>. "Jay" was contemporary slang for someone from outside the city - a close approximation today might be "hayseed" or "hick." The industry also helped craft the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history">1928 Model Municipal Traffic Ordinance</a>, a federal guideline cities could use to manage traffic that said pedestrians could only cross streets at designated crosswalks. <div type="image" title="GettyImages 804477496" height="2047" width="2500" msid="79968214" hostid="261"></div>In the early 1930s, the National Highway Users Conference - a lobbying group formed by General Motors, the American Automobile Association, and other industry groups - began a wildly successful campaign to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/8605917/highways-interstate-cities-history">make highway construction a public responsibility</a>, and the <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/96summer/p96su10.cfm">1956 Federal Aid Highway Act</a> cemented that responsibility. It heavily subsidized highway construction and laid the groundwork for the current, near-50,000-mile interstate highway system that runs through nearly every major central business district in the country.<h2>A cultural offensive</h2>The industry also waged a pervasive cultural offensive to shift public perception of the automobile and, eventually, cement cars as an immutable fixture in the American way of life, Norton said. The notion of the US' love affair with the automobile, Norton argues, isn't so much an organic attraction, but rather the result of a concerted, decades-long public opinion campaign. That very turn of phrase - "America's love affair with the automobile" - first appeared in the late 1950s as a GM marketing slogan, Norton said, and then was used to promote a 1961 television special on the early history of the car called "Merrily We Roll Along," hosted by Groucho Marx and sponsored by DuPont, which had a 23% stake in the automaker at the time. By the late 1920s, Norton said practically every public school in the US had traffic-safety education, and most of the materials were provided at no charge by AAA. That too was instrumental in teaching an entire generation - and those that followed - that streets were primarily a place for cars, not for pedestrians or cyclists. <h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>Despite the bike-friendly initiatives some cities have introduced in recent years, they still have a long way to go. Nearly 860 cyclists were killed by drivers in the US in 2018, making it the deadliest year for bikers since 1990, according to <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2409749/outside-cycling-deaths-2020">Outside Magazine</a>. Many urbanists think city dwellers would be better off if some of the temporary changes made to streetscapes became permanent. And at least in some cities, that's happening. Seattle <a href="https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2020/05/07/2020-bike-investments-to-accelerate-including-20-miles-of-stay-healthy-streets-to-become-permanent-in-seattle/">announced in May</a> that at least 20 miles of its Stay Healthy Streets would remain closed to car traffic permanently. Austin City Council decided in September to <a href="https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/austin-congress-temporary-bike-lanes-approved/269-9ca3b110-af52-40bd-836c-0e4125438944">keep protected bike lanes</a> established in the city in June, and <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-announces-plans-for-permanent-bike-bus-lanes/34040602">Boston is doing the same</a>, replacing traffic barrels with permanent posts on several downtown streets. But temporary measures don't need to become permanent to be successful. Whereas before, any new project had to surmount all types of hurdles and secure funding before becoming a reality, this moment has introduced experimentation - affording cities and residents the ability to test-drive infrastructure overhauls without committing completely. To Combs, the US has always been a follower rather than an innovator in planning, and this new era of experimentation may finally change that. "There are some very important lessons for the field of transport planning and engineering in that we can actually learn by doing - we don't have to wait for there to be a standard and a precedent," Combs said. "We can actually experiment."And that, I think - I hope - is part of the paradigm shift for transport planning."

The US wasn't equipped for 2020's cycling boom. Its failures stem from a century of leaving bikes behind.

Wikimedia CommonsThe beginnings of the cycleway.Drivers in Los Angeles <a href="http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/pdf/2014-05-14%20TomTomTrafficIndex2013annualAme-mi.pdf">spend an average of 90 hours a year</a> stuck in traffic. But back in the 1890s, California imagined a different future for the city's streets.The state planned to build <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Cycleway">a for-profit, six-mile bike-only highway only for bikes</a> that would stretch from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles. It was the brainchild of Pasadena resident Horace Dobbins, who began construction after city approval in 1897.Three years later, it opened as an elevated tollway that collected 10 cents per biker, or about $2.50 in today's money.Only 1.3 miles of the cycleway were actually built. The city tore it down a decade later since it never made a profit. Google MapsThe California Cycleway's planned route.The cycleway may sound like a far-fetched idea today, but at the time, most Americans moved through cities by foot, historian and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Traffic-American-Inside-Technology/dp/0262516128">author</a> Peter Norton told Business Insider. City folk weren't yet sure if they should adopt cars."Many experts and ordinary people agreed that cars didn't really belong in cities," he said. "They made a lot of sense in the country, but in the city, they demanded too much space, drove pedestrians off the streets, and injured too many people."The California Cycleway likely failed because it was meant for recreation, rather than for efficient commutes, according to Norton. For those who rode bikes as an inexpensive way to get around, the toll seemed steep. The timing of the construction was also unfortunate; the Cycleway was built just as recreational cycling was going out of fashion.Local cycling clubs and activist groups like the League of American Wheelmen competed against powerful auto manufacturers and wealthy car owners."The future was not so much a natural evolution, but more a struggle for control," Norton said.Wikimedia CommonsThe League of American Wheelmen circa 1880s.Today, most city infrastructure is still planned around the needs of cars. But many cities (especially European ones) are trying to change that by building extensive bike lanes and improving public transit. Oslo recently announced that<a href="http://www.techinsider.io/oslo-bans-cars-from-its-city-center-2015-10"> it will ban cars from its city center</a> by 2019, and Madrid <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/26/madrid-plans-city-centre-car-ban-masdar-brussels-athens">plans to do the same</a> by 2020. The city of Copenhagen is also building <a href="http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/cycle-super-highway/">26 cycling superhighways that will span 186 miles</a>, while Xiamen, China <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1sxEUEnQ4A">opened</a> a suspended cycleway for a monthlong trial in early 2017 that allows for 2,023 bicycles at a time.Although it'd be a giant feat, Norton said a similar cycleway could work in California and elsewhere in the US."The sheer madness of America's lavish energy consumption and public health disasters have compelled people to look for good alternatives, and there are plenty," he said.The country may just get one in the coming years. The <a href="http://www.greenway.org/">East Coast Greenway Alliance</a> is <a href="http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/06/a-bike-path-for-the-entire-east-coast/489155/">working on a</a><a href="http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/06/a-bike-path-for-the-entire-east-coast/489155/"> 2,900-mile bike path</a> that will link Maine to Florida. Today, it has about 850 miles of trails. By 2020, the organization plans to add 200 more, and have <a href="http://www.core77.com/posts/54976/A-2900-Mile-Car-Free-Bicycle-Path-Running-from-Maine-to-Florida-is-Underway?utm_source=public_sidebar">95%</a> of the trail done by 2030 - which would make it <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/east-coast-greenway-2900-mile-bike-path-2016-7">the largest bike trail in the US</a>. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stromer-st2-electric-bicycle-review-specs-video-test-2015-7">For $7,000 this bike will get you to work in half the time and keep you from breaking a sweat </a></h3> Please enable Javascript to watch this video

California once imagined a future without cars with this bike superhighway

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Poor infrastructure makes bicycling harder in the US than many other places.</li><li>Road safety is a major issue that prevents many from biking. </li></ul>A forgotten bike lane full of potholes might be the key to unlocking the Biden administration's transportation goals, if only someone would fix it.With billions of dollars in infrastructure funding <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whats-in-the-infrastructure-bill-amtrak-clean-energy-2021-7">pumping through the economy</a>, America is rethinking what its streets, homes, and transit look like. But one trusty form of getting around has been left behind — the humble bicycle.Advocates say it's a mistake to leave bikes in the dust, even as the federal government seems more focused on funneling money into electric vehicles. Creating real bike infrastructure — and making it accessible to bikers who don't live in wealthy, downtown neighborhoods — can have a big impact on making bikes an option for everyone. "The joy and freedom that's afforded to me as a person who uses a bike to get around a city is a thing that shouldn't just accrue to folks with the most privilege," Jeff Gang, interim executive director of the Boston Cyclists Union, told Insider.As the Biden administration looks towards easing the pain of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inflation-price-growth-us-cpi-february-2023-3">high inflation</a> and gas prices, and fighting climate change, biking might just be a silver bullet. Transportation accounts for the majority of the US's carbon emissions. A <a href="https://www.bicycling.com/news/a33798099/e-bikes-can-reduce-carbon-emissions-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2020 study</a> found that if people rode an e-bike instead of driving a car just 15% of the time, it would reduce emissions by 12%. A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915000907" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2015 study</a> of bike-friendly Copenhagen found that the cost to society of driving a car is six times as much as cycling, and that while the cost of driving will probably go up, the cost of biking is falling."When it's done right," Gang said, "bicycling can be part of a transportation system that really makes it easier for everyone to participate in the city where they live without facing harassment or violence."<div type="image" title="A boy moves through the obstacle course at the Rancho Santa Margaritas Bike Rodeo in the parking lot of the Bell Tower Regional Community Center in Rancho Santa Margarita on Sunday, August 7, 2022." height="640" width="1280" msid="99114887" hostid="261" sizebytes="125610"></div><h2>People are scared to ride bikes</h2>Many Americans don't bike because they're worried about safety. "Safety really is the number one issue," Ken McLeod, policy director at the League of American Cyclists, told Insider. "People don't feel safe on a lot of our nation's roadways."And they're right to be concerned. The US has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upshot/road-deaths-pedestrians-cyclists.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an abysmal record</a> when it comes to road safety, particularly for pedestrians and bicyclists, as compared to other wealthy countries. Over the last 20 years, America's roads have gotten safer for drivers and passengers, in part because cars have gotten larger, but have simultaneously become <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trucks-are-getting-taller-heavier-and-more-dangerous-for-pedestrians-2023-3">much more dangerous</a> for cyclists, pedestrians, and motorcyclists. And traffic fatalities in the US <a href="https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/GHSA%20Pedestrian%20Traffic%20Fatalities%20by%20State%2C%20January-June%202022%20Preliminary%20Data.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have spiked over the last few years</a>. "We know that bicycling as it exists right now feels quite unsafe — and, in many cases, is quite unsafe," Gang said.It's not that Americans are more reckless or distracted than people in other countries. It's that our street infrastructure is often designed to be dangerous, with high speed limits, few protected bike lanes, poorly marked roads, and chaotic intersections. "It's not necessarily that one car is speeding on a roadway, it's that the roadway is designed for 35 mile-per-hour traffic and doesn't have a bike lane," McLeod said. <div type="image" title="West Side Bicycle Lanes and Cityscape, New York City, New York" height="640" width="1280" msid="99114891" hostid="261" sizebytes="227152"></div><h2>It's (bike) infrastructure week</h2>Bicycling advocates from around the country descended on DC this week to push Congress to pass the federal <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-give-you-1500-buy-an-electric-bike-2023-3">Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment (E-BIKE) Act</a>, which would provide tax credits for e-bike purchases, and the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Act, which would unlock federal funding for bike and pedestrian infrastructure.The best way to address biking safety concerns, advocates say, is to build better bike infrastructure, including a robust system of bike lanes. "The biggest issue that pretty much any city is going to face is creating a safe, accessible bike network that's going to really meet the needs of people of all ages and abilities to enable them to bike and to feel safe while they're biking," McLeod said. Bike lanes as currently built in many cities often don't connect riders all the way from their starting point to where they want to go. "You get in the car and you can drive anywhere, you know, you can get to where you want to go," Martha Roskowski, a Colorado-based transportation consultant who attended the Bike Summit this week, told Insider. "You get on a bike and you're like, oh my god, I can make it two-thirds of the way there but then there's a section from hell and I don't want to die." Bike riders also need accessible storage and charging facilities for e-bikes, Hultin said, particularly for lower-income families who might live in multifamily housing.Jeremiah Lowery, advocacy director at the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, says his group and others are lobbying Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting DC representative, for the city to add e-bike charging capabilities to electric car charging stations. <div type="image" title="A woman rides a Velotric Discover e-bike." height="640" width="1280" msid="99114893" hostid="261" sizebytes="69102"></div><h2>An e-bike solution? </h2>Over the last few years, cities and states across the country have rolled out incentives, mostly tax credits, to buy electric bicycles and cargo e-bikes. The success of some of these policies prompted <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-give-you-1500-buy-an-electric-bike-2023-3">the introduction of the E-BIKE Act</a>, which would give most Americans up to $1,500 off the purchase of an e-bike. After the tax credit policy was cut from the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act last year, Democratic lawmakers introduced the bill earlier this month in both the House and Senate. If passed, the law wouldn't directly address the most pressing safety and infrastructure concerns facing bicyclists, but advocates say it could help. For one, growing the number of people riding bikes would mean fewer cars on the road, making streets safer for bikers. At the same time, this growing community of new bicyclists would likely demand better bike lanes and other infrastructure."If you give people access to electric bicycles through some type of incentive, like a tax credit, you're going to create just a whole new army of bike advocates who are out there on the streets," Noa Banayan, director of federal affairs at People for Bikes, told Insider. Ultimately, advocates say it's about return on investment: More bikes, and better bike infrastructure, could lead to big savings for commuters and a rethinking of how everyone navigates their landscape."There's a ton of attention being paid to electric vehicles, and I would encourage policy makers just to think about how much impact you can have with a family e-bike with seats for children or space for carrying groceries or soccer balls or anything else," Gang said. "And think about how much more bang for your buck you can get by subsidizing that than by subsidizing an electric Hummer."

It's not easy being a bicyclist in the US. Better infrastructure could help.

re<ul class="summary-list"><li>F1 drivers have a training regimen unlike anything else in sports.</li><li>They must find the perfect balance between stamina, strength, and maintaining the right weight.</li></ul>Training as a Formula One driver is all about striking the perfect balance between competing forces. Drivers need to be strong, but they also need to be light. They need to maintain remarkable endurance, but they also need to have lightning-quick reflexes, hands and feet. To better understand what it takes to find the right mix to compete at the sport's highest level, Insider spoke with two current F1 drivers and a longtime trainer about the physical demands required of driving in formula racing's most prestigious stage.<h2>The preseason is used to get stronger</h2>Preparation for an F1 season begins during the three-month break between the end of one season and the start of the next. While most drivers will take a vacation for a much-needed mental break, it doesn't leave much time to prepare for the next season. The off-season is the time when drivers will do a lot of strength training to build the muscles necessary to control a 1,800-pound (800 kg) car going 200+ mph. Patrick Harding, a trainer who has worked with drivers, Olympic athletes, and boxers, has been Alex Albon's trainer for four years, since his time with Red Bull and now driving for Williams. Harding estimates the pair spend nearly two months preparing for a season. "We'll do probably a six-, eight-week block of training before the season begins," he told Insider. "And at least three or four weeks of that is dedicated to trying to put on some muscle mass. So we do a huge amount of hypertrophy work, and we'll aim to put two or three kilos at least of muscle mass on Alex before this season."McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo echoed this but also noted that drivers still need cardiovascular work, which means a lot of training. "In the preseason, where you are really trying to build yourself up, we'll train, I guess, six days a week," Ricciardo told Insider. "It's kind of a session in the morning, session in the evening, and that'll be a mixture of cardio training, strength training. I would say we need good all-around fitness.... You don't need to be a triathlete or a bodybuilder, but you need just good all-around strength and conditioning."<h2>During the season, the focus is about recovery and maintaining strength</h2>The time training during the off-season is so critical because once the season starts, the physical focus turns more toward recovery, with so little time between most races. "By race one, [Albon will] probably be the heaviest he will be all year, and then that weight slowly dissipates across race weekends," Harding said. "So we try to build a little bit of a buffer at the start of the season so that his weight doesn't actually go too low."Drivers lose a lot of weight over the course of a race week. <a href="https://www.insider.com/racing-driver-lewis-hamilton-loses-10-pounds-weight-in-race-2022-5">According to seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, he can lose six or seven pounds (3 kg) during practice and qualifying and up to 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in a race</a>. After race days, Ricciardo will rest and recover on Mondays, maybe do some light cycling on Tuesday, a little bit of core and neck strength on Wednesday, and then Thursday, it is back to the track."Through the season, it's more recovery," Ricciardo said. "Once you kind of get into the routine of racing, we're in the car then three days a week, and that keeps us actually in very good condition and, specifically, race condition."<a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/lewis-hamilton-selfcare-wellness-interview-2022">In an interview with GQ</a>, Hamilton outlined his recovery routine, showing an emphasis on the importance of self-care."Recovery has been a real focus for me in the past couple of years," the 37-year-old Mercedes icon told GQ. "Now, I always make sure the day after a race is a complete day off – I make sure it's a day to myself for self-care. I do cryotherapy, I might do some pool work, and I make sure I get physio or acupuncture that day or just a steam room."Of course, each race is a little different. While biking is a key activity seemingly shared by all drivers between races, sometimes drivers are forced to modify their routines. In preparation for the extreme conditions in Singapore, Ferrari's Carlos Sainz took a bike into the steam room. George Russell didn't use a steam room. Instead, he did his bike work in what appeared to be a rain suit. <h2>The all-important neck and butt muscles</h2>The most important muscle group for an F1 driver to keep strong might be his neck muscles. This is due to the G-forces exerted on the body — <a href="https://motorsportexplained.com/f1-g-forces/">as high as six times the force of gravity</a> — during turns, braking, and accelerating in their rockets on wheels. Josh St. Clair of GQ described the neck-strengthening exercises Ricciardo uses."Ricciardo favors a neck harness and resistance band for building both strength and endurance. For strength, trainer Michael Italiano has Ricciardo step back with the band taut around the back of his head. Ricciardo then moves his head from side to side for 4 sets of 30 repetitions. For endurance, the band pulls Ricciardo's head in one direction as he tries to keep his neck stable. This endurance hold imitates the g-forces in cornering."<div type="image" title="Esteban Ocon" height="1667" width="2500" msid="94884041" hostid="261" sizebytes="124542"></div><a href="https://www.insider.com/kevin-magnussen-f1-return-haas-2022-7">During an interview with Tom Kollmar and Michel Milewski for the German magazine Sport Bild</a>, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen explained how painful it can be if a driver doesn't strengthen his neck before the season.After spending seven years in F1, Magnussen lost his seat at Haas following the 2020 season. He spent the 2021 season racing in the North American IMSA series and was set to do so again this year before getting a call on the eve of the F1 season to replace Russian driver Nikita Mazepin. It had been about 18 months since Magnussen had adequately trained for driving an F1 car. Specifically, he missed out on preparing his neck to withstand the extreme G-forces."I did that year without cockpit training," <a href="https://www.insider.com/kevin-magnussen-f1-return-haas-2022-7">Magnussen said</a>. "The pressure in the car is so great that the body only gets used to the forces while driving. When I learned a week before the opening race in Bahrain that I would race, I had to immediately start with fitness sessions ... After the first two races, I was hardly able to hold my head up."This video shows some of the neck training F1 drivers must go through.Below the neck, muscle mass is more important in the lower parts of the body.Ricciardo's trainer, Michael Italiano, further explained some of the off-season exercises he puts the driver through <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a40880501/daniel-ricciardo-workout/">for Men's Health</a>. While there is an emphasis on the shoulders and forearms (for steering the car), there is a heavy emphasis on the core and the posterior chain (back, glutes, and hamstrings).Hamilton says he must adjust his body to be lean instead of bulky, and the weights he does are designed to keep the center of his mass as low as possible."You have to have really good core stability," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBx3843DI8I">Hamilton told Graham Norton in 2019</a>. "You can't be big and bulky. If I was super-muscly [in my shoulders], my weight would be too high [vertically]. So, I do lots of squats for my butt."<div type="image" title="Lewis Hamilton" height="1406" width="2500" msid="94884044" hostid="261" sizebytes="192974"></div><h2>Cardio work is needed for a surprising reason</h2>The G-forces experienced by drivers, especially in corners and while braking and accelerating, don't just impact the muscles in the neck and the muscles used to control the car. They also have a significant impact on breathing.In a recent look behind the scenes, AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly explained how much the G-forces impact a driver's ability to breathe. It is similar to a swimmer who spends a large portion of their race with their face underwater. "Breathing is obviously very important," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kMyNAI74As">Gasly said</a>. "We spend, let's say, 70% of the lap not breathing, in apnea. So that's what makes it really challenging and really physical for us because we obviously have the G-forces, but we also can't breathe in the car because the G-forces are so high when you brake, when you go through a corner, when you accelerate. You can't breathe because you have too many forces on your body [pointing to his chest]."Gasly and teammate Yuki Tsunoda use endurance exercises and cardio work, such as running on a treadmill, to train the heart and lungs to be more efficient during the moments they can breathe during a race. <div type="image" title="Pierre Gasly on a treadmill" height="672" width="1212" msid="94884046" hostid="261" sizebytes="28652"></div><h2>Making weight is a battle aiming at a very specific target</h2>The weight of the F1 driver is a constant struggle between opposing forces, while trying to aim for the perfect number.While drivers must be strong, the teams also want the cars to be as light as possible. However, there is a limit to how light they are allowed to be.F1 recently changed the minimum weight for drivers to 80 kg (176 pounds), including what they wear. The gear and equipment on the driver during a race weigh approximately seven kilos (15 pounds). That means the driver's actual minimum weight is 73 kilos (161 pounds). <div type="image" title="Alex Albon" height="1667" width="2500" msid="94884049" hostid="261" sizebytes="174362"></div>Carrying extra weight slows the car down, so teams want their drivers as light as possible. That means the drivers are pushed to land at or below the 161-pound minimum (if they go under, ballasts are added to the cockpit to reach the minimum).A single kilogram can mean a huge difference in races where teams constantly look to shave tenths-of-a-second off times."Ten kilos of fuel in the car costs three-tenths of a second every circuit, per lap," <a href="https://www.insider.com/racing-driver-lewis-hamilton-loses-10-pounds-weight-in-race-2022-5">Hamilton told Norton</a>. "So if I'm one kilo overweight, I can lose up to two seconds in the race distance. So my weight is very important."With that comes precision. Harding explained that Albon's in-season weight consistently hovers between 72.5 and 73.5 kilos (160-162 pounds), depending primarily on his hydration level. "Most of my concerns are when his weight drops below that 72.5 because then I know we're losing muscle mass," Harding said. "He's losing muscle glycogen. He's probably not fueled enough, and he's maybe not hydrated enough."<div type="image" title="Alex Albon" height="1667" width="2500" msid="94884052" hostid="261" sizebytes="146630"></div>During races, drivers can burn <a href="https://www.askmen.com/fitness/workout/formula-1-driver-training-tips.html">as many as 1,000 calories per hour</a>. So, often, in the thick of the season, drivers are more concerned with keeping the weight on, even for a taller driver like Albon."Our biggest issue [during the season], believe it or not, is keeping weight on Alex," Harding told Insider. While the drivers need to have strength, they also need to be lean to fit into the tiny cockpits. <a href="https://www.insider.com/f1-drivers-tall-weight-diet-training-2022-9">This is especially tough for taller drivers like Albon</a>, who is 6-foot-2. "These cars are built to be as compact as possible. The cars are designed not for 6-foot-2 athletes," Albon told Insider. "They're designed for 5-foot-7, 5-foot-8 preferably. [Those drivers] fit much better in the car right now. [Taller drivers are] kind of arched over. Your knees are touching the top of the car. Your hands are in the way of your feet."So, it's all tricky. You get put in a position that's, to be honest, very uncomfortable."Interestingly, the one sport where the training might be most comparable to F1 is boxing, where the competitors have to have the right mix of endurance and explosiveness as well as strength and maintaining a specific weight. It is a sport where Harding also trains athletes."Boxing is another sport where they need to exist across the really broad spectrum of physical performance to be successful," Harding said. "F1 is up there in terms of that level of fitness that is required to be successful."

How to train like a F1 driver, whose fitness routines are unlike anything else seen in sports

The state-of-the-art showroom in UBI Industrial estate, Singapore will offer select models from <keyword id="46156" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="tvs-motor" source="Orion">TVS Motor</keyword>'s premium motorcycle portfolio Singapore (NewsVoir) <keyword id="62356" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="tvs" source="Orion">TVS</keyword> Motor Company, a reputed manufacturer of two-wheelers with sales of over three million units globally, today inaugurated its first state-of-the-art TVS Experience Centre in Singapore. This launch is in line with the company's global expansion plans. The new TVS Experience Centre will offer a range of TVS Motor's premium motorcycles including the flagship model, TVS Apache RR310 for racing enthusiasts, and the TVS Apache RTR range for performance seekers. The company will introduce diverse product offerings, catering to both personal commuting as well as the delivery premium segment in Singapore. This centre will additionally have a vehicle servicing facility, spare parts, and a full range of merchandise to choose from. The TVS Apache series was born on the racetrack, incorporating learnings from more than 40 years of TVS Racing experience with the factory racing team of TVS Motor Company history of 40 years in motorsports. Offering superior products in the market that connect with customers who are also racing enthusiasts, the TVS Apache series has always been at the forefront of technology and innovation since its launch in 2005. Through the years, the brand has introduced first-in-segment features &amp; technology to the customers, recording strong year-on-year export volumes across 80 countries. TVS Apache has redefined the sports segment by focusing on race performance, making it a highly desirable product for sports enthusiasts. This has resulted in creating a customer base of over 4.8 million across the globe. Speaking at the occasion, Mr <keyword id="253997" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="vimal-sumbly" source="Orion">Vimal Sumbly</keyword>, Head Business-Premium at TVS Motor Company said, "The TVS Apache Series have always been at the forefront of technology &amp; innovation since its launch in 2005 and continue to set a benchmark in the performance segment. The vehicles under the stable of TVS Apache series have offered multiple first-in-segment &amp; best-in-class features &amp; technology to the customers, starting from Fuel injection, ABS, Dual Channel ABS, <keyword id="6306138" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="slipper-clutch" source="Orion">Slipper Clutch</keyword>, to the most recent SmartXonnectTM, Ride Modes, LED Headlamp, and democratising racing. Our expansion into Singapore, with the launch of the TVS Apache series, is instrumental in our premiumisation story and we are confident of widening our community of Apache owners in the country." Commenting on the Singapore launch, Mr <keyword id="4024748" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="rahul-nayak" source="Orion">Rahul Nayak</keyword>, Vice President-International Business at TVS Motor Company, said, "With many years of commitment to building the international business portfolio, TVS Motor Company has set the benchmark in catering to diverse needs of buyers across the globe. Our launch in Singapore is one step further in expanding globally in achieving our global ambitions." Commenting on the showroom launch, Mr J Thangarajan, President Director-PT TVS Motor Company, said, "We are delighted to expand our presence in the ASEAN region, with our new TVS Experience Centre in Singapore with Motorsport Pte Ltd. They have a rich experience in the region and share our values of keeping customers at the core of our offerings. This state-of-the-art experience centre inaugurated here in Singapore will further consolidate our presence in the region. It will pave the way for us to explore newer opportunities in the world of mobility, as we introduce our premium range of two-wheelers: the flagship model TVS Apache RR310 and the TVS Apache RTR series along with a slew of other experiences for the auto enthusiasts in Singapore." Mr. Herbert Teh, Director of Motorsport Pte Ltd. said, "We will be representing TVS Motor Company with great pride to cater to the Singapore customers. With the product technology and quality of TVS Motor products, combined with our market presence and reach, we are confident that we will meet the customer expectation in the country." TVS Motor Company has partnered with 'Motorsport Pte Ltd (part of the Chong Aik Group)' who will be the distributors for Singapore Market. Motorsport has strong presence in the region with 6 retail outlets and 8 warehouses. Established in 1994, they currently have exclusive distributorship for more than 40 brands, whilst also being the stockiest for genuine parts, apparels, and motorcycle accessories. TVS Motor Company is a reputed two and three-wheeler manufacturer globally, championing progress through Sustainable Mobility with four state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Hosur, Mysuru and Nalagarh in India and Karawang in Indonesia. Rooted in a 119-year legacy of Trust, Value, and Passion for Customers and Exactness, they take pride in making internationally aspirational products of the highest quality through innovative and sustainable processes. It is the only two-wheeler company to have received the prestigious Deming Prize. Their products lead in their respective categories in the J.D. Power IQS and APEAL surveys. They have been ranked the No. 1 Company in /the J.D. Power Customer Service Satisfaction Survey for consecutive four years. Their group company Norton Motorcycles, based in the United Kingdom, is one of the most emotive motorcycle brands in the world. Their subsidiaries in the personal e-mobility space, Swiss E-Mobility Group (SEMG) and EGO Movement have a leading position in the e-bike market in Switzerland. TVS Motor Company endeavours to deliver the most superior customer experience across the 80 countries in which they operate. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/sbi-warns-customers-against-instant-loan-apps/articleshow/95738846.cms">SBI warns customers against instant loan apps</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/heres-what-twitter-jail-means-and-what-you-can-do-to-escape-it/articleshow/95739937.cms">Here’s what ‘Twitter jail’ means, and what you can do to escape it</a>

TVS Motor Company Expands its Global Footprint; Launches its First TVS Experience Centre in Singapore

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Plastics companies spent millions to kickstart <keyword id="12063226" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="recycling" source="Orion">recycling</keyword> programs, and it helped them avoid bans.</li><li>Decades later, fossil-fuel interests spend millions to promote carpooling and reducing energy use.</li><li>Activists and researchers say this individual-action narrative distracts from the biggest polluters.</li></ul>Ben Franta is trying to collect every climate-related ad the oil and gas industry has ever produced.<a href="https://twitter.com/BenFranta/status/1347283598521430017">Franta</a>, who is pursuing a law degree and PhD at Stanford, is among a small cohort of researchers who track fossil-fuel industry propaganda. These historians, social scientists, and activists have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/09/half-century-dither-denial-climate-crisis-timeline">documented</a> the extent to which major oil companies <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f">knew</a> their products were changing the climate as early as the <a href="https://grist.org/energy/exxon-knew-and-so-did-coal/">1960s</a>, and how they poured tens of millions of dollars into <a href="https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/America_Misled.pdf">sowing doubt</a> about the <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword> through the 1990s."Not to get too tin-hat-y, but once you start to see these ads over and over again, you see the common elements arise," Franta told Insider.So it was clear to him that around the year 2000, fossil-fuel companies changed marketing tactics. After decades of denial, they pivoted to blaming the climate crisis on you and me.Franta pointed to a 2007 Chevron ad campaign called "Will you join us?" Each poster featured a person's face and a pledge - promises like, "I will leave the car at home more" and "I will finally get a programmable thermostat." In small print, Chevron describes its own initiatives to be energy-efficient.On the campaign's now-defunct website, users could even make pledges like carpooling to work a few days per week, and a calculator would tell them how many DVDs they could watch with the energy saved."The framing is: 'No, we the companies are the good ones. We're working on the problem and we want you, the consumer, to join us in our positive efforts,'" Franta said.This approach - telling people to solve a crisis by changing their own habits - is a tried and true corporate tactic, pioneered by the tobacco and plastics industries. Now, fossil-fuel giants like Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil have spent millions to convince the public that consumer choices and lifestyle changes will solve the problem."It's almost become natural, when people think about the climate crisis, to think of individual action," Denali Nalamalapu, a communications specialist for the climate organization 350.org, told Insider. "Which is super convenient for fossil-fuel corporations."But at this point, personal lifestyle changes will not turn the climate crisis around. A <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050">report</a> from the International Energy Agency, which lays out a path to a net-zero-emissions energy system by 2050, estimates that individual behavioral changes would only account for about 4% of the necessary reductions. To have even a 50% chance of stopping the world's temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8">study published this month</a>, 90% of coal and 60% of oil and gas reserves must stay in the ground.<h2>A blame campaign: litterbugs and recyclers</h2><div type="image" title="garbage sorted recycling plastic bottles" height="2239" width="3963" msid="86318747" hostid="261"></div>In 1971, TVs across the US blasted a heart-wrenching PSA. In it, an actor in ambiguous American-Indian garb, his hair in two long braids, climbs into a canoe and paddles across a river full of discarded newspapers. He passes an industrial barge. Smokestacks puff in the background. He pulls his canoe onto a garbage-strewn shoreline and climbs to a busy highway. A passing motorist chucks a bag of fast food at his moccasined feet."People start pollution. People can stop it," a narrator says as the actor looks into the camera, a tear rolling down his cheek.This "Crying Indian PSA," as it's now known, came from a nonprofit called Keep America Beautiful - a group funded by companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Dixie Cups. It debuted at a time when single-use packaging lined streets, beaches, and parks, and environmental activists had begun to rail against plastic pollution."That was an intentional, well-funded effort to convince us all that the responsibility for pollution was on us, on individuals, on litterbugs, rather than the companies that were flooding the world with single-use packaging," John Hocevar, a marine biologist who leads Greenpeace's oceans campaigns, told Insider.The tobacco industry did something similar <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318333/">in the 1950s</a>, hiring PR firms to create campaigns blaming smoking-related illness on smokers. But the plastics industry took the strategy further.As local governments considered banning single-use plastics, a council of plastic-producing companies - including Chevron, Exxon, Dow, and DuPont - spent millions to implement recycling programs across the US. Their own scientists, however, had told them that recycling wouldn't work on a large scale, according to an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled">investigation</a> by PBS and NPR."Making recycling work was a way to keep their products in the marketplace," Ron Liesemer, a former Du Pont manager who led the effort, told <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-takeaways-from-the-fight-over-the-future-of-plastics">PBS and NPR</a>. "It improves the image of the material."<div type="image" title="recycling blue bins garbage curb" height="1527" width="2037" msid="86318749" hostid="261"></div>By 2015, the quantity of plastic produced each year had <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution">increased 10-fold</a> from 1971. Less than 10% of that material has ever been recycled. Each square kilometer of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/plastic-pollution-microplastics-pervade-surface-deep-ocean-2019-6">ocean</a> contains an average of about <a href="https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-14-life-below-water.html">13,000 pieces of plastic</a>.Microplastics - fragments smaller than a fingernail that never fully break down - have been found in the Mariana Trench and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mount-everest-summit-microplastics-study-national-geographic-2020-11">at the top of Mount Everest</a>. The average American <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517">ingests about 50,000 microplastic particles each year</a> and inhales about the same amount. <div type="image" title="plastic pollution ocean waste environment.JPG" height="2000" width="2667" msid="86318752" hostid="261"></div>Plastic production is expected to double by 2040 and triple by 2050, according to <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf">the World Economic Forum</a>."Just about everybody understands that we need to do something about plastic," Hocevar said. "The challenge is that many companies - well, most companies - and many politicians are still thinking in this personal-responsibility frame and putting the emphasis on individual consumers. And so that really keeps the conversation focused on solutions that can't solve the problem."<h2>Fossil-fuel companies recycled the plastics tactic</h2><div type="image" title="Bumper to bumper traffic" height="1414" width="1885" msid="86318755" hostid="261"></div>Exxon was on the council that led the charge for recycling, and it soon started promoting personal-responsibility solutions to another crisis: global warming."Be smart about electricity use," suggested a 2007 ad from the company (now ExxonMobil). "Heat and cool your home efficiently." "Improve your gas mileage."Science historian Naomi Oreskes has studied ExxonMobil's climate communications for years."They talk about energy demand, they talk about need, they talk about use, and they use the term 'consumers.' And this is basically a way of shifting responsibility away from the producers - that is to say them, ExxonMobil - and onto the consumer," Oreskes told Insider.In a recent <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00233-5">study</a>, Oreskes analyzed 180 ExxonMobil documents discussing <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> from 1977 to 2014. The set includes internal communications, peer-reviewed publications, and "advertorials" - ads that looked like editorials and ran in The New York Times.Internal documents mentioned carbon dioxide more than 1,000 times. Terms that appeared most included "atmosphere" and "fossil fuel." Advertorials, by contrast, relied on the terms "energy efficient," "demand," and "need."<div type="image" title="hurricane katrina damage" height="1685" width="2600" msid="86318758" hostid="261"></div>BP (formerly called British Petroleum) took a similar approach. In 2004, it <a href="https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham/">created the first "carbon footprint calculator,"</a> a way to pin greenhouse-gas emissions to people's daily activities."The carbon footprint calculator then took off as an idea and as a concept, and really distracted us from looking at the industry itself," Janet Redman, the director of Greenpeace USA's climate campaign, told Insider.Nalamalapu said she calculated her carbon footprint as one of her first climate-change lessons in elementary school. So did I. By 2010, the popularity of the phrase "carbon footprint" had <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=carbon+footprint&amp;year_start=1990&amp;year_end=2019&amp;corpus=26&amp;smoothing=0&amp;smoothing=0">increased by about 1,600%</a> from 2006.<div type="image" title="Multiple firefighters walk through the forest." height="2670" width="3560" msid="86318761" hostid="261"></div>Climate scientist Peter Kalmus told <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-worse-than-you-can-imagine-heres-what-happens-if-you-try">ProPublica</a> about how much he took this idea to heart. To reduce his carbon footprint, Kalmus has raised chickens in his yard, converted an old car to biodiesel, and built an outdoor toilet to compost his family's poop. He's had nightmares about plane rides."It feels like the plane is flying on ground-up babies to me," Kalmus told ProPublica.<h2>BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil say they're changing</h2>In statements to Insider, spokespeople for Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil pointed to their companies' efforts to reduce emissions.<div type="image" title="seven adults wade through tropical storm harvey floodwaters carrying children and bags" height="1578" width="2400" msid="86318764" hostid="261"></div>"Chevron is investing more than $3 billion from now to 2028 to advance the energy transition," Chevron spokesperson Sean Comey said. "Chevron believes the world's demand for oil and gas should be supplied by the most efficient, least carbon-intensive producers."Comey also said the company is working to reduce emissions from its oil and gas extraction and is exceeding the goals it set for itself for 2023. He said that although "too much plastic waste ends up in landfills, oceans, and rivers," plastics "are essential to modern life and help improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world."BP declined to comment on the company's carbon-footprint calculator, but pointed to its net-zero goals and a recent acquisition of solar-energy projects, which it aims to more than double by 2025. "BP believes we have an important role to play in addressing climate change," spokesperson Joshua Hicks said. "That's why we launched a new ambition last year to become a net-zero company by 2050 or sooner, and to help the world get there too. In line with that ambition, we've set targets for drastically reducing our emissions and increasing our low-carbon investments, and we're actively advocating for policies that support net zero."<div type="image" title="crude oil pump jack in texas field sunset backdrop" height="1666" width="2222" msid="86318766" hostid="261"></div>ExxonMobil, meanwhile, said it "is working to reduce company emissions and helping customers reduce their emissions while working on new lower-emission technologies and advocating for effective policies."The company alleges that Oreskes has a conflict of interest, pointing to her expert testimony in a climate-related lawsuit last year."This research is clearly part of a litigation strategy against ExxonMobil and other energy companies," a statement shared by spokesperson Casey Norton said.Oreskes said she has offered expertise "in a number of capacities to groups and organizations involved in fighting climate change," and does not see any conflict of interest.BP <a href="https://www.bp.com/en_gb/target-neutral/home/calculate-and-offset-your-emissions.html">still</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136">advertises</a> its calculator today. One of its subsidiaries backs an app that tracks your carbon footprint in real time, <a href="https://grist.org/energy/footprint-fantasy/">Grist</a> reported. BP also <a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/press-releases/bp-completes-purchase-of-bhp-assets-in-us-onshore.html">made</a> its <a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/reimagining-energy/mergers-and-acquisitions-team-supports-the-energy-transition.html">biggest acquisition in 20 years</a> in 2018: $10.5 billion of west Texas oil fields."They don't want a price on carbon, they don't want incentives for renewable energy, they don't want to block new fossil-fuel infrastructure," atmospheric scientist Michael Mann told Insider. "So they say: 'No, it's just about you being a better person, you being more responsible in your day to day activities.'"A Chevron lawyer even said as much in federal court, according to <a href="https://grist.org/article/fossil-fuels-are-the-problem-say-fossil-fuel-companies-being-sued/">Grist</a>: In 2018, the company argued that it's not oil production causing climate change, "it's the way people are living their lives."<h2>A million-dollar distraction</h2><div type="image" title="carbon emissions" height="2331" width="3108" msid="86318768" hostid="261"></div>The ads Oreskes and Franta have collected show how much money fossil-fuel interests have poured into influencing the narrative on climate change. The American Petroleum Institute, a fossil-fuel trade association, spent $663 million on PR and <keyword id="11894120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising" source="Orion">advertising</keyword> between 2008 and 2017, according to a report from the <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/trade-association-pr-spending/">Climate Investigations Center</a>.The results, Redman said, can be insidious."It's easy to see that rhetoric, that it's about individual responsibility, and feel paralyzed and not take the kinds of political action that we need," she said.The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/still-time-to-address-climate-change-ipcc-scientists-report-2021-8">stakes are only getting higher</a>, according to the latest <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-ipcc-report-temperature-rise-20-years-15-degrees-2021-8">report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>. For every half-degree of warming, the frequency and intensity of heat waves and droughts increase. Even in the best-case climate scenario, sea levels will rise nearly a foot over the next 80 years.Still, if you've dedicated time and energy to recycling or biking to work - don't despair. These choices, if lots of people make them, can make a difference. Nalamalapu takes reusable bags to the grocery store. Mann drives a hybrid car and doesn't eat meat. Oreskes has solar panels on her roof."We do all have personal responsibility. The question is: How do we balance that personal responsibility with the larger structural and political questions at stake? And what is the role of the fossil-fuel industry?" Oreskes said."Riding our bikes is important. And turning off the lights, not cranking the AC with a window open, all that stuff is really important, for sure," Redman said. "But it pales in comparison to political activity to change the rules about how our energy system is structured, who the actors are, who benefits, who pays."Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

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