permaculture

[dwoodard@becon.org]

If they were really, really serious they would take political action to
rationalize
the price of different forms of transportation and through suitable taxes
ensure that the external costs of transportation were incorporated in the
market prices of transportation.

Since the market cannot be relied on to anticipate scarcity, taxation to
make sure that current prices of resources such as fossil fuels
anticipated near term future prices would also help.

For example, railways currently pay for their own roadbeds, but trucks on
the highways even with current fuel taxes pay only a small fraction of the
costs they impose on the public including the medical costs of highway
accidents, the costs of policing the highways, etc.

First we need to get the accounting right. Then the market will take care
of a lot, although not everything.

Collective action for the public good. I'm not sure that George W. Bush
would approve, but what does he know?

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Keith Johnson writes:

[snip]

> All people have to do is

[snip]

> If they were really serious about decreasing the costs of long distance
> shipping of food goods they would build a
> canal/river/inland waterway network and fix up the railway system.