RTA plan uses wrong assumptions

TUSCON, ARIZONA – …Two decades from now, the world’s oil endowment will be nearly depleted and we will be unable to power the pumps we need to deliver our water. Our inability to deliver coal to our coal-fired power plant or food to our grocery stores will further contribute to a shrinking population.

Now consider economic growth. In 20 years, this country will be deep in the midst of the greatest depression. We are addicted to economic growth and we mainline oil. The contemporary version of the American Dream is completely dependent on ready supplies of cheap oil.

By the time the RTA plan is completed, oil will be exorbitantly expensive. Shortly thereafter, it will be gone. A progressive plan rooted in reality should have paths for walking and riding, not roads for burning oil we will not have.

According to Kenneth Deffeyes, a petroleum geologist recently retired from Princeton University, the world had burned half its oil by mid-December of last year. We will use upthe rest within 30 years at the current rate of consumption, which ignores increasing demands from China, India and especially the United States, which consumes three times as much oil as second-place China.

Arizona Daily Star