permaculture

["Guyton Durnin" <gwdurnin@hotmail.com>]

The US will never look like Europe.  We are way to spread out to be able to
have a similar mass transit system.  Sprawl is a condition that is most
common in the US; few other countries experience it.  Instead, they just
have gridlock.

However, trains could become a good way for people to move between cities;
however, a significant amount of our infrastructure is old and needs to be
replaced.  Thousands of bridges are rated with C, D and F grades; ASCE
believes it will take 1.6 trillion dollars over the next 5 years to get
everything to good condition.  http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/index.cfm


Guyton


Message: 4
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:27:12 -0400
From: lbsaltzman@aol.com
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Corn Ethanol's Dirty Little Secret
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <8C9B98530A7E96C-F40-A9F4@webmail-md12.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Don't feel bad about the freeways. The U.S. accidently built the world's
best network of railroad beds when we built the freeways. All we have to do
is lay tracks and build stations, once the cars don't need the freeways
anymore.

Larry Saltzman


-----Original Message-----
From: Healing Hawk <healinghawk@earthlink.net>
To: 'permaculture' <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 8:55 pm
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Corn Ethanol's Dirty Little Secret



Peak Oil probably drives a silver stake through the ecologically evil heart
of the current car/sprawl/freeway/oil complex before any combination of
fuels saves the car from the museum.  If GM hadn't killed the electric car,
the car may have stood a chance to stay with us for a few more decades past
its welcome.  But it did, and when Peak Oil hits home about 2010, it will be
too late to do the work to get enough of them on the road to justify
continuing to flush taxpayer money down the highway construction toilet.  If
the US doesn't look like Europe pretty close to 2010, with trains that work
and lots of types of bicycles, we're in for a tough time of it.  Richard
Heinberg's newest book is called _The Oil Depletion Protocol_.  It tells how
to gracefully go from today's ecological disaster to a smooth landing in the
Post Oil economy in the US and elsewhere.  We need to start getting this
happening now, and be weaned of oil when the flow stops.  Another book I
think everyone who cares about democracy ought to read is called _Suiting
Themselves: How Corporations Drive the Global Agenda_, by Sharon Beder.  It
quotes chapter and verse how corporations overthrew the governments in the
US, Britain, and Australia since the 1970s.  We live in interesting times.
Thank goodness someone will tell us the truth.

Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX