Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on March 30, 2018
Kunstler: Not So Happy Motoring
It hasn’t been a great month for America’s electric car fantasy. Elon Musk’s Tesla company — the symbolic beating heart of the fantasy — is whirling around the drain with its share price plummeting 22 percent, its bonds downgraded by Moody’s to junk status, a failure to produce its “affordable” ($36,000 — Ha!) Model 3 at commercial scale, a massive recall of earlier S Model sedans for a steering defect, and the spectacular fiery crash in Silicon Valley last week of an X model that may have been operating in automatic mode (the authorities can’t determine that based on what’s left), and which killed the driver.
Oh, and an experimental self-driving Uber car (Volvo brand) ran over and killed a lady crossing the street with her bicycle in Tempe, Arizona, two weeks ago. Don’t blame Elon for that.
There’s a lot to like about electric cars, of course, if, say, you’re a Google executive floating through life in a techno-narcissism bubble, or a Hollywood actor with wooly grandiose notions of saving the planet while simultaneously signaling your wealth and your “green” virtue cred. Teslas supposedly handle beautifully, ride very quietly, have great low-end power, and decent range of over 200 miles. The engine has something like twenty moving parts, is very long-lasting, and is easy to repair or change out if necessary.
Are they actually “green and clean?” Bwaahaaaaa….! Are you kidding? First, there’s the energy embedded in producing the car: mining and smelting the ores, manufacturing the plastics, running the assembly line, etc. That embedded energy amounts to about 22 percent of the energy consumed by the car over a ten-year lifetime. Then there’s the cost of actually powering the car day-by-day. The electricity around the USA is produced mostly by burning coal, natural gas, or by nuclear fission, all of which produce harmful emissions or byproducts. But the illusion that the power just comes out of a plug in the wall (for just pennies a day!) is a powerful one for the credulous public. The cherry-on-top is the fantasy that before much longer all that electric power will come from “renewables,” solar and wind, and we can leave the whole fossil fuel mess behind us. We say that to ourselves as a sort of prayer, and it has exactly that value.
There are at least a couple of other holes in story, big-picture wise. One is that electric mass motoring — switching out the whole liquid fuel fleet for an all-electric fleet — won’t pencil out economically. We probably started the project forty years too late to even be able to test it at scale, because economic events are now moving so quickly in the direction of global austerity that the putative middle-class customer base for electric cars will barely exist in the near future. Americans especially nowadays are so financially stressed that they can’t qualify for car loans — and that is mainly how cars are bought in this land. The industry has strained mightily to bend the rules so that these days it’s even possible to get a seven-year loan for a used car whose collateral value will dissipate long before the loan is paid back. Hard to see how they can take that much further.
The usual answer for that is that you won’t need to own a car because the nation will be served by self-driving electric Uber-style cars-on-demand, which will supposedly require far fewer cars in all. That really doesn’t answer some big questions, such as: how might commuting work in our big metroplex cities? Even if you posit multiple occupancy vehicles, it still represents a whole lot of car trips. Oh, you say, everybody will just work from home. Really? I don’t think so — though I wouldn’t rule out an end to corporate organization of work as we’ve known it, and if that happens, we will be a nation of farmers and artisans again, that is, a World Made By Hand. Also consider, if the car companies only need to make and sell a fraction of the vehicles they sell now, the whole industry will collapse.
Another hole in the story is the universal assumption that the USA must remain a land of mandatory car dependency, hostage to the fiasco of our suburban infrastructure. I understand why we’re attached to it. We spent most of the 20th century building all that shit, and squandered most our wealth on it. It’s comfortably familiar, even if it’s actually a miserable environment for everyday life. But none of those monetary and psychological investments negate the fact that suburbia has outlived its limited and rather perverse usefulness.
We’re so far from having any intelligent public debate about these issues that the events now spooling out will completely blindside the nation.
287 Comments on "Kunstler: Not So Happy Motoring"
Cloggie on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 2:54 pm
“Also consider, if the car companies only need to make and sell a fraction of the vehicles they sell now, the whole industry will collapse.”
That’s precisely what will happen:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/by-2030-you-wont-own-a-car/
“The usual answer for that is that you won’t need to own a car because the nation will be served by self-driving electric Uber-style cars-on-demand, which will supposedly require far fewer cars in all. “
That answer would be correct.
“Oh, you say, everybody will just work from home. Really? I don’t think so ”
Perhaps it is not so relevant what you “think”, mr Kunstler. With my current employer people work from home all the time and during every meeting some participants join from home via Skype. Everybody might as well be at home. But my suspicion is that mr Kunstler has typed his column on his wood-fired pc and that he has more affinity with the blacksmith in his village than with modern office practices.
Yes, most parts of modern business functions could be entirely conducted with groupware, skype, cloud, servers, webcams. Most commuting is simply stupid habit and nothing else.
There is not going to be a world made by hand, but instead an IT-based economy. Commuting and car-ownership are so 20th century.
Joe Clarkson on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 3:08 pm
There is not going to be a world made by hand, but instead an IT-based economy.
All the bytes in the world don’t have the same caloric value as one bite of a ham sandwich. You can stay at home an look at your monitor; I’ll commute to my fields and grow food.
Davy on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 3:08 pm
Sure, neder, technology will take the place of human activity everywhere we look. Your scenario points to humans doing little to nothing or should I say rich humans. I imagine it will be those who turn their backs on this lazy techno world that will lead the pack someday. Hard work and tough characters win not lazy wine drinking cheese eating types.
Technology is nearing its apex and its all downhill from here. This descent may not be swift but it is baked into the future. It’s called diminishing returns and planetary limits. Substitution is over. Innovation has climaxed. Modern networks are degrading. You can’t see that because you are not honest about what is happening.
Cloggie on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 3:32 pm
“Your scenario points to humans doing little to nothing or should I say rich humans. I imagine it will be those who turn their backs on this lazy techno world that will lead the pack someday. Hard work and tough characters win not lazy wine drinking cheese eating types.”
“Lazy techno world”?
You have no idea.
“Technology is nearing its apex and its all downhill from here. This descent may not be swift but it is baked into the future. ”
It isn’t, not in a long shot. There is no period in history that is more dedicated to innovation than today and there is no end in sight. But perhaps Europe is a little different from third world USA.
Put down these obsolete economic collapse blinders. It’s getting old already.
Outcast_Searcher on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 5:15 pm
Neither Tesla’s financial success nor how quickly autonomous vehicles are successful says much about the fate of electric cars, overall.
A roughly 50% current growth rate and rapidly dropping battery prices and improving batteries say a lot more.
But let’s not talk about THAT, as it impairs the uber-doomer talking points.
Outcast_Searcher on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 5:17 pm
Why do people even listen to Mr. “Y2K will rock your world” always wrong nonsense publisher? Oh yeah, he says things doomers want to hear — logic and accuracy need not apply.
Cloggie on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 5:34 pm
Why I still support Trump:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-us-praesident-kuendigt-rueckzug-der-us-truppen-aus-syrien-an-a-1200709.html
He wants to withdraw from Syria.
France wants to block Turkish expansion in Syria:
https://www.ft.com/content/3d2822b6-3421-11e8-ae84-494103e73f7f
“HILLARY: ‘I WORRY’ TRUMP HAS HARMED AMERICA’S WORLD LEADERSHIP”
https://www.infowars.com/hillary-i-worry-trump-has-harmed-americas-world-leadership/
You got that right dear. Trump withdrew his country from being the world’s policeman, creating a vacuum that others filled. Once the Dems will return to power “for ever”, because of “the darkie demographics” taking irriversibly over, nobody will return to the pre-Trump state of affairs.
https://www.rt.com/news/387313-us-losing-leadership-eu-mogherini/
Trump understands the signs of the times much better than Clinton.
makati1 on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 5:44 pm
There WILL come a time when IT goes extinct along with the globalized world we currently live in. They are like Siamese twins connected at the heart. When one goes, the other dies also. The internet is NOT forever. Nor is the IT world some of us enjoy. All the dreaming in the world will not change that extinction and, it will be in the near future. Wait and see. A world war could end it quickly.
Davy on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 6:10 pm
neder, the US may see its power diminish but not enough to meet your current aroused state. I am afraid you are going to be disappointed. You are also going to be disappointed by how little Europe progresses on the world stage. You have a double disappointment ahead.
Sissyfuss on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 7:36 pm
Davy, Claustrophobia can’t be honest about what is happening now any more than he can be honest about what happened in the past. He is waiting for Adolph to return to Earth and finish what he started, a purification of the superior race and the resultant annihilation of all but the fairest of skin. I’ll bet he doesn’t even tan for fear of being mistaken as someone of inferior race even though we all descend from the Fertile Crescent. A pity his father couldn’t get the gist or the gism of whacking off.
Anonymouse1 on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 8:10 pm
Corporate-financier mandated car-dependency will not be saved, salvaged or rescued by EVs, hydrogen cars, flying cars, robo-cars, or any combination of the above. The automotive retail suburban expansion complex, or ARSE complex for short, may latch onto EVs despite their historical aversion for them, for one main reason. To many people, EV’s despite whatever shortcomings they may have, are perceived by many, as a more aesthetically pleasing version of the oil-burning car. IoW, most of the advantages of the oil-burner, none of the downsides. Now there is a lot wrong with this rosy image of course, but that is a picture that many people have of EVs. It is this image, that the ARSE complex will have to hang its hopes on, if happy motoring(tm), is to have much of a future. At least in their view.
Robo-cars are being used in a similar manner by their proponents. Unfortunately, corrupt and or incompetent officials in some locales seem to allow these vehicles on roads where they are beginning to kill either their drivers, or innocent bystanders. Ops! Some dad optics there.
Of course, in the meantime, while the great EV-future-to-come is being brought to you, by the same people that brought you oil-powered car-dependency, they will be quite happy to sell you an oil burner to tide you over while you are waiting for the future(tm) to arrive.
‘Progress’ takes time after all.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 8:37 pm
Madkat: Watch this shit!
What would ‘nuclear Armageddon’ look like in your city? This terrifying simulator shows you
https://outrider.org/nuclearweapons/interactive/bomb-blast
MASTERMIND on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 8:40 pm
Imagine Putin’s palace getting NUKED! Its coming ! They know the oil is running out soon. So they need to depopulate. Makes sense a nuclear war!
DerHundistlos on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 9:30 pm
Clogged,
Who cares why you support Dump. Why not concern yourself with Dutch politics? You seem to have an abnormally high level of interest in alt. right US politics.
dissident on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 10:32 pm
I wonder if the self-driving car incident was an example of the coding used to produce the “AI”. It identified the bicycle and calculated some token speed and thus flagged the object as not a collision threat. This would be the kind of quality code that we expect from MS Windows “drivers”. Written by barely literate programmers who scammed their way to their IT degrees in the 3rd world.
The other possibility is that this high tech POS did not properly scan the sides of the road for emerging collision threats. That would defeat the whole endeavour.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 10:48 pm
Tesla Looked Like the Future. Now Some Ask if It Has One.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/business/tesla-elon-musk.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Once Tesla goes under all the idiots who were duped into believing peak demand will be laughed at! Like they should!
joe on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 10:55 pm
Or she cycled out in front of it, it killed her and the big problem is that you have a massive problem figuring out who is liable for insurance claims. I’ve always pointed this out and it seems I’m right. We still don’t have all the detail of that incident in the media yet. It’s just sad that once again the ‘progressive’ American economy is allowing big companies to live test their products for profit and kill people.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 30th Mar 2018 11:34 pm
Tesla says crashed vehicle had been on autopilot prior to accident
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/30/tesla-says-crashed-vehicle-had-been-on-autopilot-prior-to-accident.html
https://imgur.com/a/6FThM
https://imgur.com/a/MbGV8
makati1 on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 12:01 am
MM. I do not live in a city. Not even within 50 miles of the Manila burbs. There would be no reason for anyone to nuke Manila. Filipinos are not trying to conquer the world.
BTW: My air blows over 8,000 miles of the Pacific Ocean and is cleaner than any air you have ever breathed. Ditto for the rain which will supply our water on the farm.
Plantagenet on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 12:19 am
Kunstler is right. The US would be far better off building high speed intercity rail and tram systems for urban commuting then pursuing a fantasy of BAU continuing forever, except with EVs instead of Detroit muscle cars.
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 12:25 am
“Clogged,
Who cares why you support Dump. Why not concern yourself with Dutch politics? You seem to have an abnormally high level of interest in alt. right US politics.”
My favorite…
https://goo.gl/images/KUZkyj
…from a long list:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/foto/dit-zijn-de-beste-trumpcovers~p4410355/
MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 12:35 am
makati1
They know the oil is going to be running out in a few years worldwide. I hate to be the
one to say it but a major nuclear world war to depopulate would make a lot of sense..
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/23/is-the-world-sleepwalking-into-an-oil- crisis/#3dd6e74344cf
MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 12:39 am
Plantagenet
we dont have the time to build out some stupid rail way. we are going to be running out of oil in a few years worldwide. And that will be the end. Coal cannot work without crude, crude cannot work without coal, natural gas cannot work without both oil and coal, Shale oil cannot work without any of those, and so on..
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/23/is-the-world-sleepwalking-into-an-oil- crisis/#3dd6e74344cf
makati1 on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 12:46 am
Mm, and why do you think that? A nuclear war would depopulate the planet…totally. ALL life, not just a few billion humans. If you don’t like living, just off yourself, not the rest of us.
I prefer that the Us just collapse’ and become impotent. A nice big, bloody, long lasting civil war there would be perfect. Let the blood in Us streets commence. It would be a perfect payback for all the death and misery the Us has caused around the world.
BTW: The Ps uses TWO CUPS of oil per capita vs the Us TWO GALLONS PLUS per capita. Who will miss oil first? Hint: NOT the Ps. lol
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 4:54 am
BTW: The Ps uses TWO CUPS of oil per capita vs the Us TWO GALLONS PLUS per capita. Who will miss oil first? Hint: NOT the Ps. lol
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself/
DerHundistLos on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:00 am
America once had the finest network of private passenger and freight service in the world. Back then, people would dress-up to ride the train. Dining car service was provided with train logo china and silverware. Union Station in St. Louis at one time had 57 private passenger trains arriving and departing daily to all corners of the US and Canada.
So many fallen flags- The Missouri Pacific RR, Illinois Central RR, St. Louis-San Francisco RR, The MKATY, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, Pennsylvania RR, Southern RR, Baltimore & Ohio. I rode them all. The service was amazing. Now, they are all gone. Before The Missouri Pacific RR merged with Union Pacific, the management of Union Pacific promised to merge all freight service through St. Louis. They lied.
What allowed the railroads to maintain passenger service was due to the revenue generated from the postal service. Then in 1964, the contract was given to trucking and the airlines. Drop the last nail in the coffin. Add to this, greedy counties that generated millions of dollars in property taxes. And the highways and airports are all maintained at taxpayer expense, not the railroads.
What we have today is a joke. Freight service is provided by a monopoly thanks to Warren Buffet. Never enough money for these people.
DerHundistLos on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:01 am
Union Station, St. Louis:
https://stlouisisapoem.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/illinois-central.jpg
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:03 am
Kunstler is right. The US would be far better off building high speed intercity rail and tram systems for urban commuting then pursuing a fantasy of BAU continuing forever, except with EVs instead of Detroit muscle cars.
He isn’t right. With a public, electric and autonomous car/van fleet you can achieve fine-grained door-to-door transport, relieving family/young peoples/old peoples budgets from owning a car that isn’t being used 95% of the time anyway and merely occupies space in an ugly way. Furthermore, a full Ford Transit van of 8 people occupies just the same space on the road as your average sedan, carrying 1.25 people. Traffic jams will be history. Energy consumption, embedded and fuel, will plummet.
Nothing but advantages.
But for most Americans this transport system is probably “too socialist”.
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:23 am
America once had the finest network of private passenger and freight service in the world. Back then, people would dress-up to ride the train. Dining car service was provided with train logo china and silverware. Union Station in St. Louis at one time had 57 private passenger trains arriving and departing daily to all corners of the US and Canada.
Train system in Europe (and China) still works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShS0m0eDwfk
If the autonomous car system will succeed it could be an ideal complement of a high-speed long-distance rail system. No need for planes anymore below 500-800 km. Or buses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5u_5iQ3Ego
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/11/the-world-of-autonomous-e-vehicles-according-to-daimler-and-bosch/
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:35 am
“I prefer that the Us just collapse’ and become impotent. A nice big, bloody, long lasting civil war there would be perfect. Let the blood in Us streets commence. It would be a perfect payback for all the death and misery the Us has caused around the world.”
You are a horrible person billy war pig. You lust for the death of people. You could give a shit about your family that would be part of that bloody confrontation.
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:37 am
“BTW: The Ps uses TWO CUPS of oil per capita vs the Us TWO GALLONS PLUS per capita. Who will miss oil first? Hint: NOT the Ps. lol”
More deceptive advertising. The P’s has very wealthy people who use much more than that. If you were to eliminate the very poor from that equation the usage would shoot up.
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:41 am
22 United States 61.02
23 Netherlands 60.31
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself/
BTW, there are some reasons for the heavy oil consumption in the US related to energy production and the military. Since we are protecting your ass then some of that consumption is yours.
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:45 am
“He isn’t right. With a public, electric and autonomous car/van fleet you can achieve fine-grained door-to-door transport, relieving family/young peoples/old peoples budgets from owning a car that isn’t being used 95% of the time anyway and merely occupies space in an ugly way.”
Fantasy of a unrealistic and unaffordable future. We may find a niche for autonomous transportation if they ever figure it out. I doubt this represent more than a 10% solution to the global transportation situation.
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 5:48 am
“Train system in Europe (and China) still works:”
“Freight Rail Overview”
https://tinyurl.com/ybc5sfhv
“Today, the U.S. freight rail network is widely considered one of the most dynamic freight systems in the world. The $60 billion industry consists of 140,000 rail miles operated by seven Class I railroads [1] (railroads with operating revenues of $433.2 million or more), 21 regional railroads, and 510 local railroads. [2] Not only does the 140,000 mile system move more freight than any other freight rail system worldwide but it also provides 221,000 jobs [3] across the country and numerous public benefits including reductions in road congestion, highway fatalities, fuel consumption and greenhouse gases, logistics costs, and public infrastructure maintenance costs.”
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 6:15 am
“Fantasy of a unrealistic and unaffordable future. We may find a niche for autonomous transportation if they ever figure it out. I doubt this represent more than a 10% solution to the global transportation situation.”
Several western European countries, formost Holland and UK have declared the autonomous car a strategic goal and are competing to be the first. Not coincidentally, both these countries suffer most from traffic congestion, because of population density,
Don’t apply your third world standards to your Mother Civilization.
https://www.government.nl/topics/mobility-public-transport-and-road-safety/self-driving-vehicles
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 6:22 am
“Several western European countries, formost Holland and UK have declared the autonomous car a strategic goal and are competing to be the first.”
This is still fantasy and the possibility of success is up in the air. Nothing to crow about yet.
“Don’t apply your third world standards to your Mother Civilization.”
We are a 1st world and 3rd world country. Where we are 1st world we blow you out of the water.
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 6:29 am
“BTW, there are some reasons for the heavy oil consumption in the US related to energy production and the military. Since we are protecting your ass then some of that consumption is yours.”
The only ones Europeans need historically protection from is f* Anglos. But the European and Chinese giants are rising…
https://goo.gl/images/53KHri
…and are going to make short shrift with the third world exceptionalist yapper that loves to think it can “lead the world” and own it all, just because these Davy types were no match for the youknowwho.
Holland has such a high fuel consumption because it has the largest oil refineries in Europe. Rotterdam, until recently the largest harbour in the world and where cays are numbered 1..10,000 isn’t called Europoort for nothing:
https://beeldbank.rws.nl/MediaObject/Details/ANWB_wegwijzers_boven_RW15_RW16_nabij_Ridderkerk_199589
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 6:35 am
“Where we are 1st world we blow you out of the water.”
Oh really? Like with what?
Olympic medals?
Energy policies?
Trade deficit?
Understanding of history?
Life expectancy?
I wouldn’t know what.
Obesitas perhaps.
America will not exist past 2025 in its present shape. If you are lucky the remainder of you will be our junior partner. If not it is going to be the horrors of USSR 2.0.
https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Superpower-Will-America-Survive/dp/125000411X/ref=sr_1_1
makati1 on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 7:08 am
Cloggie: Thanks for the laugh! ^_^
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself/
America, the land of hypocrites.
makati1 on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 7:11 am
Cloggie, I found this interesting. Thinking ahead.
“Chinese is now an official option in Dutch school leaving exams”
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2018/03/chinese-is-now-an-official-option-in-dutch-school-leaving-exams/
The Us cannot even teach correct English.
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 7:11 am
“and are going to make short shrift with the third world exceptionalist yapper that loves to think it can “lead the world” and own it all, just because these Davy types were no match for the youknowwho.”
Please reference where I said the US leads the world. What I am doing is shooting down your Eurotard chauvinism lies of imminent US collapse and your lies that the US has no leadership with anything. You are a nederliar of the worst kind You “should be ashamed of yourself”.
“Holland has such a high fuel consumption because it has the largest oil refineries in Europe. Rotterdam, until recently the largest harbour in the world and where cays are numbered 1..10,000 isn’t called Europoort for nothing:”
We are the biggest refining nation in the world. Do you think that has something to do with our consumption too, dumbass?
https://tinyurl.com/yc9yju88
Davy on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 7:14 am
You are both liars that have extreme obsession with anti-Americanism. This is a personality illness and reflects I am sure personal issues of failure.
shortonoil on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 8:14 am
Tesla is a transitional company that was set up to move the world slowly away from oil, and other fossil fuels to the new technology. The owners of the new technology are the same entities that owned the old technology. A highly compartmentalized corporate, and government interest group that controls the future of the world. Tesla was not created to turn a profit. It was set up to acquaint the world with the a new paradigm; a new world that will contradict everything you have ever known!
joe on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 8:17 am
“Tesla says crashed vehicle had been on autopilot prior to accident”
Just shows how much is left to do. Don’t get me wrong, there were probobly around 102 people killed on US roads on the day that Tesla killed a person, but the ratio of human powered cars per death versus per Tesla when projected out means carnage for people if things stay as they are.
We should probobly begin with very restricted programme to introduce automated driving to public roads. They should pick regions/areas, close them off to human drivers and let automated vehicles run free and progress from there. Personally I can easily imagine fleets of automated vans and trucks in convoys, delivering goods at night, monitored by cctv and gps (maybe one or two escorts) in case someone illegally stops them. With sirens and lights they could easily be avoided. They should build it out slowly. Just letting this animal loose to kill and maim will ruin its reputation long before it gets a chance to prove itself.
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 8:45 am
“Chinese is now an official option in Dutch school leaving exams”
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2018/03/chinese-is-now-an-official-option-in-dutch-school-leaving-exams/
The Us cannot even teach correct English.
In Holland English is taught by Dutch teachers and Holland is probably the #1 non-native-English country in the world where even the garbageman speaks reasonable English. I don’t think Chinese is going to be big in Holland any time soon. But yes, its importance is growing fast.
But… 1600 years after the demise of the Roman Empire they are still teaching Latin to youngsters at gymnasiums.
I think we will be stuck with English for centuries to come, regardless of how much EU-chieftain Juncker is making fun of English in the wake of Brexit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9KRTcmmBxk
The fact that the influence of Anglosphere will rapidly wane in the very near future, will paradoxically make English even more attractive… because it is no longer a threat and lingua franca already and a relatively simply language to learn.
Saves Europeans the trouble to fight it out if French, German or Russian will become the #1 language. Although the WU commission hit a nerve the other day when it half-jokingly proposed that Latin should be the official language of the EU (count me in).
http://www.juridicainternational.eu/public/pdf/ji_2005_1_199.pdf
http://pratie.blogspot.nl/2006/09/latin-proposed-as-common-language-for.html
https://www.thenewfederalist.eu/europe-needs-a-common-language
(I tip English)
MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 9:32 am
Since the 2008 financial crash, the world has witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of social protest in every major continent. Beginning with the birth of the Occupy movement in the US and Western Europe, and the Arab Spring, the eruption of civil unrest has continued to wreak havoc unpredictably from Greece to Ukraine, from China to Thailand, from Brazil to Turkey, and beyond. In some regions, civil unrest has coalesced into the collapse of incumbent governments or even the eruption of a prolonged state of internecine warfare, as is happening in Iraq-Syria and Ukraine- Crimea.
Increasing public dissatisfaction with government is correlated with continued government difficulties in meeting public expectations. Yet while policymakers and media observers have raced to keep up with events, they have largely missed the deeper causes of this new age of unrest—the end of the age of cheap fossil fuels, and its multiplying consequences for economic growth, industrial food production, and the Earth’s climate stability.
N.M. Ahmed,
Failing States, Collapsing Systems
SpringerBriefs in Energy,
http://www.academia.edu/34816514/Failing_States_Collapsing_Systems_BioPhysical_Triggers_of_Political_Violence_SPRINGER_BRIEFS_IN_ENERGY_?utm_campaign=buffer&utm_content=bufferf1d95&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com
Boat on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 9:33 am
Clog
You may put your tire in the boot but it goes in the trunk. Lol You use English because you need it to hoard the $dollar. Dollars make the world go.
English, dollar, English, dollar. If you want to be completed as a human you better have plenty of dollars and speak English.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 9:45 am
Madkat
I am sorry but those two cups of oil could be our two cups! About 3 billion people need to die soon! And Asia is going to be hit the hardest! Sing or swim old man!
Cloggie on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 9:59 am
Please reference where I said the US leads the world.
Who cares what you say.
“HILLARY: ‘I WORRY’ TRUMP HAS HARMED AMERICA’S WORLD LEADERSHIP”
https://www.infowars.com/hillary-i-worry-trump-has-harmed-americas-world-leadership/
What I am doing is shooting down your Eurotard chauvinism lies of imminent US collapse…
Yeah, you hate European self-confidence, because it conflicts with your “exceptionalism”.
and your lies that the US has no leadership with anything.
I am perfectly willing to acknowledge and accept world class… Apple stuff, I have it all, HP desktop, I have one, good stuff. IT-software… I have subscriptions to several cloud services, Office, Windows, (European Linux and its Android offshoot is just as good and most used OS globally, but techie standard only), Dropbox and a lot more, most American. IT-books, almost all American. IT-hardware per definition comes from my Dutch hometown as 90% of the micro-chips in the world, including those used in Apple, Samsung and HP, are made by machines from Eindhoven:
https://www.telegraaf.nl/financieel/1836661/werk-zat-in-eindhoven
But apart from IT… food, wine, cloths, furniture, design, nope, European. Holidays: European only. Films: German, French, Scandinavian and rest-European only. Stimulating pop-music on my Youtube-playlist and workout mp3-player: mixed European and American. In the car: European classic only. Household-appliances: Dutch (Philips) and German (Miele, Bosch, Valliant), solar panels: Chinese. Cars: always European, but now Japanese (to great satisfaction).
MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 10:04 am
Cloggie
Hillary is right.
Gallup: World’s Approval of U.S. Leadership Drops to New Low
http://news.gallup.com/poll/225761/world-approval-leadership-drops-new-low.aspx