The always-excellent Sam Smith, a keen observer of politics and society as a journalist for over 50 years, introduces an outstanding long piece on the high-speed rail money in the stimulus:
There’s nothing wrong with high speed rail except that when your country is really hurting, when your rail system largely falls behind other countries’ because of lack of tracks rather than lack of velocity, and when high speed rail appeals more to bankers than to folks scared of foreclosing homes, it’s a strange transit program to feature in something called a stimulus bill.
One might even call it an $8 billion earmark.
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Comments
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Jay Alt Posted 12:45 pm
27 Feb 2009
Things change. Government support for green markets can help turn them into winners.
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236953/ ...
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amazingdrx Posted 1:58 pm
27 Feb 2009
And while we are at it bury HVDC super grid lines along with electrification of existing rail. It takes care of two big steps.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:16 pm
27 Feb 2009
Having said that, Kunstler has also called for a build up of regular rail as a higher priority than high-speed rail, but there is no reason that you couldn't do both. Particularly if you're concerned that the eventually high oil prices will also make most trucking impractical, then it's crazy not to build a massive freight rail system.
Certainly, the "market" will never move fast enough or with enough long-term vision to take care of a high-oil-price future, which will be devastating for air, car, and truck transportation.
As for not being able to afford it, a real rail system is much more important than bailing out the banks, in my opinion, and it's certainly more important than shoveling hundreds of billions every year to the Defense Department. If we can't afford high-speed, medium-speed, freight and regular rail, we better relocalize and kiss industrial civilization goodbye right now.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:56 pm
27 Feb 2009
I think that's what Jim is hoping for, his Y2K fantasy did not work out so well. It's nothing against civilization, he just wants to be right for a change.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:14 pm
27 Feb 2009
If we can't afford high-speed, medium-speed, freight and regular rail, we better relocalize and kiss industrial civilization goodbye right now."
I think that's what Jim is hoping for, his Y2K fantasy did not work out so well. It's nothing against civilization, he just wants to be right for a change.
I wish I'd said that. In fact, someday soon, I will.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:29 pm
27 Feb 2009
Nationalize banks and automakers? Isn't that socialism?
It doesn't have to be. As long as it isn't permanent, but rather a stage in a recovery plan. Take a bank for instance, why give the present management and owners bailout money? Why not just take over the bank then share ownership with bank employees who were owed retirenent, healthcare, and pensions?
Put senior employees in charge, they did most of the work anyway, and they now have an incentive to make the business succeed, once the economy turns around and the bank is profitable again, the government would sell it's shares taking the bank public again.
Why not just nationalize failing railroads too? It's a quick way to get this all done. Don't send tax dollars down another corpor-rathole.
I bet Jim would like this idea.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:45 pm
27 Feb 2009
Electrified rail/HVDC supergrid should be the next step...then
Plugin hybrid mass production
Renewable distributed smart grid, generation, storage, and conservation
Continued utility scale wind
Rooftop solar concentrating PV cogeneration/factory solar furnace storage cogeneration
Waste biomass biodigestion, biogas energy smart grid backup, and organic agriculture
These steps should do the job. Not only halting human GHG, but actually building soil carbon sinks to reverse GHG concentration over the next 50 years. it took 150 years of industrial and chemical ag revolution to get us into this mess, maybe 50 years of extraction could restore the balance by the next century?
How much carbon would organic soil take up over 50 years, if it covered all cropland?
Electric rail, it's huge with a supergrid riding the same corridors.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Russ Posted 5:05 pm
27 Feb 2009
I wish I'd said that. In fact, someday soon, I will.
It seems we skeptics regarding the fossil fuel platform and exponential debt civilization are looking pretty good these days, and not because we got lucky, but because we correctly analyzed the situation a long time ago, and things are happening as we forecast.
As for the wonks of green cornucopianism and carbon policy arcana, I'll have to state the obvious: all that has existed of these on earth so far is talk, talk, talk, while emissions everywhere including among the most punctilious Kyoto signatories keep going up.
So although I still hope this may change in time (and according to your own luminaries like Pachauri you have less than four years left to REALLY get started), all the evidence is it won't, that man is simply going to burn fossil fuel and emit profligately for as long as supply fundamentals and economics allow, and that nothing short of a cap imposed by Peak Oil itself is going to set the final concentration maximum.
Sorry to get ornery, but these days I'm no longer willing to listen to Kunstler be the object of armpit noises when his record as a prophet, while imperfect, is vastly greater than that of almost anyone else, and his real-world accomplishment, while so far perhaps modest, is again greater than that of his critics, who have accomplished nothing but talk.
"Just wanting to be right for a change" - don't we all. You guys ought to know.
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