Paul:

I just think we should start with the low hanging fruit and go from there.

Paul I do take mass transit. I don't drive or own a car. Mass transit is good for travel within countries but not always across countries.

Some interesting straw-manning going on here. The flow-texture seems to be:

1) Misinterpret calls for sensible/affordable mass transit, cleaner means of transportation, more locally based economics, lean more heavily on virtual travel for business purposes, more discretion, etc.
2) Discard this as a matter of degrees in cutting down energy consumption and creation of pollution, and instead rewrite it as a black/white dualistic scenario.
3) Promote the impossibility of this now-rewritten, extreme. Shoot it down, and then you've "won" the debate.

I guess if you are a true "PROGRESSIVE", you should sell your car and walk, sell your energy wasting house and live in a tent, you don't need a lighter or matches to make fire, just rub two sticks together. If you live far from your family and want to visit them, don't worry. You can take a horse and buggy. Oh, and if you're a true progressive, why are you on a computer? Isn't that too 3rd millennium for you? Get out your quill pen and ink well and write your congressman a letter!

Bof is spot on. The only air use I support is the carpet bombing that the palestinians will do with their 100 new B-52's.

Maybe it's unrealistic to think we can quit air travel cold turkey, but many of us could certainly cut back a great deal, e.g., by vacationing close to home. Work-related air travel can also be scaled back to a large degree, since the purpose of most of it - bringing people together to confer about a particular topic - can easily be achieved through other technologies (such as the one we are using right now).

If the political will were there to legally restrict individual travel and/or tax it to the point where the monetary cost truly reflected the environmental cost, it would be straightforward to reduce overall air travel to a fraction of what it is at present.

I've followed this thread from the beginning and I find it utterly surreal.

I have to say I agree with dcbeltway. Environmentalists won't get any converts while advocating abolishing airline travel, long distance travel, a return to the days of sailing ships, etc.

Who said ships pollute just as much? For thousands of years they didn't pollute at all (wind power).

But I think the earlier posters were getting at a fundamental precept of the bioregional and green movements. Namely, community-based economics. Why do people find it so terribly necessary to go large-distances from A to B on a regular basis, in a short time frame?

This is the era of global mass communications, conference calls, webcasting, etc. There are fewer legitimate reasons for in-person business travel in an increasingly post-industrial economy.

Moses I argued in all my posts to present a green alternative to airline transportation or use some sort of green centric fuel to power airlines. However the ludites on this board want to abolish airline transportation alltogether without providing alternatives to those who depend upon it.

see my quote here: "This is my whole problem with this article. What are the green and clean alternatives if we abolish air travel especially because swimming across the Atlantic is not an option and traveling via railway and via ship pollute the environment just as much?"

I'm with you Paul B. My great grandfather was a street car conductor in the twin city area. In some of the western suburbs the lines are still there and used presently for bike trails. We have a real loser, Mr. Oberstar, chair of transportation, who got his pork for building a unnecessary expansion of Hwy. 53 into a four lane in the north.

Speed Kills, was a popular saying in the 1970's. The term could be used in many ways. There's the drug and highway speed, and of course technology. People didn't suffer any when Carter dropped the Speed limit to 55 miles per hour for highway transportation.

RMouse: I've managed quite well the past 20 years without a single airplane flight.

My major gripe against mass transit is the incessant boondoggling, if not outright corruption, that any large-scale government contract produces.

We need to think creatively, demand that our "leadership" pull off large-scale projects on the cheap. I've long suggested re-opening existing rail lines for public transport. Not just Amtrack city-to-city service, but rebuilding the old depots which were once in small towns almost everywhere -- some of which are now engulfed suburbs.

The fact that politicians cannot seem to find creative and cheap ways to fund useful mass transit suggests that they're either unfit for leadership, or are on the take. For instance, they're planning on building a light-rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul -- an 11 mile stretch -- for almost a billion dollars. It'll be on the ground in a state known for its winters (and snow), and an already-busy and developed area.

What they don't seem to get through their pork barrelled numbskulls is that MANY existing rail lines, just a few blocks to the north, already hook up the two cities. Lead the LRT onto them, and build a couple depots, at 10th the cost.

Luketemp: Thank you for supporting the Palestinian's efforts to get 100 B-52 bombers.

To Karl Marx who wrote, "Rmouse: Hi, pardon me but what alternatives there are other than flyings for long distances?"

Answer: NOT flying long distances.

NorthATheBorder:

If anyone is suggesting stopping mass transit, I failed to read it. Actually, I believe mass transit is largely the point. If you read most thoughtful treatises on new urban paradigms, cars are not entirely removed from the landscape, but used for cases (perhaps like yours?) where alternative transportation is necessary. However, it is likely that most people with special needs would have those needs met better by a mass transit system than having to have a specially tricked out automobile (I have been down that avenue with friends and relatives, from insurance to government subsidies and that is its own post).

dcbeltway: I realize you are feeling attacked by many people who would like to change the transportation system you feel is critical to your way of life, but the reaction that we are all wanting a technologyless Utopia is hardly going to get the point across. I believe someone above suggested that there should be special cases for air transit. I can't imagine that we would wake up one morning and discover that jets had ceased to fly. I believe it is something that would be a slow change. This change, however, will be less likely to come, and less likely to come intelligently, if the argument from those who feel they need air transit is "Those other people are nuts." I believe, if you would re-read the article above, you would notice the theme: People are willing to keep filling out the questionnaire in complete denial of the toxic smoke. Your job, whatever it might be, clearly loses a lot of its significance if life on the planet comes to an end. If your first reaction is to cling to the necessity of your mode of travel rather than to consider alternatives, you fit into the model in the article of the person suffocating for love of the questionnaire. So far, I have seen you make "either or" arguments rather than realizing that there has to be a sustainable idea somewhere out there. To stick to the faulty model rather than looking at how that model might be changed destroys your credibility and increases that of those Luddite Utopianists who feel that all air transit should cease now.

To get away from air transit, the NAFTA highway currently being planned to connect Mexico to Canada is a huge project based on a carbon burning model and, for Indiana alone, will cost over $3 billion. The new highway, in Indiana, will save drivers eight minutes of travel time as compared with the current highway route. Can we really believe that we need to spend billions in resources to increase our car capacity and decrease a three hour trip by eight minutes? If we were to spend these same billions on developing alternative transportation, we could fight global warming, decrease congestion, open our transportation system to the impoverished who can't afford the price of admission (a car), and increase access for people with special needs (NorthATheBorder). It is time for a paradigm shift. Past time.

www.unknown-arts.org/politics

www.unknown-arts.org/politics

Wow. Psychologists could not have orchestrated a better illustration than this thread.

What will we do when the oil runs out? - as it will EVENTUALLY. As dcb points out, we just CANT stop flying, our way of life is simply non negotiable. Even though we eventually wont be able to fly. I dont want to give up my life too.

Many things that we hold dear will be very difficult, and progressives are no exception. We will hurt as much as right wingers, possibly more. This thread demonstrates why humanity will not stop / cannot stop pumping the oil until it is prohibitively expensive to do so - even if all of humanity were progressive. Even if it involves cooking the planet. Even if it poisons the atmosphere.

As the oil runs out, we will revert to a primitive way of life whether it is negotiable or not.

But it cant happen voluntarily. If a small group voluntarily gives it up, others will consume it to sustain a way of life that is simply not negotiable, and laugh at the dirty primitives that stopped voluntarily.

We will use all the available oil and cook the earth and poison the atmoshere, because we are simply unable to stop.

Maybe in the short term, humanitarian and disaster relief work should be an exception to the rule. That is, the ecologically conscious world government of the future will permit air travel, when necessary for compassion relief work.

Is it possible that someday, we will all understand how to live simply, peacefully, and with a natural intelligence such that we can minimize natural disasters? If I am not mistaken, many animals seem to possess a degree of clairvoyance regarding impending catastrophic earth events, and thus able to respond in advance.

Where would this hypothetical ecologically conscious and compassionate global government draw the line between emergency relief and so called "international development"? I don't know. As others have commented, international development could mean teaching third world countries how to be like a (dysfunctional) first world country. E.g. Building megadams for power generation....feeding the cycle of eco-destruction. We need to look carefully at our assumptions when we presume to know what is best in our white knighted efforts to rescue failing 3rd world economies in the name of international development.

Am I against all technology? No. And I definitely don't have all the answers. I'm living to a large extent in denial of the countless ways that my lifestyle feeds the destruction of the planet.

I do agree with most posters who stress the need to minimize air (and of course car) travel for the survival of our species. So I do what I can, and I come back to this forum frequently to gather new ideas instead of clinging to my own.

In my own case, I gave up a high paying job last year because of too much (car) travel involved. I now live close to my parents, gave away my car, ride my bicycle, walk, or take public transit. My current job as a community acupuncturist (treatment rates at a fraction of what is typically charged in high price offices) does not pay much, but there is great satisfaction in being a voice and force for social justice.

Above all, we must not lose hope. We must be kind and loving towards each other. There is no value in shouting gloom and doom! This only frightens and alienates people. Similarly, attacking people verbally is a dead end.

I have one more airplane trip planned in October. If it happens, it may be my last. In one sense, it's just a habit, like smoking, or using drugs. We fly on airplanes because its what we do. The "movers and shakers" of the world like to move quickly. I first point the finger at myself: Perhaps high speed travel is a symptom of being afraid of becoming still and facing the inner emptiness and meaningless at the core of the culture of greed and excess.

More and more, I feel the Earth, and the billions of impoverished people around the world, calling to me to use less and less.

May we all listen quietly. Meditation can help a lot here, and it doesn't require joining any religion. There are wise ones among us, and inside each one ofus that will lead the way through this dark time. Never give up hope.

NorthATheBorder excellent point but forget reasoning with these people they are on some sort of insane crusade where they don't be satisfied under we live in some technologyless utopia.

Air transportation is essential in the humanitarian line of work. Did you all expect relief workers to swim to Indonesia after the Tsunami? They needed to get to Indonesia quickly with food aid, medicine, and other relief supplies. Or how about the humanitarian aid workers who arrived in Pakistan following the earth quake should they have also swum across the ocean? mwild people like you make me grit my teeth--when the environment is destroyed from natural disasters should we not save the people or should we let their corpses rot to save the environment. Sick people like you have your priorities backward.

Last time I checked I am definitly a woman and yes people like you need to get off your high horse if you want to attract people to your cause. Won't happen though you all are too arrogant. As I keep asking what are the friggin alternatives to airline travel. None of you can present a viable and clean alternative.

I admit that the comments of dcbeltway leave me grinding my teeth. Clearly, he (could be a she but I doubt it)is reacting the same way: his feelings of moral superiority threatened by statements showing that his satisfying way of life is unsustainable, more a part of the problem than a solution, cause him to lash out angrily, demanding that environmentalists put aside activism to invent technologies that will allow him to continue zipping around the world at will, only without emitting a lot of carbon dioxide. He refers to the cries of alarm at the speed with which climate change is overtaking us, and the frustration of the minority willing to even begin reacting appropriately to the crisis, as "whining." He typically casts economic justice and environmental preservation as a choice, and assumes that we should choose the former for reasons of anthropocentrism, not realizing that "the environment" is not a luxury but the life system on which all of us are utterly dependent. Economics is a subset of the environment, not the other way around.
Someday, if humans survive, we will cross the oceans in ships like we did a mere two centuries ago. Perhaps we will discover energy sources or technologies that allow us to live like twentieth century Americans...but our options shrink as we we we go on spending the last of the hydrocarbons like am addict on a spree. We need to be working as hard as we can NOW to do the research, to change the policies, to change the infrastructure (e.g. maglev trains)--and we need to face up to the need to reduce population. I suppose I will be seen as leaving all reason behind in mad radicalism when I point out that all of this would be enormously more possible if we could at last set aside the stupid waste that is warfare.

Thank you SiouxRose for your post. I care just as passionatly about the humanitarian work that I do as people here do about the environment and why attack each other's progressive causes and label each other? As I said common solutions are what is needed so that the humanitarians can continue their work and the environmentalist theirs. They are equally as important. This is not a competition and I am saddened to see that's how some people view it on this thread and how nasty some people get about their views on humanitarian work. If you don't agree with it then please don't go into the humanitarian field. We don't need people with nasty attitudes. Karl_Marx is correct to ask what are the alternatives. This is my whole problem with this article. What are the green and clean alternatives if we abolish air travel especially because swimming across the Atlantic is not an option and traveling via railway and via ship pollute the environment just as much?

I am not a missionary. I want to make that clear. I am actually Muslim so don't make assumptions Annemarie and lecture me on white man's burden--sorry does not apply. I disagree with manifest destiny and having the US military stationed anywhere around the world. RMouse made the same assumptions about my gender being that of a male. I'm a woman. As far as a superiority complex I am getting that from the environmentalists on this board. If you cannot win over a fellow progressive how will you win over conservatives to your cause especially when you don't present alternative solutions to the problems and you show a superiority complex? They'll dismiss you far quicker than I will. At least I am debating you on certain points. However, you need to win both the progressives and the conservatives over as the environmental movement will not succeed until you present viable solutions to transportation and everyone is on board with the ideals of protecting the environment. These are things current environmental scientists are doing everyday. Why not support them?

dcbeltway: the best thing the US can do to assist other countries is to reduce our ecological footprint down to our share so that we as a nation are not continuously in the business of making peoples of the world collectively poorer and poorer with each passing day.

StudentsForTheEarth.org

Rmouse: Hi, pardon me but what alternatives there are other than flyings for long distances?

What is more important human rights or the environment? People on this board argue the environment to the detriment of human rights.

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I find this to be a really specious argument. Firstly because a clean, safe, sustaining, and sustainable environment is not only an essential Human Need, but it is also an essential Human Right. Ergo Human Rights and Environmental Health go hand in hand.

Does Maslow's hierarchy of needs mean anything to you? He lays it out rather clearly and succinctly for anyone who's not familiar with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Also you said, "Providing people with education and literacy is empowering and does help them." While this is good and admirable, education and literacy are not essential to survival as is a clean, safe, healthy, sustainable ENVIRONMENT. In fact, it could be argued that before we were literate and widely educated, we were better off!

Furthermore, look at how literate and well educated (ahem! At least technically speaking.) we in the West are. And while you're doing that, keep in mind who it is that is responsible for most of the destruction and pollution on this planet, for overconsumption, for stealing, taking, using, or abusing most of the natural resources, etc. It is we, the "educated" and literate ones!

Oh and btw, who is it that illegally invaded Iraq recently; and who is it that's been hammering the Palestinians into walled ghettos, for but two examples? Is it the literate and educated, or the illiterate and uneducated ones? Just wondering?

Nice try at a straw man argument though, DCBeltway.

And as for this comment of yours --Vinlander and the Nihilist seem to be the only realistic posters on this thread --

I feel that it's spoken like a true believer, um missionary, um I mean a good humanitarian/development worker! ;) ;)

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#
luketemp August 20th, 2007 7:28 pm

DCB: Transportation is a necessity in our modern world.

Why? Who says people in other parts of the world can't take care of themselves if we just leave them alone, instead of going in, convincing them they need our inflated, unsustainable standard of living, and then insist they participate in the global industrial economy as a way (which will never work) to achieve it?

The ills which you work so hard (and admirably) to address, "child labors in Ghana…human rights issues" in Afghanistan, and many others were all brought to these places by Americans and Europeans in the first place.

I'm not saying that we can't bring good to people elsewhere, I'm just saying that it's none of our business, and while we can, we can, and when we can't anymore, we won't!

But there's no reason to believe we SHOULD or that we have a mandate to!
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Luketemp,
I agree with every word you have written. In fact, thinking that we should or have a mandate to "save the world" is ignorant beyond arrogance. And it often reeks of White Man's Burden, superiority shite, and Manifest Destiny propaganda.

I have family, friends, and loved ones from many points of the globe and from all walks of life. I can tell you unequivocally that I'm no isolationist, nor do I feel that kindness, etc, end at our geographic borders. Nevertheless, I've come to the conclusion that we all need to pull out of other nations (especially militarily), stop interfering, mind our own damn business, and try to get our own houses in order. Not from a selfish, self-centered point of view, but from an unselfish one. Live and let live. We've been interfering with others for far too long, sometimes with the best of intentions, and look where it's gotten us. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Hope my meaning is understood.

Alas, shades of gray! Isn't this discussion a matter of degree? Some argue that many of the world's ills would be helped by population control, but the greater issue is the pattern of resource depletion and the way wealth takes far more than its fair share. If some of us fly once or twice a year (I didn't know about the Hummer analogy!) and in so-doing make a contribution, it would seem the greater good would be served. Those who travel just for self-indulgent purposes, vacations and so forth, are of a different element. Harm tax might be imposed in the way Nader and others have suggested a similar tax imposed on industries that leave their mess for the public to clean up one way or another. Instead of either/or debates, or attacking the various calls we progressive answer to, this analysis should take into account DEGREES of use and abuse. As human beings we EAT and therefore leave a footprint. I am very conscious of how much water I use, gasoline and electric power... but so many just waste. What particularly upsets me are the many vehicles left running in parking lots.... multiple this (people trying to keep cool) by the thousands and then consider the amount of toxins released for NOTHING. So many people could care less; but at least in this forum, the vast majority of us do care, and are seeking ways to change our lives to resonate with Earth and conditions we believe to be of benefit to others.

For many years, I lived on the edge of the jungle and the ocean. There were a few of us living together, rather Robinson Crusoe style you might say, and we spent our days clearing the land of invasive species and replanting in traditional native plant species for food, medicine, and beauty. It was a lovely time and involved lots of hard work. People heard about us and found us. Visitors came regularly, were almost always inspired and even somehow renewed, and often had 'ideas' for us.

Whenever someone would share their 'great idea', we would listen carefully and politely and, when they were finished, we would tell them, "That's a great idea!" We would then turn them in the correct direction and point, saying, "There's the toolshed."

Here's a question for everyone who thinks that the answer is to drop all forms of mass transportation. What are people with disabilities supposed to do? What happens if you can't cycle (or walk) for that matter? Some of us have access to the world either via a transit service that burns hydrocarbons or a car, we haven't the ability to walk long distances and a car is a means of gaining freedom. Respecting the rights of the disabled is a progressive value and some of us are stuck driving (or being driven) whether we like it or not. Not all of us can return to some utopic place without the benefit of technology, you know.

It is a strange thing, watching how the world is spinning itself faster and faster. And as we discover ways to move more quickly from one place to another, we suddenly believe that this new found speed is NECESSARY. As if we have some place to go, some evolutionary timeline to meet, and that being many places at once will increase our ability to create wealth, or justice, or equality, or peace, or global dominion, or solutions to all the "big" questions. But, if we take the time to study history, it is greater mobility around the planet that has CREATED the troubled world in which we live. Whether it is the environmental disasters that we face due to the methods of travel, or the economic injustices we face because we can easily move jobs from here to there.

Take the time to go through African history and look at the way European colonizers not only took over the resources, but imposed their ideas of agriculture and industry on environments completely foreign to them. Africa is not fundamentally doomed to poverty, but doomed to poverty as long as the experience of alien environments are imposed on Africa. Yes, dcbeltway is out to do something good, but it is a facet of a bad idea. Perhaps a necessary reaction to a bad idea (globalization), but to assume that the only method forward is to continue in the CONTEXT of this bad idea is counterproductive. It would be wrong to slow down dcbeltway and NOT others who are, in essence, creating the necessity of her work, but to slow them ALL down is another matter entirely.

And, I should say, it is not clear to me what dcbeltway's work actually IS, as opposed to what she is otherwise involved in. International development, in many cases, is working at odds with local economies and environments, creating the very problems we need to combat in an effort to help nations of the world keep up the the Joneses, as it were. There is a sense that people are deprived if they don't have the things that the first world has and, to an extent, that is true, but I think we have been VERY POOR about sorting out which gifts of our culture are cursed and which are beneficial. Much of the impetus to "develop" is really to get POWER in the world to tell the first world to piss off. To keep their lands and people from being exploited. Halting air travel would certainly slow down the wheels of exploitation and, perhaps, given countries a chance to develop autonomous futures. Again, it is a matter of getting the first world corporations and militaries to stay out of the way that seems most important to development, otherwise it is a constant fight with the devil. To become more like what is hateful and hurtful with some distant dream of FIGHTING what is hateful and hurtful, only to wake up years later to realize you have become what you SHOULD despise.

Yes, trains and boats pollute, but trains, at the very least, can be made to pollute considerably less. Magnetic levitation trains are a real technology that would move people domestically at a much higher, more efficient rate of speed than airlines, most especially as the security times and travel to hubs would be dramatically decreased. I am not sure the power alternatives of trans-oceanic shipping, but will say that air travel is more damaging to global warming, because the gasses are deposited at altitude.

As to speed, it is something most of us encounter in our everyday lives, thinking we don't have time to walk or bike to this place or that instead of using our cars. Perhaps it is most obvious to start here and realize that it simply requires a bit more planning to work around a pedestrian lifestyle, but, once one makes the effort, it becomes obvious how much less we need cars and speed than we would like to imagine. The same is true of LONGER travel. It simply requires more thought. More planning. And, personally, I think it is healthier to travel by train or boat BECAUSE of the increased time involved. It forces one to have DOWN TIME rather than believing that one must always be productive, working, driving forward. It gives one time to REFLECT, which all of us could use.

www.unknown-arts.org/politics

What is more important human rights or the environment? People on this board argue the environment to the detriment of human rights. As progressives we need to find ways and solutions that we can succesfully support both. As I keep stating like a meme there are green transportation alternatives and we also need to invent more.

Luke child labor has always existed and yes the West has contributed to this problem but its been a problem in all cultures as slavery has been around since the start a civilization and needs to be abolished. Yes, the Soviets and the US did create a major problem in Afghanistan but Afghans will tell you part of the reason the Taliban rose to power was because the US did not lend them a hand in reconstruction after the Soviet pullout. They expected to be supported and helped and we turned their back on them and look what happened. However, saying its none of our business to clean up the mess we made is wiping our hands clean. We must and we should make a difference. Second I work in the international education sector. Providing people with education and literacy is empowering and does help them. I agree that many development projects are unsustainable and loan sharks like the World Bank and IMF often cause underdevelopment as countries cannot pay back their debts. However, saying all development is bad is a broad sweeping generalization and saying its bad cause I need to get to places on an airplane is also ridiculous. Vinlander and the Nihilist seem to be the only realistic posters on this thread.

DCB: Transportation is a necessity in our modern world.

Why? Who says people in other parts of the world can't take care of themselves if we just leave them alone, instead of going in, convincing them they need our inflated, unsustainable standard of living, and then insist they participate in the global industrial economy as a way (which will never work) to achieve it?

The ills which you work so hard (and admirably) to address, "child labors in Ghana...human rights issues" in Afghanistan, and many others were all brought to these places by Americans and Europeans in the first place.

I'm not saying that we can't bring good to people elsewhere, I'm just saying that it's none of our business, and while we can, we can, and when we can't anymore, we won't!

But there's no reason to believe we SHOULD or that we have a mandate to!

After 911 I gave up flying because of its very high environmental impacts and because of the connection between oil and war. I work as an energy research engineer. Per passenger mile the the global warming impact for flying in a plane with average passenger loading is about equal to driving the same distance in a Hummer by yourself. Because of plane travel people travel much further than they would otherwise compounding air travel's already high impact. More efficient planes can only marginally change this. Unlike air travel, ground travel can realistically be electrified with electricity coming from renewable sources. If hydrogen ever becomes practical for airplanes it's net efficiency will be low with global warming impacts of water vapor and nitrous oxides remaining. Ocean travel can use renewable energy using wind. I agree with George Monbiot that there can be no technical solution for the global warming impacts of air travel. Air travel is a luxury the earth can no longer afford no matter what its benefits.

PJD,

Gotcha! Thanks for responding. It was the word *civilization* that threw me.

Now I get your meaning, and am in full agreement.

ta,

btw, I have plenty o' imagination. Sometimes too much? ;)

PJD

The thing is, sure, if you look at it in purely energetic terms, a wind turbine will produce it's own "weight" in energy quickly. However, the materials used to make it in the first place are not easily produced by electrical powered means.

Imagine the power needed to drive the FOUR STORY tall mining trucks that extract the metals used in these turbines or solar panels. Imagine the huge engines driving the huge ships that bring to our shores the oil which is converted into plastic used in the turbines or solar panels, or the trucks used to transport the parts of the turbines to remote hill tops. It will take amazing innovation and investment to replace the explosive power of hydrocarbons!

Such innovation is itself built on the back of petroleum, since it requires communication, collaboration, and experimentation among scientists the world over, which at present be fueled only by petroleum, as well as materials which are based on hydrocarbons. Even if the innovation comes about, how much energy will we expend retrofitting/remaking our entire fleet and arsenal of huge industrial machinery to run on electricity.

The poof of flame that arises when you ignite the lighter fluid on your backyard grill is equivalent to a prehistoric tree-fern collecting sunlight for 9 YEARS! (from "The Party's Over" http://www.richardheinberg.com/endorsements/thepartysover an excellent book! )

Ultimately, using any more energy than the sun provides us each year is unsustainable! That is the only long-term energy source we have!

I think we are screwed however you look at it. Industry is never going to give up fossil fuels until the last drop is squeezed from the earth.

That being said, as the pressure increases from fuel shortages, the increased cost of said fuel and the effects of global warming intensify, industry will be forced in find some other way to transport goods and services.

In the meantime it is up to progressives to make some tough personal decisions and put as much pressure as we can on industry and politicians through our everyday lifestyle choices. Maybe if we all act in solidarity and demand action, refrain from driving whenever possible, buy local food, support local business and all the other small things, we can start to shift the consciousness of those around us?!?!

Train Boat Diesel Engines Source of Deadly Polutionhttp://tinyurl.com/yscxrz
State air quality officials say the diesel engines in locomotives and boats account for a large chunk of U.S. air pollution. They say that share is growing because the Environmental Protection Agency has dragged its feet on tighter regulation. The pollution exacts a price: 4,000 extra deaths each year.

Just wanted to point out the above for those that argue ships and trains are better then the airlines when it comes to polution. As I have stated transportation is necessary including transportation to get us overseas and rather then whining I think the environmental movement should be looking for green alternatives and inventing new products. Transportation is a necessity in our modern world. I'm 100% behind those people looking for green solutions to the transportation dilemma that will allow people to continue to travel.

Yes, solar powered high speed rails should replace cars and roads. Airplanes, as well, should be eliminated. They aren't necessary; we have boats, and frankly, doing away with both civilian--and--military airplanes will make the world a better place. It's difficult to sail to the other side of the world for a very good reason; you have no place being there.

annemarie j,

I don't understand your point. What to modes of transoceanic transportation have to do with British imperialism, slave trade or native american slaughter?

By "civilization" I simply mean that all the means to live comfortably, trade with other nations, develop lifesaving medicine, etc... were available before there were airplanes - or for that matter before the automobile. Our current dominant USAn transportation alternatives - the personal automobile, and airplane, and the incredibly inefficient sprawling community layout they engendered, were not the result of not some kind of natural evolution of mankind, they were developed, and the far more energy-efficient alternatives destroyed, as part of a specific money-making objective of a handful of powerful corporations.

The great majority of us can live long, comfortable, and proserous lives without airplanes or cars. Just use your imagination.

luketemp,

Actually your remarks about the negative energy return on alternativies is not correct. A solar panel or wind turbine produce the energt needed to manufacture them in the first couple months of operaton. Biofuels do produce more energy than is put into their production (although their use is flawed in other ways).

But yes, I agree with your general point that we need to reject the whole gospel of proflagrate energy consumption just to get somewhere faster or to avoid sweating in summer or wearing a warm sweater indoors in winter.

PJD wrote: As far as crossing oceans, somehow, civilization thrived when the only way to cross oceans were ships.

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PJD,
I'm possibly misreading it, your intent and your full meaning. But do you actually think that civilization thrived then? Because I seem to recall that during those days before air travel, "when the only way to cross oceans were ships." a certain so-called Western "civilization" (The British Empire and its allies) was busily, greedily, and hatefully involved (for how many centuries?) in the systematic slaughter of Native People on at least two continents (North and South America, the Caribbean, etc.) a gargantuan Holocaust which was quickly followed by the capture and transport of millions of African People to work, as Slaves, in the newly stolen/conquered lands. Etc., etc...

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DCBeltway,
The tourism industries of airline and travel, along with endless lists of other industries, are not about to "go green" any faster than you imagine yourself taking a longer, slower trip across the ocean. As you stated, "it takes way too long".

Pardon my cynicism, but I don't hold much hope for positive changes coming about any time (soon). The overwhelming majority of us (particularly we who have so/too much already) are already too selfish, self-centered, and not about to give up or use less of any of our "creature comforts". And, imo, this discussion is also directly related to something that Luckylefty posted in another thread:

"WE REFUSE now, as we did then. Too bad. Never had to be this way but then I suppose somebody has to pay for what we've done here for 300 years. Somebody is going to pay for we have done to Black people from day one. Somebody is going to pay for Wounded Knee. Somebody is going to pay for the Trail of Tears. Somebody is going to pay for Nagasaki & Hiroshima. This abattoir will burn itself down to the ground. Men women and children. Every human against every other human. Should make a big fire. Denver will look like Jenin. Omaha will look like Fallujah after our second 'reprisal'. We made our choice long ago."

Yup. We made our choices long ago. And "somebody" has to pay.

Choices and prices and costs... Eventually everyone reaps what we have sown.

I was talking about carbon emissions coming from the production of ammonia - natural gas being the primary feedstock.

Computers are not large consumers of electricity - particularly if it uses a LCD display, and you turn it off when not in use.

Like I wrote, somehow travel, commerce (and charitable work) existed between nations way before aircraft were around. I am not implying that, right now, there is any other practical choice but flying accross the Atlantic, or in many cases accorss continents, but we need to start developing alternatives, and developing the alternatves start with imagining alternatives, and imagining alternatives starts with getting rid of the idea that if people can't cross the Atlantic or get to the west coast in 6 hours civilization will collapse.

If your overseas work is so important, you can certainly take 3 or 4 relaxing days crossing the Atlantic to get there.

dcbeltway, rmouse, and others:

It's so interesting reading the assumptions being made in this debate.

dcbeltway: I am for finding ways to protect our environment without drastically changing aspects of modern life.

rmouse: I also write in support of the Palestinians, asking congress to fund their purchase of 100 B-52 bombers so that they can remove the illegal Israeli settlements.

Do these sound erily similar? War is the way of modern life, as is globalism.

The idea that we Americans are responsible, via arms sales or humanitarian development, for bringing the rest of the world up (or down :) is laughable. It is american exceptionalism of the same type practiced by the imperialists in our government!

Meanwhile, the SUSTAINABILITY of such practices is in serious question.

Alternative fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia, are merely new media for STORING energy (Hydrocarbons ALREADY CONTAIN the energy we extract from them). They do not exist in usable forms in the natural environment, and therefore require, in their creation, massive inputs of energy from...guess what? Hydrocarbons!

Wind, Solar, Water, and other "alternative" energy sources all require metals mined using gas fueled machines, plastics based on petroleum, and manufactured with petroleum based energy. The re-tooling required to run this whole enterprise on electricity would consume more energy than would be saved. Not to mention the fact that so far, the possible output of all alternative enery solutions yet created equals 3-5% of global energy usage today.

Ethanol? Every gallon of ethanol produced requires the tractors etc. used to make it to burn more than a gallon of ethanol or diesel in the process!

beltway: While I can appreciate your obviously well-intentioned comittment to service of those in need of help across the globe, theres is every indication that the practice of international development is simply unsustainable.

Get off our asses and work on the alternatives, you say? What if there are no workable ones?

Humans are the only species of animal that claims the perogative to concern ourselves with animals on the other side of the globe. While the intelligence and compassion required for this practice are amazing, unique, and beautiful, they do not magically provide for the energy resources required to implement them.

When we run out of energy to sustain global travel, warfare, politics and humanitarianism, we will simply be left with the (apparently unsatisfying) prospect of making our own food, clothes, shelter, music, literature, etc. And caring for the well being of those in our community, while leaving the lives of people in Africa to be determined by them. This will not make us cave-men...just humans living within their means!

May we all learn to create satisfaction in that new (old) world!

peace

Then why not target the tourism industry and airline travel? Encourage them to go green? People do not need to go to Jamaica and Tahiti.

Yes, John I have already thought of moving to the region and will be doing that soon.

dcbeltway,

instead of travelling frequently to the Middle East to work with Arab and Muslim youth might it be more efficient to make one trip and stay longer.

It sounds like you have done many good works. But it would also be a good work to fly less often. Perhaps it is not as much an either or situation as you think. Maybe it is possible that you could do more without flying quite as much. Only you know the answer to that. Only you can take on the increased challenge that may lead you to find a way to do even more good things. Just think about it.

As far as a cushy lifestyle I have given that up to help others. The majority of us who work in the int'l development field make little to no money compared to those working in other fields. We do this because we are progressives with values. Now help your fellow progressives and come up with an alternative green plan so people like me can do the work we do. Again, that would be far more useful then name calling, whining, and insulting me.

Its great you can write Mouse but I actually go to these places overseas and help. I have worked to help child labors in Ghana have access to literacy and have worked in villages to stop the practice of Child Labor. I have taught ESL in Vietnam and was part of a peace delegation back in 1995 before we had formal relations. I travel frequently to the Middle East to work with youth. I married an Afghan refugee and we are active in human rights issues. Unfortunatly alot of my work requires airplane usage. Now I ask you don't you think all that paper you are using harms the environment? Don't tell me that the computer you are using isn't an environmental pollutant either.

dcbeltway,

please explain why you have to travel. Ending air travel is not going back to the cave and is a viable partial solution to global warming.

It would be much easier to maintain national secruity if there were no airplanes.

I work everyday towards solutions, unlike you people who are too GREEDY to change your life. I gave up my job and took another one (with LOWER pay) so that I would not commute 40 miles. Instead, now I can walk or bike to work. I get food from a CSA instead of buying from long distances. I work towards getting gays the right to marry by starting letter writing campaigns to public officials. I also write in support of the Palestinians, asking congress to fund their purchase of 100 B-52 bombers so that they can remove the illegal Israeli settlements. What YOU done??

We should have LESS air travel not more. Most of the trips are meaningless and worthless and most honest people know this and will admit it. We could cut air travel in half and still have wasted trips. Travel by air should ONLY be done when absolutely necessary and I think we could count those reasons on one hand.

in mwildfire's post;
"put aside activism to invent technologies"?

thoughts anyone???

LOL brother BigPHatJAY

Hmmmm, seems to be only ONE solution to eco-cide; the elimination of humans from the system entirely. Bingo, bango! No more global warming, no more toxic dumping, no more resource-related wars, no more economic servitude, no more wealth hoarding, no more hollow piety...in short, no more humanocentric problems at all.

I encourage all believers to join the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, now.

The rest of us will clean up after you're gone.

Amen dcbeltway Amen

RMouse people like you make me sick...you don't come up with solutions you only whine and think everyone should go back to living in caves. Get real!

Green Technology is being developed this is what environmentalist should be promoting. Come up with the technology so that people can still fly or travel quickly without polluting the environment. Now get off your lazy ass and get to work!

"I am for finding ways to protect our environment without drastically changing aspects of modern life."

All these phony progressive want their cushy life over the planet's life. It makes me sick.

We could all just really get into swimmming. I hear the Atlantic is warm this time of year and I've always wanted to see Spain.

I am a progressive but I there are some things I disagree with. What is the alternative to airline transportation if we get rid of airline travel? Millions of people depend upon airline travel for their livlihoods and you call depriving people of their jobs progressive? Most people will not go for what you suggest as they do need to earn a livnig. Its not just travel outside the US its inside. The world economy and US economy are both dependent upon airline travel ..you'd prefer they crash?

I am for finding ways to protect our environment without drastically changing aspects of modern life. This may require new thinking and new inventions and green technology but I have no doubt people will find alternatives. If you people want the environmental movement to catch on provide solutions not additional problems for people. Quit whining and start solving problems like this. Don't attack people who question things with ad homein attacks and accusations. It won't buy you converts to the cause of environmentalism. People will paint you as extremists if you do this and not take you seriously. Figure out a reasonable solution then present it.

PJD,

Forgive me if I misread your comment but creating CO2 from NH3 is impossible you need a C in there to do that. If you are talking about CO2 as by product of the industrial production of hydrogen gas I apologize.

Johnmeanswhatever,

While we are at it. Personal computers use an inordinate amount of electricity which in turn is produced by a generator run on hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons emitt pollutants and CO2 at high levels. We also must directly or indirectly kill millions of people to obtain it. Therefore, no one should use a personal computer for any reason ever. And if you do and your an environmentalist you're a damn hypocrite.

Also nobody should ever be allowed to eat meat. Cows produce more methane than car's do CO2. Therefore if you care about the environment you will go out and kill the first cow you see or the first person you see eating meat from a cow because the meat will inevitably lead to indigestion and gas which is also will lead to methane emission. No one should ever eat anything but bean sprouts and hummus. And even then you can hear the sentient vegatable crying out in pain as you chew so wear earplugs...but only if they are 100% biodegadable and made from the recycled foam of old ringworm-infested wrestling mats.

As far as it taking a few days to cross the Atlantic to close that business deal or whatever - so what? Sound's like a lot of fun to me.

I have used Amtrak for several cross-continent trips now. it takes 2 days and 3 nights and the sleeper compartment is pricey, but it is pure pleasure. I'd love it if my boss would allow me to travel on busines that way.

Ammonia is manufactured using natural gas or oil as the source of hydrogen and therefore also produces CO2. The X-15 was a rocket plane. Powering an airliner with rocket engines is completely impractical.

Like it or not, liquid hydrocarbons are the only practical energy source for propeling an airplane anything but short distances. So, in the post peak-oil world, most of the common uses of aircraft are going to have to be replaced with something else anyway.

High speed electric maglev technolgies can very nearly match the speed of aircraft at much better energy efficiency.

As far as crossing oceans, somehow, civilization thrived when the only way to cross oceans were ships. With modern materials technology some pretty fast, safe, sailing ships could probably be develped. Or possibly, solar-powered dirigibles that can fly above the weather.

Thenihilist: roads interfere with migratory patterns of land animals, disrupt ecosystems and of course allow internal combustion vehicles to move about freely and pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If you value the planet and cherish all the life that exists on it, you would reconsider the wisdom of roads and how our ease of transportation impacts the world around us. Remember, it's nice to get to your favorite fried chicken outlet quickly, but if you kill the world, you die with it.

Amonia as a fuel? Cripes....just what we need in the air, nitrates and nitrites.

Sorry but science also shows every time you pave a road it's ecocide, destroying the microenvironment of nitrifying bacteria) are we supposed to not have any roads either?

Aviation isn't the problem -- it's the hydrocarbons one burns to make it happen. Change the fuel, and you solve the problem. This isn't a matter of morality about protecting the earth, nor is it an economic one pitting development against the environment. This is simple engineering problem and so far, the market economy shows no sign of wanting to solve it. As a possible example cum solution, consider that NASA flew the X-15 back in the 1950s and 1960s using ammonia as a fuel (no carbon there at all).

As for Heathrow and my beloved London, surely a third runway there might not be necessary if air traffic patterns were altered to make Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff and other British cities carry a bigger load?

Extinction is such a common event in nature. What sets humans apart, we presume, is that we can anticipate our future. We know that we are creating the environmental pressures that will lead to our extinction, and yet we continue to create them at an ever accelerating rate. We are both the smartest and the dumbest species ever. At this point, I wonder if it is even worth fighting for. I don't hold out much hope for humans to be willing to sacrifice convenience to ensure their future.

dcbeltway is no progressive. He is a hack that does not care if the world is destroyed. Having a job is far more important. Incredible that he does call for the total elimination of civilian aviation. Fuel efficent planes? What is he smoking?

dcbeltway's reaction is precisely why humans will continue killing the planet till most or all life is dead. We keep telling ourselves lies that we cannot live any other way, despite all evidence showing that our activities are profoundly destructive in every way. Development is nothing more than codespeak for converting the living into the dead and turning that which sustains us into cash in the bank vaults of a tiny elite.

I stongly disagree. Those of us who work in the international development field depend upon international air transportation to do our jobs. Others in a variety of fields do also. Creating greater fuel efficency or finding a less polutable fuel is a better alternative. Sorry but we cannot go back to taking boats across the sea--it takes way too long.

All true progressive have to work towards the total elimination of the civilian airline industry. There can be no way that this be allowed to exist with global warming being on the rise. We MUST end the practice of flying on airplanes. The fate of the world depends upon it. Is destroying the planet worth flying?