[Daryl]

Topic is intended to rile you guys up a bit. A little boring around here.

OK. Submitted for your approval....plug-in hybrid personal autos combined with home solar panels/windmills solves personal transportation issue. Flexible route, quick to implement electric/hydrogen buses alleviate population density issue. Nuclear and coal supports expansion of electric grid. Trucking (and auto?) industry nationalized and subsidized, long term shift to commercial rail, mass transit rail begins. All done with current affordable technology. Some is not affordable now, but would be with mass production and demand. Next energy shock gives the federal government authority to intervene aggressively.

Yes, some suburbs will become obsolete. Most will just decline in value at the expense of denser housing closer to job sites, which will boom. Lifestyles will change dramatically. Less personal driving, less leisure travel. Good time to own a moving company, as there will be a mass migration of people moving closer to work. No panic, no collapse. Parts of economy that decline will be offset by parts that gain. Maybe even no recession, hard to say. Time to come out of your bunkers and get back to work.

(Sorry, Kunstler, the Pentacostal Christians in the South aren't going to cannibalize each other after church. Your fantasies will remain unrealized. A little advice: lay off the global macroeconomic theory. You've got a little credibility as an urban planner. Don't squander it.)

[Ludi]

Did I miss the part where someone buys these things for all of us? Who's paying for this?

[bobcousins]

Daryl has thought about this a lot. Here is his idea for wind powered personal transport:

[jaws]

Why not just move everyone on scooters?

[NEOPO]

"Fix" ?? Suggesting such a thing is like cruelty to humans!!
Its a "nice thought" yet thats all it is.
Dry crowd Jaws

This comes from the same everfull horn as all the "fixes" do.
The problem is that there is no solution to a problem we have yet to clearly identify!!!
Something within the human "germ" makes it feel insecure so it seeks to surround itself with other germs and things that germs believe are valueable here in petri land.
Something always seems to be "missing".
Think outside the dish!!!!

No wait......lets build the new paradigm around the people yeah yeah.
We could do it from 11pm to 7am when they are sleeping - heck they might not even notice!!!!
Perhaps we can get everyone to go on vacation all at once while the rest? of us implement all these new "fixes" for them - I can see their collective faces now
We can have camera crews - coffee and cakes - balloons and ribbon - a new reality tv show called "your new reality" this is gonna be huge!!

I think Daryl has got something there....

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'D')aryl has thought about this a lot. Here is his idea for wind powered personal transport:

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '
')(Sorry, Kunstler, the Pentacostal Christians in the South aren't going to cannibalize each other after church. Your fantasies will remain unrealized. A little advice: lay off the global macroeconomic theory. You've got a little credibility as an urban planner. Don't squander it.)

[ubercynicmeister]

But...the ledge provides a nice view!

Mind you, one sneeze and you're history.

[Hawkcreek]

--

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercynicmeister', 'B')ut...the ledge provides a nice view!

Mind you, one sneeze and you're history.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'D')aryl has thought about this a lot. Here is his idea for wind powered personal transport:

[Sunspot]

A "solution" is only a solution when is has SUCCEEDED in SOLVING the PROBLEM! Nobody can claim that anything is the "solution" to the energy crisis, or anything for that matter, until the problem is over and has been solved. It's hindsight. And just plain logic.

[aahala]

A less expensive solution to the personal transportation issue would
be to install running shoes. Not only would we save a ton of money
in original costs, think how much money we would save by fewer trips
to McD's, Walmart and the shopping mall.

We would also save a lot of time on the road as we wouldn't live
50 miles, perhaps not 50 blocks, from work.

As the shoe method is obviously what we will eventutally have to
go to, we might as well start the transition now.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'T')opic is intended to rile you guys up a bit. A little boring around here.

OK. Submitted for your approval....plug-in hybrid personal autos combined with home solar panels/windmills solves personal transportation issue. Flexible route, quick to implement electric/hydrogen buses alleviate population density issue. Nuclear and coal supports expansion of electric grid. Trucking (and auto?) industry nationalized and subsidized, long term shift to commercial rail, mass transit rail begins. All done with current affordable technology. Some is not affordable now, but would be with mass production and demand. Next energy shock gives the federal government authority to intervene aggressively.

Yes, some suburbs will become obsolete. Most will just decline in value at the expense of denser housing closer to job sites, which will boom. Lifestyles will change dramatically. Less personal driving, less leisure travel. Good time to own a moving company, as there will be a mass migration of people moving closer to work. No panic, no collapse. Parts of economy that decline will be offset by parts that gain. Maybe even no recession, hard to say. Time to come out of your bunkers and get back to work.

(Sorry, Kunstler, the Pentacostal Christians in the South aren't going to cannibalize each other after church. Your fantasies will remain unrealized. A little advice: lay off the global macroeconomic theory. You've got a little credibility as an urban planner. Don't squander it.)

[spudbuddy]

-aside from morbid assumptions drawn from prophesies about rabid disenfranchised and disenchanted reds and blues tearing at each others' throats...
I kind of agree with Kunstler on a few things.
namely the stupid "enchantment" with something that is just not sustainable, period.
Which is what the whole PO issue is all about, anyway.

I even agree with a remark in his latest blog post...which is that suburbia was something to be disgusted with long before PO caught up with us.
Energy sustainability isn't the only thing wrong with it.

Understandably, a lot of folks want to get through this with as little pain as possible...no pain, no gain - I say.

Create and adjust.

There is much about modern life that is painful...unless you spend your way into the system with lots of hard-earned cash
(getting harder to earn all the time.)

Restraint and austerity hardly know how to be graceful, anymore.
Which is a big part of the bigger picture.
The point is entirely that less than 20% of the population have a strangle hold on the viability of choices made nationally...
internationally - I wouldn't put that percentage much above 5%, and that's stretching it considerably.

Our little blue planet has been bought, folks.
The owners still don't understand that their deed is nothing more than a lease, and the landlord is pretty pissed off.

[Heineken]

You're right, none of us really own anything . . . we're all just "renters." And we all know what renters do to properties.

[katkinkate]

Nah, squatters. We ain't paying no rent.

[Heineken]

[ubercynicmeister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('katkinkate', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercynicmeister', 'B')ut...the ledge provides a nice view!

Mind you, one sneeze and you're history.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ')

Here's the assumption lying beneath your entire scenario, Daryl: That one day, out of the blue, the human race suddenly turns rational, and that the neocons and the corporations and the media and the arms interests and the Bush junta and the Chinese junta and all the other juntas abruptly decide to cede the reins of power to a gentle and sustainable new enviro-order. And above all that the American people suddenly agree to get up off their fat asses and give up their comforts.

Ain't gonna happen. Kunstler's outlook seems far more likely.