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Let me say a the outset that I grew up on the fringe of the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania -- few areas were more deeply scarred by the excesses of mining and the extractive industries when I entered this life back in 1949, and every day I see firsthand evidence that that damage can be repaired.
And I was raised in part by a career-educator uncle who was very much into what was called the "conservation" movement long before it was made "trendy" by substituting the buzzword "ecology" (which, BTW, I first encountered in the juvenile sci-fi works of Robert Heinlein). That gentleman first told me about the extinction of the passenger pigeon by showing off his collection of endangered-species stamps which the National Wildlife Federation used to issue back in the Forties.
So I don't think I qualify as a redneck from Dum-Dum Land.
But I cannot ignore the fact that just around the time I entered college, the leadership of the environmental movement decided to throw in its lot with the collection of disaffected dreamers and economic illiterates on the far-Left end of the political spectrum -- and who were then co-opted into a Democratic party which seems determined to turn a nation built by all the world's rebels and independent thinkers into something modeled on a stagnant, class-conscious Europe which never seems to admit that while it pretends to represent a more-refined level of enlightenment, has been the scene of too many of history's bloodiest and most-vicious chapters over the past century.
I spent my working years in the transportation industry; I grew up around a rail system which was in decline until revived (by deregulation) in the 1980's, but worked mostly in and around trucking; so I got a front-line exposure to conditions in both industries. I hold a degree in Business Logistics with minors in both Transportation Economics and Carrier Management options.
And the journalistic profession has always produced a small, but well-informed group of writers and editors who actually do know how things work out there: here's a link to one of the best in the current crop:
But the unfortunate fact is that for every word written which demonstrates an understanding of why the American infrastructure is both so expensive and so difficult to change on short notice, there are a dozen written by people with a limited understanding (and often, an innate resentment toward) technology in any form, or lobbyists pursuing one side or another of an argument about which most of the public is not fully informed. And much of it is directed toward "swing voters" not known for long-term thinking, or toward "trailing spouses", juveniles, retirees or other groups which seldom deal with the tradeoffs and hard choices many of us face in the daily struggle to run a business or hold a job.
I'm posing a couple of links which serve to illustrate both an example of such simplistic reasoning:
I sincerely wish there were more opportunities for reasonable discussion on a sensible (and mostly privately-financed) re-orientation of the American transport infrastructure; that actually happened once in the period 1965-1985, when a one-time infusion of capital transformed the disaster of the Pennsylvania-New York Central-New haven merger into a property which was then returned to the private sector, and continues to pay taxes and dividends, and will have to figure in a transport system moving steadily toward the post-petroleum era. But it's not likely to happen when the environmental movement continues to sink to emotional appeals directed toward 14-year-olds.
I sincerely wish there were more opportunities for reasonable discussion on a sensible (and mostly privately-financed) re-orientation of the American transport infrastructure...
But it's not likely to happen when the environmental movement continues to sink to emotional appeals directed toward 14-year-olds.
You've made a big, bold assertion, with no real evidence offered to support it, other than some online commentary from a minor site, which is not representative of anything.
Attacking the environmental movement in the Green Living forum strikes me as something akin to posting on the Vegetarian forum that you think bacon is the best food. Have you read the special rules for this forum at the top of the page? Just asking...
Nevertheless, to meet your assertion on level ground... No it doesn't.
You can have a rational dialogue with your opposition ... which is the American way,
Or you can borrow from the strategy common to the Politically Correct, and try to silence it.
The choice is yours.
I'm happy to debate, but so far you haven't given up anything to debate with. Some guy said something on his web site and you said "Oh, no" and that's why you don't like Environmentalists?
Let me say a the outset that I grew up on the fringe of the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania -- few areas were more deeply scarred by the excesses of mining and the extractive industries when I entered this life back in 1949, and every day I see firsthand evidence that that damage can be repaired.
And I was raised in part by a career-educator uncle who was very much into what was called the "conservation" movement long before it was made "trendy" by substituting the buzzword "ecology" (which, BTW, I first encountered in the juvenile sci-fi works of Robert Heinlein). That gentleman first told me about the extinction of the passenger pigeon by showing off his collection of endangered-species stamps which the National Wildlife Federation used to issue back in the Forties.
So I don't think I qualify as a redneck from Dum-Dum Land.
But I cannot ignore the fact that just around the time I entered college, the leadership of the environmental movement decided to throw in its lot with the collection of disaffected dreamers and economic illiterates on the far-Left end of the political spectrum -- and who were then co-opted into a Democratic party which seems determined to turn a nation built by all the world's rebels and independent thinkers into something modeled on a stagnant, class-conscious Europe which never seems to admit that while it pretends to represent a more-refined level of enlightenment, has been the scene of too many of history's bloodiest and most-vicious chapters over the past century.
I spent my working years in the transportation industry; I grew up around a rail system which was in decline until revived (by deregulation) in the 1980's, but worked mostly in and around trucking; so I got a front-line exposure to conditions in both industries. I hold a degree in Business Logistics with minors in both Transportation Economics and Carrier Management options.
And the journalistic profession has always produced a small, but well-informed group of writers and editors who actually do know how things work out there: here's a link to one of the best in the current crop:
But the unfortunate fact is that for every word written which demonstrates an understanding of why the American infrastructure is both so expensive and so difficult to change on short notice, there are a dozen written by people with a limited understanding (and often, an innate resentment toward) technology in any form, or lobbyists pursuing one side or another of an argument about which most of the public is not fully informed. And much of it is directed toward "swing voters" not known for long-term thinking, or toward "trailing spouses", juveniles, retirees or other groups which seldom deal with the tradeoffs and hard choices many of us face in the daily struggle to run a business or hold a job.
I'm posing a couple of links which serve to illustrate both an example of such simplistic reasoning:
I sincerely wish there were more opportunities for reasonable discussion on a sensible (and mostly privately-financed) re-orientation of the American transport infrastructure; that actually happened once in the period 1965-1985, when a one-time infusion of capital transformed the disaster of the Pennsylvania-New York Central-New haven merger into a property which was then returned to the private sector, and continues to pay taxes and dividends, and will have to figure in a transport system moving steadily toward the post-petroleum era. But it's not likely to happen when the environmental movement continues to sink to emotional appeals directed toward 14-year-olds.
In a nutshell, your post focuses on rail infrastructure and concludes by saying you'd like to have a discussion about moving our transportation system to a post petroleum one. Then you close by bashing the environmentalists--no surprise there, since you've already told us you don't think much of them.
If you summarize (in a few paragraphs) what you think needs to be done to appropriately shift our transportation infrastructure for future needs, there might be people willing to debate the issue. I also think it's easy to find environmentalists who speak out and work towards a realignment of resources, for the purpose of moving away from a petroleum based infrastructure, that don't treat me like a child.
If you summarize (in a few paragraphs) what you think needs to be done to appropriately shift our transportation infrastructure for future needs, there might be people willing to debate the issue. I also think it's easy to find environmentalists who speak out and work towards a realignment of resources, for the purpose of moving away from a petroleum based infrastructure, that don't treat me like a child.
Thank you; there are a lot of possibilities, but I'll try to focus on just a few.
Urban congestion (or the lack of it, in some cities) is the result of both economic trends and large commitments of capital sometimes made several generations previously, when some of the present-day rules did not apply. We're now trying to adapt a mass transit alternative to a wide spectrum of communities. Some, like Boston and Chicago, developed "heavy rail" (subway/elevated systems) long before the automobile emerged. Others, like Denver and Phoenix, can develop the less-expensive light-rail alternative (but there are a handful of zealots who just don't understand that the high cost of tunneling makes the estheticially-appealing subway system too expensive). There are other special cases like Detroit (spread out too far and devastated by urban blight - it boomed, and busted along with the auto industry) and Los Angeles (hemmed-in enough by geographic barriers that more capital-intensive ideas will likely become more attractive).
My other objection lies with the point that too much of the environmental movement places too much faith in technology that might never develop to a point where it serves a market based on mass-production and mass-distribution. The "green consensus" relies heavily on a contingent of "sunshine patriots" who like to believe they're doing their part on a number of small individual issues (recycling and consumer choices, for example) but Madison Avenue also knows that "When you're talking about real money, the weight of numbers rules."
Over the past two years or so, I've seen all sorts of near-fantasies emerge on this site about "self-driving cars", for example. As one who stays informed on this issue, I can attest that while a few of the basic components are under development, it is going to be quite a while before even a limited pilot program emerges. When it does, it will likely be confined to a handful of toll roads in predominately flat country, where access can be more closely controlled, and where the principal beneficiary, the trucking industry, can be incentivized into paying for much of the research and development. But there are a lot of impressionable people out there who believe that a "self-driving" car will be available to take Grandma to the dentist within a few more years; a belief that resonates well with an emerging Millennial generation who grew up with too much of the "George Jetson" fantasy, or feels that because it can cycle ten miles to work, everyone else can -- rain or shine.
We face a series of less-than-perfect choices, and the workings of the open portions of the economy in recent years are demonstrating that several alternatives are emerging. The current uproar over transporting oil by rail, to cite one example, developed both because the Bakken (Dakota) field is more dispersed, and because the removal of artificial barriers in the form of economic regulation made this more economically effective relative to pipelines.) But as demonstrated in the current public-relations battle between several entrenched lobbies, we seem more interested in harnessing Big Brother's power to coerce in favor of "our side" than to allowing the free flow of both information and capital settle the issue.
And there are several versions of "our side" out there -- screaming to be heard and bought by a sometimes-gullible public. If that doesn't work, we'll just demonize an invisible group of evil-doers in three-piece suits -- somewhere.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 08-28-2014 at 07:40 PM..
You can have a rational dialogue with your opposition ... which is the American way,
Or you can borrow from the strategy common to the Politically Correct, and try to silence it.
The choice is yours.
You need a thesis statement that is up for debate. You pose 'Why I don't think much of environmentalists'. Are we suppsed to argue that you do think much of environmentalists?
...few areas were more deeply scarred by the excesses of mining and the extractive industries when I entered this life back in 1949, and every day I see firsthand evidence that that damage can be repaired.
Howdy neighbor, I'm near West Pittston. Just a note here, the funding for those reclamation projects for sites in our area that might ne a century old and no one to hold responsible comes from new mining actiivity. There is special tax that is applied to every ton of coal, it's also used to reclaim non coal sites.
My other objection lies with the point that too much of the environmental movement places too much faith in technology that might never develop to a point where it serves a market based on mass-production and mass-distribution. The "green consensus" relies heavily on a contingent of "sunshine patriots" who like to believe they're doing their part on a number of small individual issues (recycling and consumer choices, for example) but Madison Avenue also knows that "When you're talking about real money, the weight of numbers rules."
I'm one of those "sunshine patriots" and am proud of it. My solar panels are Made in the USA and the payoff will be about 10 years. Of course I had some retrofitting work done to make my home more energy efficient before I got them, so I wouldn't be paying for more solar than I need.
I like being called a solar patriot, even if there is a put down tone in the way you used it. However, it doesn't seem like the way to try and start a debate, unless one is looking for the kind of "debate" that turns into an quasi shouting match with multiple exclamation points.
You may see a pay back in ten years but someone else is paying for the rest of it. You got a 30% tax credit from the feds and presumably the typical 20% tax credit from the state? Are you getting green credits too? Are you connected to the grid and is there separate charge for the use of that infrastructure?
That's just you, what about the company that manufactured the panels?
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