Time to rethink public transit

Time to rethink public transit

I couldn't help but fire off a response to Randall Denley on this morning's article. He insists we need to gather 'all the facts' before proceeding on investment in transit. Then he fails to even mention the incredible subsidy provided to all car users; the roads.

Here is what I had to say to him this morning.

Randall,
I am hoping to have time to write a proper 'letter to the editor' response on this one.

I fully agree with you that we should be making these kinds of decisions being fully apprised of the facts. However, in your cursory analysis I believe you, like every other commentator I have read on this subject, fail to mention one of the biggest subsidies provided for automobile users; the provision of a road system. Yes, buses use roads, but they are completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cars.

And, I know, car users pay a vast array of taxes directly related to their auto use, but, the question is, do these taxes fully pay for the capital and operating costs of these roads?

Also, no one ever points out the imposition of the massive space required by all these cars. Is it any wonder that our cities lack population density when every person of voting age seems 'driven' to bring their own two tons of metal with them? A car sits idle for more than 90% of its lifetime, but we have to find space for all of them 100% of the time. They require a road to drive on, as well as a parking space at home. Such parking requirements put immense pressure on the design of our urban space. In my years of participation with my local community association, the number one question that always comes up revolves around traffic congestion. Yet, time and again, people drive to these public meetings to voice their complaint without every seeing the irony.

Yes, lets gather ALL the facts. Once compiled I believe they will state the obvious that providing sufficient infrastructure at public expense to enable everyone to own a vehicle that will provide for all of their transportation needs is much more costly than having a long term vision of redesigning our urban environments to reduce car use. Mass transit will never compete with sheer convenience of having a car in your driveway and a set of keys in your hand. My point is that the cost of providing such convenience should be born fully by the car user, not the taxpayer.

I am like you, I want to know all the facts. Lets gather them.

Leonard Poole
Overbrook

Deep Green: peak oil changes everything | Greenpeace UK

Deep Green: peak oil changes everything | Greenpeace UK

Although I am skeptical of his unreferenced claim that the EROI (Energy Returned over Investment Ratio) for Alberta Tar Sands production approaches 1:1, over all I find this to be a well written article that paints a very clear picture of the approach that society needs to take in response to not only peak oil, but the the inevitable down ward slope of production of all non-renewable resources on this planet.

The way we live

The way we live

Not half an hour after writing my hydrogen economy comments, I come across this column by Leonard Stern in the Citizen.

I see this kind of writing, and I begin to think there may be a glimmer of hope.

Enough is Enough!

2009 Honda FCX Clarity Fuel Cell Vehicle Review – Full Review of the 2009 Honda FCX Clarity - Honda FCX Road Test

I received this link from an acquaintance recently. "I'm sold," he enthused! "Have already started saving my nickels and dimes!"

It is easy, I suppose, to get quite excited about the wondrous possibilities that technology can bring. An apparently endless supply of fuel whose only waste is water. Who could ask for anything more!

Unfortunately, such proposals don't deal with what is the root of the problem. There are simply too many of us trying to do too many things on the limited confines of our planet. There is nothing sustainable about a world population of 7 billion people that doubles its population within its own lifetime that also collectively thinks that it is reasonable for all of us to aspire to have and consume more. If only we all had a hydrogen fueled vehicle we could all travel around whenever we wanted is what the hydrogen car implies. Instead, we should take the massive investment required to build a hydrogen fuel infrastructure for individual transport and put it into redesigning our urban infrastructure such that it truly is sustainable over the long term.

We need, as a civilization, to find a way to rein in our expanding desires, not feed them. We need to start saying "Enough is enough!"

Why did the boomers cross the road?

Randall Denley asks a very good question in his Sunday morning article, Why did the boomers cross the road?

Why indeed.

He opens by imploring us to take a long look in the mirror:

One of the curses of being a member of the boomer generation is that everywhere you go, you find that a crowd of similar-aged people just got there ahead of you. We used to flock to inexpensive, unspoiled countries, driving up the cost and spoiling whatever was there. Then we all decided to move to certain popular urban neighbourhoods, driving up the cost and changing the neighbourhoods for the worse with our demand for condo buildings and upscale coffee shops. Now we're flooding to the countryside, buying up waterfront, lakeview properties and even properties with views of lakeview properties. Costs are heading in the usual direction. As a generation, we're like a plague of locusts, destroying everything we touch.

I often note the cynical touch to his articles. He doesn't disappoint with his conclusion:

By my observation, my generation is well on the way to ruining the attraction of rural living. But hey, we're boomers. Ruining things is what we do.

I don't always agree with him, but this article prompted the following emailed words of encouragement:

Good Morning Randall,

Spot on with your Sunday morning article!

We have met the enemy, and, so often, it is us. If we could only understand that for every action, there is a consequence. Over the long term, nothing is free. There is always a price. What you speak of is one more consequence of our consumer driven, must always have more society. For this to be turned around, everyone of us must start taking the concept of stewardship to heart. I am deeply concerned that this will not happen within my life time as too many of us continue to believe that we can build/buy/consume our way out of the mess we have created.

Over dinner with friends just last evening we discussed how essential it is that we begin moving far beyond simply changing personal habits. We need policy change at at all levels of government that start to shift the focus of our society to long term sustainability. If the activity is not sustainable over the long term, why do we as a society allow it to happen? Because we continue to believe that the promotion of ever expanding unrestrained personal wealth (what else can you call it but greed), is a good thing. I enjoy experiencing the comforts of what our society has to offer as much as the next person, but, when is enough, enough? The Europeans, particularly Scandinavian countries, are more than a generation ahead of us in this regard. We are so caught up in chasing our own tail in the blind pursuit of excessive material and experiential consumption. So sad. If only we could learn to Consume Less, While Enjoying Life More!

Thanks for writing this, and keep it up.

Leonard Poole

Building the Consumer Fixated Society

The Gospel of Consumption | Orion magazine

In this Orion Magazine article, Jeffrey Kaplan details the evolution of what one industrial consultant of the late 1920's called "the gospel of consumption" - otherwise known as the notion that people could be convinced that however much they have, it isn't enough. As President Herbert Hoover's 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes observed: “By advertising and other promotional devices . . . a measurable pull on production has been created which releases capital otherwise tied up.” They were flush with excitement about this conceptual breakthrough: “Economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied.”

Kaplan points out what this has led to in the U.S.:

...by 2000 the average married couple with children was working almost five hundred hours a year more than in 1979. And according to reports by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2004 and 2005, over 40 percent of American families spend more than they earn. The average household carries $18,654 in debt, not including home-mortgage debt, and the ratio of household debt to income is at record levels, having roughly doubled over the last two decades. We are quite literally working ourselves into a frenzy just so we can consume all that our machines can produce.

Spinning our wheels ever faster. And then we wonder why the environmental systems are collapsing around us.

The Elephant in the Global Living Room

Confronting the inevitable: Population reduction, voluntary and otherwise

It is such a difficult topic for so many of us to respond to, but, it must not be ignored.

Dr. Ken Smail (PhD, Yale, 1976), Professor of Anthropology at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, opens his essay with sobering food for thought.

It has become increasingly apparent over the past half-century that there is a growing tension between two seemingly irreconcilable trends. On one hand, moderate to conservative demographic projections indicate that global human numbers will almost certainly reach 8 to 9 billion by mid-21st century, only two generations from the present. On the other, prudent and increasingly reliable scientific estimates suggest that the Earth's long-term sustainable human carrying capacity, at what might be defined as an “adequate” to “moderately comfortable” developed-world standard of living, may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion. It may in fact be considerably less, perhaps in the 1 to 2 billion range, particularly if the normative life-style (level of consumption) aspired to is anywhere close to that currently characterizing the United States.

Although, as I read his essay, I sense how much he wants to be a positive voice of hope for humanity, he struggles to be optimistic. He concludes that he can only be:

...cautiously optimistic that the human species will be able successfully to confront the complex and interrelated problems we have managed to create for ourselves -- what some have begun to characterize as an ecological, economic, political, sociocultural, and moral “perfect storm.” In fact, when I see how little traction various mitigating (or ameliorative) efforts have gained over the past 30 to 40 years, I have become increasingly pessimistic that humanity -- potentially some 9-plus billion of us within our children’s and grandchildren’s lifetimes -- will be successful in staving off some very difficult times over the next several generations (throughout the 21st century and beyond).

Read his full essay. It is sobering.