Motorcycling and its impact on the planet
Have you ever seen a MotoGP team box?
The most striking thing about the atmosphere in a team box is that it is charged with unimaginable excitement around our sport. People are going back and forth to get everything ready for the race or for the rider’s return from the track. There is a veritable stream of people on the move!
Another striking thing is that that the boxes are gleaming, with everything in its place and no sign of mess. There is no rubbish to be seen anywhere, and anything that needs to be disposed of is taken off to a specially designated container.
An interesting detail, less familiar perhaps but no less important, is that the impact of motorcycles on environmental pollution is of the order of 0.4%. That alone would make a glance at our sporting community worthwhile.
For their part, the organisers of our sport are working behind the scenes to create the necessary structures and rules to enable the spectators to keep the places they occupy clean and in perfect order. The most striking and inspiring example is to be found in Japan, unsurprisingly, as it is well known that cleanliness and order are one of the hallmarks of Japanese culture.
As regards the fuel consumption of competition motorcycles, we may add that, over the past twenty years, it has been reduced by 50%, thanks to technological progress and major investments by the motor-cycle sports industries.
Nevertheless, not everything that carries an ‘eco’ label is viable, because of the effects and implications it has in other areas.
For example, some of the investments in four-wheel sport have been focused on exclusively electric motors, leading to the closure of many industrial companies producing parts for internal-combustion-engine powered cars and the resulting loss of many jobs.
We may also legitimately ask ourselves what are the rules that govern what is deemed to be100% ecological, given that the system for producing electric motor parts, and the raw materials needed to produce them, are spread out over different countries and continents, giving rise to clear examples of conflicts of interests.
One problem that could arise from electric battery-driven propulsion systems is a failure of the electrical power plants that produce the energy these motors require. If all vehicles are to become electric, that will presumably mean that there is an adequate infrastructure made up of millions of charging points available all over the world to enable people to charge and drive their electric vehicles.
Are we all prepared for electric motors? The immediate response is ‘no!’. One of the most obvious examples is Africa, where half the population does not have mains electricity. What type of energy would they be using? One that requires costly eco-friendly infrastructure?
How gratifying it would be if all countries could develop their own industries. We can only hope that a day will come when this enormous shortcoming can be remedied.
The problem is on a global scale. Either we all do the same thing, or we will be faced with a situation where contractual relations between societies that can meet the challenge and those that cannot will become effectively impossible. That would mean business opportunities for some, rather than a solution that would help us to live on a planet with a better environment for all. It would help enormously if we could all act responsibly, and, in our opinion, that can only be achieved if 100% of the world is on board. Will it happen? It is too early to say.
For the time being, then, let us continue riding our motorcycles with a clear conscience, given that if we are a problem, we are one with a very minor impact.
The AIMA Team
