What If Trump resigns or is Removed From Office?

I appreciate what you're saying, and I know this thread is supposed to be about politics more than sustainability; but I would just like it if we could just work productively toward achieving sustainability instead of always debating the politics of it.


I agree it is important to look at the history of industrialism, but it's also important not to be so hasty in demonizing the replacement of rail with highways that we support new rail initiatives that do little more than pumping lots more money into the automotive economy.

Innovations in buses and cars and especially the way they're used could lead to sustainability better than launching rail projects by clearing new corridors and pumping money into a yet-unreformed economy.

The main challenge, however, is getting these industries to stop trying to maximize sales and instead start working to reform culture to minimize production and thus utilization of resources.


Yes, transit and infrastructure reform are important in addition to reforestation of inhabited areas. The only way to narrow roads and highways is to reduce the total number of vehicles using them, and that requires more people to forego personal automotive ownership and choose transit instead. There are many innovations that would be possible with bus transit if people would get over the cultural aversion to it.


Yes, but you have to realize that the moment you say EVs are a good thing, the growthists take that to mean there's no reason to reduce total quantity of vehicles on the road if the plan is to gradually replace them all with EVs.

You are right about the highways and roads wasting resources, but also consider all the cleared land and the fact that ever more land keeps getting cleared and developed, and very little developed land is getting reforested.


Ultimately I think you have to look at kwh-per-capita used and, even if those kwhs are generated without CO2 emissions, they are going to cause the average amount of water in the atmosphere to increase, which is going to cause cloud/fog/mist condensation to be greater, which will blanket heat and continue changing the climate.

Solar panels and wind energy should be sufficient sources of energy if people constrain their energy use by insulating certain rooms of their houses very well and only heating/cooling those rooms and not the rest of the house/building. Likewise, public buildings should have more breezeways and indoor/outdoor areas that don't involve any heating/cooling. The more we build natural ventilation, heating, and cooling into buildings, the less energy they will use. If we also integrate dense tree-planting into architectural designs, we'll basically be living in real urban forests, which are interspersed with habitable spaces that don't disrupt the natural and agricultural functions of the carboniferous life around us.

Modernism created this aesthetic of removing nature from culture, probably because people wanted jobs and money and the more nature was removed to make room for culture, the more economic activity would have to take place to maintain all the culture. Now, however, we should realize that we have to build nature back into our cultural spaces so that the ground can perform its natural climatological functions.

Roof gardens and trees were a neat idea, but you can't really cover an entire city with green roofs and not expect it to cause the buildings underneath to weather and deteriorate faster. As such, it makes more sense to change the way we design building and infrastructure so that the soil can host trees and buildings don't block sunlight/rain from reaching the trees. Trees can be natural or fruit/nut-producing varieties. There is a taboo against mixing agriculture into high-income municipalities, but it would actually save a lot of fuel if many fruits and nuts were grown in the same locality where they are consumed.

I dont buy it. The nations that depend on mass transit and freight hauling are waaay ahead of the US in energy handling. Theyve actually been able to REDUCE the Crbon footprint per ppassnegr mile and freight ton. TRUCKS are a stupid means of hauling freight, (So much double handling). Whenever anyone tries to make it sound like hiway traffic is actually cleaner, they always fail to add the cement kilns etc to road building. We figure all the costs for track production and laying BUT NOT anything about the actual building of hiways. Please dont buy that bag of **** cause its a lie. The only reason that roads are built is to handle this traffic which was artificially stimulated in 1952 by industries who wanted to sell thir products. .

You are right, but what I tried to explain to you is that it's very difficult and expensive to launch a rail project and when they do, they plan a new corridor for the rail line instead of replacing an existing highway. Further, they spend so much money, which ends up feeding into the automotive economy anyway because everyone who makes money on the rail project buys cars and drives.

So if there's no way to stop people from driving and building highways, then it makes more sense to put more buses on those highways and fill them with people rather than spend the money on a rail project that probably will end up dying due to cost overruns as soon as the political winds change.

You mean when I point out facts that make you unhappy?

All of the N&CR and Amtrak proposals use existing ROW's dedicated to RR lines. There are enuff RR ROW's to start the ball rolling. Several years ago I rode the Tokaido Line bullet train an its the most restful way to travel at 200+ mph .Its also the most economic and environmentally sound way to send freight. Imagine if each box car and flat bed had to have its own motor that was constantly guzzling fuel.

AFTER the public transit ball gets rolling , then I believe you are right, we will need new ROW's for heretofore untapped routes by Rail.

Inside cities the auto/petrol/tire/ cement barons of the 1940's (just after WWII) began buying up and killing trolley lines ect and look at what weve done to our cities. At least in Taiwan and Bei Jing , they rquire motorscooters nd cycles to keep trffic moving. (But since many of these re 2 cycle engines , the pollution is amazingly dense.

PS, I reiterate, The rest of the world is demonstrating how mass transport works and it works very well.

We are not the rest of the world. Trump has made that clear. Americans are not about to give up the independence they have for mass transport. Do you have a train that picks you up at your door?

so we live alone on a planet far far away??.
Damn Im so glad that youre here to give us these words of wisdom pinky.








NOT!!

Actually your parents ere sold a pil of bullshit that allowed the "Interstate Highway System" to be bulldozed through towns causing many of our cities to be turned in to ghost town slums Do you think our parents were showing us how they maintain their "Independence" with this line of Eisenhower crap??
ANOTHER KOOL AID for our guest PiNKY. He will drink anything so long as it has "Freedom" used in its description.

We live far far away in a country that values individual rights. I take it you park the car at the train station.

I see, a system that enabled delivery of goods faster that could be used by citizens was a bad idea. I guess everyone that drove to a favorite vacation spot should be pissed off. Let's throw in feeling guilty about it too.

I have been reading some good things about batteries that will take an auto 1500 mi before it needs replacing. I haven't checked on cost per mile but the carbon footprint would be good if true. Going to look at it some more. Aluminum air battery with some improvements. Might be ok.

you mmean 1500 mi on on charge? (Then the batt can be rechrged). That sounds really interesting.

However, Al requires whole bag of energy to go from bauxite/cryolite to Al "pigs".

If this is true it would be amazing. Where did youread it??

wait a min. Is this the same stuff as a the alkali/Al /air batteries that run on water??
As I understand these dont just run out of charge, the batteries decay releasing Hydrogen Gas.


Remember fuel cells. Thy werent very nergy dense like lithium metal batteries but they have a water recharge and a 20KW battery is only big as a present cars gas tank. maybe well b going back to fuel cells cause they are already in the market

till have problems with rading comp h?
THE FACT is that the INTERSTATE HIWAY system never asked you or involved your parents o anyones parents (other than GM/Dupont/Standard Oil heirs) what they thought of it. It was on of th dumbest "military/Industrial complex" that Eisenhower preached about.


Your lauding of "Freedom" and "Rights of Independence" are really naive. youre so unable(or unwilling) to analyze the fact that we were sold a bill of goods that have merely lined the pockets of a very few and (sort of) began our march to become a fascist plutocracy. Trump is a small brained rookie, Eisenhower was the real culprit.

Imm amazed that you actually believe that crap. When you rad a little mor about the criminal intent in maintaining lead in gasoline. make us subject "drivers" so we get in the middle of a glut of cars, hiways and buses and are told that this is "freedom" and we are"exercising our Independence'', I have a thousand acres of swamp you may want to look at for prime development.

Remember the button that asked if you would buy a used car from Nixon?
You are trying to sell something like the great lead conspiracy. Not buying.

It is not nice to take things people have or have access to.

Well I suppose the enlightened regimes of Russia, China, Turkey and North Korea will be describing what types of freedom will be allowed in the future. Trump is doling out gifts and getting nothing in return, I'm getting freaking tired of all this so-called winning.

It is our corporate world that is doling out the gifts. Tariffs and sanctions are not gifts. If you ever had any idea of what is going on I would ask what happened. But you did not so I will not ask.

I dont believe you ever read history.
"not buying it".... You can believe what you wish, what I told you is still fact. So just try not to make believe that the people had anything to do with how our govt "abandoned" the railroads .