Dangerous Intersection: Lake & Overcliff Drive
The notion that we will be able to move more cars through the city in coming decades has already had a fatal collision with reality. Our planet has already pulled the street right out from under American car culture. We citizens of Minneapolis will be the last to know, while paying hundreds of millions of dollars for auto-based transportation infrastructure rendered obsolete by economic reality and ecological and geopolitical blowback. Here's a good summary article on the Energy Crunch: http://www.nypress.com/17/22/news&columns/AaronNaparstek.cfm Add the $15 to $20 per barrel we currently spend in military costs to "secure" the oil we put in our cars to the $90/barrel cost we will see in three to five years. The economics alone make investment in auto-based urban transportation infrastructure (at best) an impossibly bad deal. At worst, such infrastructure binds us to war. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil homepage makes many articles available from economists, energy investment specialists, top oil-industry execs, and various scientists. There is no combination of technologies capable of replacing the huge energy loss we face. Current auto-based urban infrastructure is simply no longer viable. No magic bailout or "plan B" exists. Click on Harper's article "The Oil We Eat" to begin to understand the economic dislocations resulting from the energy supply/demand dilemma. Our local political and corporate (including corporate media) leaders do us a great disservice by ignoring the most significant issues related to our urban transportation system. The questions that matter go unasked. We don' t seem to care to know, or know to care. Every civilian we kill for oil in Iraq and elsewhere enrages thousands. Read scholar Chalmers Johnson's book: "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic." (2004: published by Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Co.) Our current urban infrastructure - typical American sprawl - already demands war and the deaths of tens of thousands of people around the world for our oil, and is not even sustainable. How can we be so blind? How can we stay so silent? Amazed at the carbound crowds at Lake & "Overcliff Drive"... Gary Hoover, Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
