When they debate energy policy

[question everything]

is anyone talking about increasing funding for public transportation?

When all the talk is about alternative energy, this means that we accept it as a given that we continue to waste energy in our commuting habits.

Why is it that we provide funds for airports and for roads, but we (Congress, that is), expects Amtrak to be self sufficient? Or bus companies?

What am I missing?

[question everything]

1. Does the fact that no one replied means that no body knows.

no body cares, or that this a simple mundane issue that cannot fire the troops?

Or that DUers live in the suburbs, commute with their SUVs and really care more about cheap oil than about public transportation?

[The2ndWheel]

2. The Despotism of the Image

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=83&Itemid=33

The ostensible goal of this Web site, and the small but enthusiastic community that surrounds it, is to change the culture. We all recognize that the contemporary mainstream culture of over-consumption and unbridled growth is toxic on every level -- physical, emotional, and cultural -- and is accelerating on a collision course with resource depletion, climate disruption, and environmental devastation. We all want to jump off in time, or, perhaps lacking the necessary courage, to find ourselves lucky enough to be thrown clear.

What this means in reality is anything but clear, and the best that most of us manage is some small display of personal virtue -- recycling plastic packaging, bicycling instead of driving, taking the train instead of flying, growing a bit of our own food, eating organic, using energy-efficient light bulbs, investing in renewable energy, and so forth. These are the tokens by which we recognize each other. How such personal virtues are defined is a matter of personal taste: some consider driving a hybrid car sufficient, while others prefer eliminating cars from their lives altogether. Some seemingly necessary steps, such as learning to live without oil-based plastics and other synthetic materials, seem beyond all of us.

It seems to be something of an article of faith that if we all did enough of such things, whatever they may be, then the problem, whatever it happens to be, and however we choose to define it, would in due course be solved, and civilized life would go on just like before. Just yesterday, in company, light after-dinner conversation happened to breeze past the topic of energy, and how the British were lucky to discover coal just as timber was running out, and were then lucky enough to discover oil and natural gas before the coal ran out. And now that they have all but run out of oil and natural gas, "there will be enough renewables to power it all!" was the swift retort. To those of us who have the right technical background, and understand the physical quantities involved, this claim is preposterous, but I knew better than to object.

[question everything]

3. Thank you. I am old enough and cynical enough to know

that most people do not want to be bothered with doing individual parts.

And.. I remember back in the late 70s I was talking about the finite amount of oil in the ground and a co-worker flatly said that he "did not believe this." And, I suppose, from his point of view, almost 30 years past and we still drive bigger and faster cars.

But I think that if our government will do one thing that it can do well - invest in public transportation infra structure, some will change their habits. This may start as a small percentage, but it can grow.