Aside from the overriding need to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to stabilize climate, there are several other compelling reasons for countries everywhere to restructure their transport systems, including the need to prepare for falling oil production, to alleviate traffic congestion, and to reduce air pollution. The U.S. car-centered transportation model, with three cars for every four people, that much of the world aspires to will not likely be viable over the long term even for the United States, much less for everywhere else.
The shape of future transportation systems centers around the changing role of the automobile. This in turn is being influenced by the transition from a predominantly rural global society to a largely urban one. By 2020 close to 55 percent of us will be living in cities, where the role of cars is diminishing. In Europe, where this process is well along, car sales in almost every country have peaked and are falling.
With world oil output close to peaking, there will not be enough economically recoverable oil to support a world fleet expansion along U.S. lines or, indeed, to sustain the U.S. fleet. Oil shocks are now a major security risk. The United States, where 88 percent of the 133 million working people travels to work by car, is dangerously vulnerable.
Beyond the desire to stabilize climate, drivers almost everywhere are facing gridlock and worsening congestion that are raising both frustration and the cost of doing business. In the United States, the average commuting time for workers has increased steadily since the early 1980s. The automobile promised mobility, but after a point its growing numbers in an increasingly urbanized world offer only the opposite: immobility.
While the future of transportation in cities lies with a mix of light rail, buses, bicycles, cars, and walking, the future of intercity travel over distances of 500 miles or less belongs to high-speed trains. Japan, with its high-speed bullet trains, has pioneered this mode of travel. Operating at speeds up to 190 miles per hour, Japan’s bullet trains carry almost a million passengers a day. On some of the heavily used intercity high-speed rail lines, trains depart every three minutes.
Beginning in 1964 with the 322-mile line from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan’s high-speed rail network now stretches for 1,360 miles, linking nearly all its major cities. One of the most heavily traveled links is the original line between Tokyo and Osaka, where the bullet trains carry 117,000 passengers a day. The transit time of two hours and 30 minutes between the two cities compares with a driving time of eight hours. High-speed trains save time as well as energy.
Although Japan’s bullet trains have carried billions of passengers over 40 years at high speeds, there has not been a single casualty. Late arrivals average 6 seconds. If we were selecting seven wonders of the modern world, Japan’s high-speed rail system surely would be among them.
While the first European high-speed line, from Paris to Lyon, did not begin operation until 1981, Europe has made enormous strides since then. As of early 2007 there were 3,034 miles (4,883 kilometers) of high-speed rail operating in Europe, with 1,711 more miles to be added by 2010. The goal is to have a Europe-wide high-speed rail system integrating the new eastern countries including Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, into a continental network by 2020.
Once high-speed links between cities begin operating, they dramatically raise the number of people traveling by train between cities. For example, when the Paris-to-Brussels link, a distance of 194 miles that is covered by train in 85 minutes, opened, the share of those traveling between the two cities by train rose from 24 percent to 50 percent. The car share dropped from 61 percent to 43 percent, and CO2-intensive plane travel virtually disappeared.
Carbon dioxide emissions per passenger mile on Europe’s high-speed trains are one-third those of its cars and only one-fourth those of its planes. In the Plan B economy, CO2 emissions from trains will essentially be zero, since they will be powered by green electricity. In addition to being comfortable and convenient, these rail links reduce air pollution, congestion, noise, and accidents. They also free travelers from the frustrations of traffic congestion and long airport security lines.
Existing international links are being joined by links between Paris and Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Paris, and a link from the Channel Tunnel to London that cuts the London-Paris travel time to scarcely two hours and 20 minutes. On the newer lines, trains are operating at up to 200 miles per hour.
There is a huge gap in high-speed rail between Japan and Europe on one hand and the rest of the world on the other. The United States has the Acela Express that links Washington, New York, and Boston, but neither its speed nor its reliability comes close to the trains in Japan and Europe.
China is beginning to develop high-speed trains linking some of its major cities. The one introduced in 2007 from Beijing to Shanghai reduced travel time from 12 to 10 hours. China now has 3,750 miles of high-speed track and plans to double this by 2020.
In the United States, the need both to cut carbon emissions and to prepare for shrinking oil supplies calls for a shift in investment from roads and highways to railways. In 1956 U.S. President Eisenhower launched the interstate highway system, justifying it on national security grounds. Today the threat of climate change and the insecurity of oil supplies both argue for the construction of a high-speed electrified rail system, for both passenger and freight traffic. The relatively small amount of additional electricity needed could come from renewable sources, mainly wind farms.
The passenger rail system would be modeled after those of Japan and Europe. A high-speed transcontinental line that averaged 170 miles per hour would mean traveling coast-to-coast in 15 hours, even with stops in major cities along the way. There is a parallel need to develop an electrified national rail freight network that would greatly reduce the need for long-haul trucks.
Any meaningful global effort to cut transport CO2 emissions begins with the United States, which consumes more gasoline than the next 20 countries combined, including Japan, China, Russia, Germany, and Brazil. The United States—with 238 million vehicles out of the global 860 million, or roughly 28 percent of the world total—not only has the largest automobile fleet in the world but also is near the top in miles driven per car and near the bottom in fuel efficiency.
Three initiatives are needed in the United States. One is a meaningful gasoline tax. Phasing in a gasoline tax of 40¢ per gallon per year for the next 12 years and offsetting it with a reduction in income taxes would raise the U.S. gasoline tax to the $4-5 per gallon prevailing today in Europe. Combined with the rising price of gas itself, such a tax should be more than enough to encourage a shift to more fuel-efficient cars. The second measure is raising the fuel-efficiency standard from the 22 miles per gallon of cars sold in 2006 to 45 miles per gallon by 2020, a larger increase than the 35 miles per gallon approved by Congress in late 2007. This would help move the U.S. automobile industry in a fuel-efficient direction. Third, reaching CO2 reduction goals depends on a heavy shift of transportation funds from highway construction to urban transit and intercity rail construction.
——-
Originally published at earthpolicy.org. Adapted from Chapter 11, “Raising Energy Efficiency,” in Lester R. Brown’s book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008).
For more information on restructuring transport systems, including the use of buses, bicycles, and congestion charging, see Chapter 10, “Designing Cities for People,” in Plan B.
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
Capturing the massive social benefits of fuel efficiency requires regulation
Make the kids pay: The economic effects of climate change on future generations
Comments
View as Flat
EliBurak Posted 3:31 pm
03 Feb 2009
Also, I do worry that a tax of the type you are proposing is a little regressive as it seems like the poor, especially the rural poor, will be hardest pressed as the increase in tax on gas will be much more than the reduction in income taxes.
Thanks for the great post and I'll check out the book.
Eli
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 4:42 pm
03 Feb 2009
Rail is only good for one thing: raping the exurbs of tax money and putting it into the pockets of the Lib planners and bureaucrats who run the things.
Mass transit is a bubble, brought on by subsidies that hide the very large real costs per rider. The lie was exposed when ridership went up during $4/gal gas and agencies cut routes because it was costing too much!!
Obama The Vapor President ?!?
Permalink
RedGreenInBlue Posted 10:03 pm
03 Feb 2009
The rest of the world is now desperately aspiring to US levels of oil consumption while supply capacity has probably peaked. We're faced with two alternatives: steadily reducing oil production, or exploiting unconventional resources such as the Alberta tar sands or coal-to-oil.
The latter option is difficult and energy-intensive, and therefore expensive. But the financial markets, in their wisdom, have now priced oil down to $40. You may be rubbing your hands in glee, but at that price there is not the money to renew or expand the creaking infrastructure for even conventional petroleum exploration and extraction, let alone to develop the new infrastructure for unconventional extraction methods. And where will the energy come from, as EROEIs drop? And what will we do about the extra pollution? And what sort of production rates do you think can be sustained?
What do you think is going to happen to oil prices when this reality hits the markets? It'll be a bit late to say to people like Lester Brown, "You were right all along," when we no longer have the energy resources to build (or market confidence to finance) the zero-carbon alternatives (including electrified rail) needed to sustain YOUR current living standards.
You won't be moaning about lib'ruls when there's no food on Wal-Mart's shelves for lack of diesel, you can't get to Wal-Mart anyway because you can't afford the gasoline, and you can't replace your weekly food shopping with produce from local farms because everyone's built McMansions on the prime local agricultural land and there isn't the energy to produce the synthetic fertiliser if the land was still available.
But don't worry: bioethanol is the way forward. Yep, that'll save us. Carry on (light-)truckin'!
Permalink
RedGreenInBlue Posted 10:20 pm
03 Feb 2009
I agree with the principle of a steady rise in gas taxation, but I think for it to be made as painless as possible, the amount of tax needs to vary so that the price at the gas station goes up steadily and predictably by 40¢ per year, and the reduction in income tax should occur through taking the lowest earners out of tax system altogether (phasing in a personal tax-free allowance which would gradually replace the 10% tax band). Or a Citizen's Income could progressively be introduced - but I don't see that happening any time soon!
There should also be a disproportionate sales tax on cars based on fuel consumption (or preferably life-cycle analysis of total energy costs), to encourage people to buy the lowest-impact cars.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:22 am
04 Feb 2009
Grid connected solar panels on the tubes would power the trains.
This would combine a national smart grid backbone with high speed electric rail. The components could be mass produced and delivered via freeway to the installation sites, proceeding along the rail/HVDC corridor. And by using freeway median space no right-of-way issues need be negotiated.
The tube design would allow for even higher speeds than a rail system exposed to the elements and obstructions on the track.
HVDC smart grid NIMBY issues would also evaporate with this plan. That way solar, water, and wind power could be moved around the country with a mere 3% loss per 600 miles. HVDC makes it easier to connect different AC regional smart grids together with wind farms and high ourput solar regions like the US southwest.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
ejd Posted 2:16 am
04 Feb 2009
So mass transit is bad because it has to be subsidized? The real fact of the matter is that every mode of transportation is dependent, in one way or another, on government subsidies. Somehow to some, if those subsidies go to mass transit, they're bad, but if they go to roads or aviation they are ignored or considered good. Despite heavy subsidies, our interstate highway system has never made a single penny of profit. Despite heavy subsidies and bailouts, the aggregate lifetime profit of the common-carrier passenger airline industry has been zero, but rail and mass transit have to be subsidized--horrors!
We once had a rail system that was the envy of the world--intercity trains, electric interurbans, and urban streetcar systems. They were all built and maintained mostly by private money. Then after WWII, the government decided to pour public dollars into highways and aviation and leave these private enterprises to fend for themselves. They died as a result.
Rail rapes exurbs of tax money? Hmm. Actually, metropolitan regions with good mass transit, including light and commuter rail do quite well, suburbs and urban cores alike: look at Chicago and New York. And, when quality rail transport is offered, people use it in droves. There are many examples: the Downeaster trains in Maine, Hiawatha Corridor in Wisconsin, Pacific Northwest Corridor in Oregon/Washington, car-crazy California's state-supported trains, and Illinois' state supported trains, just to name a few. What "exurbs" in these areas are hurting? What exurbs of Dallas are hurting because of its successful DART trains? Albuquerque and their Rail Runner trains? Ogden-Salt Lake City's Front Runner trains?
Reality is that our interstate highways robbed our inner cities of tax money--except those that have extensive, quality rail transit. And suburban areas of those cities (like Chicago and New York) are doing just fine.
As I posted yesterday:
`Compared to Western Europe and Japan, and even some developing nations, we have the least efficient transportation system around. Not only are our roads falling apart, our air traffic control system is archaic (China's is more advanced than ours), decent public transit is lacking in most of the country, our intercity passenger rail system is an international embarrassment, and we lack the intermodal connections that would optimize energy efficiency and maximize economic productivity.
The result is a transport system that wastes a huge amount of energy and suffers delays that cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
Climate change and peak oil are breathing down our necks while we continue to send money to hostile countries to buy their oil.'
So, spare us the empty right-wing, libertarian rhetoric about mass transit. For the sake of our economy and the future of our children, our transport system needs to become much more energy, resource, and land-use efficient or America will never be able to compete in the 21st Century. That means we need more rail transportation, not less.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:54 am
04 Feb 2009
Partially buried for safety, tunneled and bridged wherever it is necessary, mass produced modular units could be delivered and connected together in the installation process. A much more efficient process than normal construction.
The segments could be light and hollow and have ballast tanks built into the bottom that could be filled with heavy crash absorbing, vibration reducing materials like sand and salt water (to prevent freezing).
Private transportation companies and government entities could own, lease, and run the vehicles. These trains could be more like aircraft than trains, ultralight composite materials with extensive use of crash cell foam/air construction and large emergency air bag systems that deploy to connect magnetically to other cars and cushion any accidents.
With this construction and running on wheels overhead as well as underneath, speeds over 200 mph should be safe and practical. They would kind of "fly" inside the tube, on the air pressure wave between the tube and the hull, guided by the wheels.
Think under ground aircraft. Zoom.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
rycarson Posted 3:52 am
04 Feb 2009
Permalink
GonzoDon Posted 6:51 am
06 Feb 2009
Conversely it takes some thinking, and some common sense, and a consideration of the big (i.e., global) picture, and a consideration of the long-term (i.e., generations, not weeks), and a willingness to confront facts to land upon sensible solutions.
But that takes a little more work, and it doesn't lend itself well to the shrieking and bullying that work so well on talk radio and cable news-entertainment.
Also, it's often helpful to acknowledge that 96% of the world's population does NOT live in the United States, and that in many cases -- gasp! -- they already have successful working models of the things we've decided are impossible here in the United States: universal health care, cost-effective drug treatment as an alternative to expensive drug prosecution, schools that teach the universally-accepted scientific theory of evolution via natural selection rather than belief-based "intelligent design" in their biology classes, etc.
So thanks ejd for laying out some real facts for us to mull over.
Unfortunately, as Stephen Colbert is fond of pointing out, facts tend to have "a notorious liberal bias".
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 2:46 pm
06 Feb 2009
Rail advocates rarely do one thing: take a hard look at the numbers. Rail is wasteful in material terms, in costs and scores low in useability compared to the Car-Personal-Transit-System (CPTS).
CPTS is a rapid, flexible and convenient way to travel goods and transportation. Each vehicle is sized to the task and takes the most efficient route, door to door. Rail is inflexible and forces all passengers and freight to take a less than optimal route to satisfy itself.
Thus rail is travel-centric, CPTS is transportation centric.
Here are some facts about the real costs of light rail:
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/012531.html
Obama The Vapor President ?!?
Permalink
ejd Posted 1:51 am
07 Feb 2009
They are also notorious for spouting free market ideology by railing against subsidies for trains and transit but ignoring all the subsidies that go to roads, for example.
I heard a radio show about a decade ago that interviewed a representative of a rail advocacy organization and a rep. from the libertarian "institute" in my state. As usual, the libertarian was criticizing rail and transit subsidies. When the point was raised by the rail advocate about hefty government subsidies of roads, the libertarian clumsily and begrudgingly conceded, "we need to look at that", but to this day, they NEVER have.
If these libertarian institutes were truly free marketeers, they would advocate that all forms of transportation be fully privatized, but they don't. They claim that roads pay for themselves, but rail and transit have to be subsidized.
Reality: Gas taxes and license fees (which are still subsidies because it's financing through government which is cheaper than financing through private institutions (banks, etc)) barely pays for 2/3 of the direct costs of our roads.
Jabailo wants to talk costs, lets look at them: South Carolina DOT, for example, said in 2008 that it would cost and average of $20 million/mile to add a lane in each direction to their existing interstates-- and that's just adding a lane to an existing freeway. They estimate cost to re-construct an urban interchange $40 million, and a rural one $35 million (http://www.scdot.org/inside/multimodal/pdfs/InterstateCor ...)
My state is spending $3 million per mile on soundwalls! Adding a lane to urban freeways can (and have) cost well over $100 million per mile when land needs to be acquired. Denver's double track T-Rex rail line: $27.6 million per mile (land acquisition included)
Conventional intercity passenger rail on existing rights of way at speeds up to 110 mph can be built for ~$7 million/mile.
And "Car Personal Transit Systems?" Just a euphemism for cars and roads-- which don't bolster his arguments either.
Wasteful in material terms? How so? All that concrete requires extensive mining of limestone, lots of energy and CO2 emissions to turn it into concrete, and a lot of steel for all the re-bar. Rail requires far fewer resources and energy to construct. And, trains can easily be run on renewable energy, if we chose to do so.
Permalink
GonzoDon Posted 4:45 am
07 Feb 2009
In my own state of Colorado, I am mystified as to why there is no serious discussion of a high-speed line between Fort Collins and Denver (with several large communities in-between). If even one-half of 1% of the people who drive that route daily used rail transport, we'd have more than enough passengers to fill hundreds of rail cars daily.
Plus, of course, it would be a key element of fostering more transit-centered, less sprawling development ... which currently is eating up what remains of ag land and wildlife habitat along the Colorado Front Range.
But we merrily noodle along as we always have, barely thinking 10 years ahead, much less one. If we began tomorrow it would probably take 20 years to get that high-speed line built. My guess is that in the Year 2029, world petroleum depletion vs. global demand will result in gasoline costing $10 to $20/gallon in today's dollars. At least.
My forecast is that people in 2029 will be whining we should have done something to provide alternatives when we had the chance. And they'll be right. We should have.
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 5:45 am
07 Feb 2009
As I've argued with bailo before, his town, Kent, is a town, not an exurb. It would profit Kent greatly to have good rail links to Seattle and other towns.
Permalink
ejd Posted 6:58 am
07 Feb 2009
>>>As I've argued with bailo before...<<<
He's obviously an idealogue. I probably shouldn't have wasted my time with him, but I thought others would benefit from some deeper discussion.
I'm going to repost the following from the other thread where I responded to him:
Since Jabailo is obviously a right-winger, perhaps s/he will accept the view of a former Commerce Department official from the Reagan administration:
"The US Government needs to take a hard look at the country's physical infrastructure. People who travel abroad often have a slight feeling of returning to a developing country. While most foreign cities have fast rail connections from the airport to downtown, most US cities do not. The whole US air traffic system from the airlines to air traffic control technology is obviously under stress. In Europe and Japan, rail is fast, comfortable, convenient, and efficient. US rail travel is torture. Among international travelers, the US telephone system has become a bit of a joke. My mobile phone works better in Bombay than Washington, DC. Many of our municipal water systems are getting close to 100 years old, and the blackout of 2003 showed the weaknesses in our electric grid. We cannot be competitive with second-rate infrastructure. The US government needs to make improvement a top priority." -- Clyde Prestowitz, from his book "Three Billion New Capitalists".
Permalink
ejd Posted 7:01 am
07 Feb 2009
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 8:55 am
07 Feb 2009
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 10:50 am
07 Feb 2009
New malls were sprouting with fun stores and restaturants...the people inside seemed so happy.
This is American Culture circa 2009.
Why is it that Libs always want to impose a foreign rail culture upon the Native American Car Culture? Our culture stands for freedom, and diversity and the American spirit. Rail is for fascistic Europeans who want ot keep their people under control and tax them into submission.
Rail doesn't work where I live and it doesn't work in the places that most Americans want to live.
Why is it that Libs will fight tooth and nail to prevent people from going into a culture and Westernizing it, yet they do not respect the American culture of exurbia?!
Obama The Vapor President ?!?
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 12:59 pm
07 Feb 2009
There simply is not enough money coming from gasoline taxes to pay for the maintenance of existing roads while new development creates more road miles and dumps the maintenance costs on local governments. Call your local alderman and discuss the potholes with him and this is exactly the story you will get. Many counties are converting asphalt roads to gravel since they can't afford maintenance on the asphalt.
What this widespread network of paved roads replaced was whistle-stop, interurban railways that served trackside towns. The high density of these towns, condensed around railroad stations, encouraged business growth and such towns prospered in ways they haven't since. All over america there are towns with grand old downtowns full of half vacant but extremely well built buildings from the rail era surrounded by miles of ugly strip malls.
While there is such a thing as strip-mall culture it tends to be exemplified by the cult movie "Clerks." Slackers hanging out in front of the Kwik-E-mart offering home-grown herbals. Nobody stages a parade or a jazz band at a strip mall if they can help it.
Cheap roads subsidized wasteful, ugly, cheap strip-malls that spread business and services all over the place and made many of them no-go zones to those without cars. People drive in circles for days trying to achieve tasks that once occupied a morning downtown.
There are many books about these phenomena; some well documented. Others, notable those by James H. Kunstler, well larded with colorful language describing the torture of car culture on American life. One thing I'm sure of is that cheap asphalt roads were NEVER truly cheap.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
ejd Posted 1:17 am
08 Feb 2009
Impose a foreign rail culture on the "native American car culture"? I had to laugh when I read that one. But seriously, spare us the brainless argument about how Americans have chosen and love the American car culture and how liberals are trying to rob Americans of freedom by forcing rail down everyone's throat. Liberals, eh? Clyde Prestowitz, whose quote from his book provided I to Jabailo twice now, is no liberal. Is he trying rob Americans of freedom too?
There is no American love affair with cars and automobile-centric exurbia. It's a shotgun marriage.
For years and years now poll after poll (whether national or state level) has clearly shown that 70 to 80% of Americans consistently say they want modern, intercity passenger rail and a solid majority want more urban transit options that include rail.
In 2008, the Ohio Department of Transportation convened a Task Force to set transportation priorities for the state. The task force held a series public meetings around the state. The meetings were jammed with people and what the state heard more than anything was that people very much want options to driving. They want better urban transit, commuter rail, intercity rail, etc.
A couple of years ago, AARP came out in support of intercity passenger rail. Why? Because they were hearing from their members that they need a better option to driving and flying. Many older folks eventually get to the point where they can no longer drive, and airport security hassles are more of a burden them. For most of the country, when older folks can't drive anymore, they lose freedom of mobility. Many of us will be there too someday. Think about it.
On exurbia: If Americans only want exurbia, then why have "New Urbanist" developments in core cities become so popular? Why is it that in these new urbanist areas, real estate is holding its value in this economic downturn much better than in suburbia/exurbia?
The automobile-centric exurbs aren't so much a choice as they are forced upon most Americans through zoning codes and the manner in which transportation dollars are allocated.
In the vast majority of the country, zoning codes make it illegal to build anything but automobile-centric sprawl. And, despite a super-majority of Americans wanting more rail transportation, the federal and state governments ignore them and keep allocating most transportation dollars for roads.
If Americans love cars so much, then why is it that when quality rail transportation is offered, people ride it in droves? I already gave examples of this in my first post in this thread, yet, not surprisingly, Jabailo ignored them.
Anyone who claims to truly believe in real transportation freedom for Americans should be advocating for more transportation choices. It's not freedom when your only choice is to reach for the car keys.
Permalink
archigeek Posted 1:54 am
09 Feb 2009
The mellotron is your friend.
Permalink
chrisnelder Posted 11:36 am
09 Feb 2009
Reducing the oil consumption of private vehicles and transport trucks by moving those loads over to electric rail is the obvious low-hanging fruit once one considers its vastly greater energy efficiency.
With renewable energy currently providing less than 2% of the US's energy needs, and roughly 70% of our oil consumption being imported, "energy independence" may not be possible at all for many decades. It will take massive investment and a long, sustained effort to transfer loads from oil to electricity, and to generate that electricity domestically from renewable sources. We should have started doing that in earnest three decades ago. Now we're going to have to play catch-up in a big way.
US oil production reached its maximum peak in 1971 and has been in decline ever since despite rising oil prices, having the best technology in the world and transparent, trusted markets. According to many experts in petroleum geology, as well as the CEOs of oil companies and automakers, the peak of world oil production is probably upon us already. Within the next 2-5 years, it is very likely that global oil production will also go into terminal decline. Therefore, as IEA chief economist Fatih Birol has said, "We must leave oil before it leaves us."
This imperative presents us with a serious challenge, as well as incredible opportunities to invest in both old energy--like oil and gas--and new renewable energy technologies. I believe it's the investment opportunity of a lifetime.
For those who are interested in learning more about peak oil and investing in energy, I will be moderating a panel of petroleum and investing experts at the upcoming Oil Investment Summit on March 17 in New York City (http://oilinvestmentsummit.com).
--Chris Nelder
Author, "Profit from the Peak" and "Investing In Renewable Energy"
Energy analyst and journalist, author of "Profit from the Peak" and co-author of "Investing in Renewable Energy"
Permalink
snedunuri Posted 10:45 am
14 Feb 2009
chorus: Uh, more drivers, more congestion, more pollution?
jabailo: So? More roads!
chrous: But, more drivers, more congestion, more pollution.
jabailo: What's your problem? You some kind of suburbia raping liberal or what?
chorus: our problem is that its taking us longer and longer for most of us to get from A to B, and we'll never get 80% CO2 reductions by mid-century
jabailo: Move to the suburbs you america hating leftists
chorus: a bunch of us already tried that it takes us even longer to get into town, not to mention what gas prices did to us last summer
jabailo: your middle name Hussein or what? Can't you see we're all wedded to our cars!
chorus: no, actually, there's lots of evidence from cities on the west coast that if trains and trams are run frequently enough, people will ride them
jabailo: Listen Hussein, we ain't subsidizing no socialist scheme to destroy how america travels
chrous: But america loved traveling by train and tram until the cars did that in (with govt. subsidies and a little help from GM of course)
jabailo: More roads!
Permalink