> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of jon louis mann > Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2007 8:28 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Car free London? > > there are ways rapid transportation can be provided for masses of > people if it was cheap and fast enough enough to be a viable > alternative to the family car.
> there are reasons why our consumer economy in america chose to go with > automobiles rather than other means of transportation Are you thinking of the commonly understood reasons like cars being better suited to peoples needs in a large, relatively (compared to Europe) sparsely populated country, or some other reasons. >. the fact is > that the oil and automobile industries are critical to global >capitalism and i do not see those powerful lobbies allowing alternative >modes of transportation to develop. Are you arguing that oil and the automobile industries grew to supplant coal and the railroads because they employed much more skilled lobbyists than were employed by much bigger industries? In 1900, in the days of the Robber Barons and monopolies, Coal was King and far outweighed oil (in terms of BTUs of energy provided). There were only 5000 cars total, virtually all mechanized transportation involved railroads (including electric railroads in cities. Yet, there were 2 million miles of roads, and 200,000 miles of rail. People didn't travel much, by today's standards, only a few hundred miles/year per person, including subway and trolley car rides. Coal and Railroads owners had far more money at their disposal before 1930 than did Petroleum and Auto Makers. Yet, they lost out. It can't _just_ be money. > we just can not stop using fossil burning vehicles over night, any more >than we can pull out of iraq over night. i wish there was a way but the >vested interests in maintaining the status quo at any cost are just too >powerful. I've seen this argument repeatedly from you. Do you think that, in capitalism, the most important market force is the power to control governments? It sounds that we to me. > what i think will bring it about is a massive world wide natural > disaster brought on by continued human accelerated environmental > destruction causing out of control and rapid climate change that would > make katrina and the indonesian tsunami look like a mild weather I'd like to see the evidence that will be anything approaching a collapse. Historical data indicates to me that a disaster on the order of a massive asteroid hitting the earth is behind collapses. > the other extreme would be for the earth to be devoid of all forms of > life, or perhaps crossing the anaerobic/aerobic threshold with simple > celled organisms alone surviving. What in the world would cause that? > Knowledge is Power What do you think knowledge is? (besides power) :-) Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
