Lessons From Critical Mass?

Since today is the last Friday of the month, it's not just payday but it's also Critical Mass in San Francisco. On my way home I got to stroll through Justin Herman Plaza and past one of the biggest assemblages of Massers (or if you're not a fan, Massholes) in quite a while. Things have been heating up in SF since the last couple of Critical Mass rides when tensions flared with police and motorists. Preparing for a story, no less than four news helicopters were hovering over the gathering riders and news teams were already conducting interviews on the ground.

Essentially a mass display of civil disobedience on wheels, the term "critical mass" was adopted from an observation of traffic flow in China. Both motorists and bicyclists had an understood method of negotiating intersections without signals. Traffic would "bunch up" at these intersections until the backlog reached a "critical mass" at which point that mass would move through the intersection. Critical Mass events have no leader, and have no officially-stated message, though it is largely understood to promote alternative (non-motorized) modes of transport and to raise awareness of safety issues facing commuters using non-motorized forms of transport alongside motor vehicles.

The term "critical mass" is also used by social theorists who posit that a social revolution is achievable after a certain critical mass of popular support is demonstrated. I couldn't help but think that the ocean conservation community needs a similar mechanism as Critical Mass to surge through our own "intersections" and backlogs. It's too easy to think individuals or small communities of conservation-minded citizens are powerless or invisible. But Critical Mass is a powerful reminder that we are as silent or invisible as we choose to be.

Is Critical Mass an inconvenience and a royal pain to motorists? Of course! But that's the point. It's designed to offer observers and participants an opportunity to reflect and, perhaps, bring about something positive. And maybe it can even inspire groups of people with very different causes to reach their own critical mass. And with all apologies to Margaret Mead, while I don't doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world, perhaps a not-so-small group of loud committed people can help wake that world up to the fact that change is needed.