> 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.
no, dan, economic reasons, primarily. have you seen "who killed the
electric car"?
>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?
that was not my intent, but i am sure that plays a major role,
today, anyway. petroleum was also an alternative to whale oil,
which could no longer supply the demand.
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.
i would not be surprised if those coal barons saw the advantage
in investing in oil, just as sheel and chevron are investing in
solar.
> we just can not stop using fossil burning vehicles over night, any
> more than we can pull out of iraq over night.
>than we can pull out of iraq over night. i wish there was a way but
>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 way to me.
absolutely; even greenspan would agree... so would clinton and
ross perot.
> 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 mild...
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.
i would think a tilt in the earth axis would do the trick...
i suggest you read "collapse", by jared diamond (but read
"guns, germs, and steel", first.
anyone else have any possible scenarios?
> 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?
it's happened before...
> Knowledge is Power
What do you think knowledge is? (besides power) :-)
Dan M.
you got me there, dan. i could have said
reason is the path to knowledge, and power,
but even that is often not true...
jon m
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