the accidental triage of the not-wealthy
Forget about the Mon-Fayette Expressway: it's not happening
That those who would allow this toll road to be built are ignoring the more important need for money to be spent on public transit and maintenance of roads already built is an example of the many ways our country is on a collision course with disaster. We are spending money on things that don't make sense. And, courtesy of the rising cost of fossil fuels, that money's about to run out - for most of us, that is.
The long term historical trend continues, in which advancing technology eliminates jobs. Getting machines to do people's work is not necessarily a bad thing, any more than is a globalized economy. But machines - such as automobiles - in the hands of an unwise group (car makers and drivers), are also doing damage to the living ecosystem as a whole.
Everyone gets the pollution, for instance, regardless of whether one owns a car. Now we have even the weather becoming unstable while car manufacturers go on their merry (or not merry) way making money by externalizing some of their costs.
Nice racket if you're in; not so smart in the long run.
What fun will it be to be alive if one has to be wealthy enough to afford sufficient technology to handle the environmental degradation? Will our air become so bad that you have to stop for a breather at an oxygen bar on your way across town? The asthma rate in congested urban areas demonstrates dramatically what air pollution will do. Will all homes have to be made resistant to tornado- or hurricane-scale winds? Will crops have to be grown more or less entirely in greenhouses, just as more fish now need to be farmed rather than caught wild? Will we have to uv-shield most everything? Will we have to switch to primarily eating microbe foods as the larger species of food plants and animals become less able to provide nutrition to a still-multiplying human population?
All these are possibilities made more likely our future by fanatically continuing the trend toward more cars and roads.
We have found the enemy - us. We human beings are, as a group, committing suicide. The first step to getting out of the way of an oncoming train is to look up, open your eyes, and see it's heading toward you.
Some now are hysterically clamping their eyes shut to what's coming. Their fear-caused blindness is getting in the way of those working on solutions such as public transportation, energy efficiency, walkable communities, and renewable fuels.
That those who would allow this toll road to be built are ignoring the more important need for money to be spent on public transit and maintenance of roads already built is an example of the many ways our country is on a collision course with disaster. We are spending money on things that don't make sense. And, courtesy of the rising cost of fossil fuels, that money's about to run out - for most of us, that is.
The long term historical trend continues, in which advancing technology eliminates jobs. Getting machines to do people's work is not necessarily a bad thing, any more than is a globalized economy. But machines - such as automobiles - in the hands of an unwise group (car makers and drivers), are also doing damage to the living ecosystem as a whole.
Everyone gets the pollution, for instance, regardless of whether one owns a car. Now we have even the weather becoming unstable while car manufacturers go on their merry (or not merry) way making money by externalizing some of their costs.
Nice racket if you're in; not so smart in the long run.
What fun will it be to be alive if one has to be wealthy enough to afford sufficient technology to handle the environmental degradation? Will our air become so bad that you have to stop for a breather at an oxygen bar on your way across town? The asthma rate in congested urban areas demonstrates dramatically what air pollution will do. Will all homes have to be made resistant to tornado- or hurricane-scale winds? Will crops have to be grown more or less entirely in greenhouses, just as more fish now need to be farmed rather than caught wild? Will we have to uv-shield most everything? Will we have to switch to primarily eating microbe foods as the larger species of food plants and animals become less able to provide nutrition to a still-multiplying human population?
All these are possibilities made more likely our future by fanatically continuing the trend toward more cars and roads.
We have found the enemy - us. We human beings are, as a group, committing suicide. The first step to getting out of the way of an oncoming train is to look up, open your eyes, and see it's heading toward you.
Some now are hysterically clamping their eyes shut to what's coming. Their fear-caused blindness is getting in the way of those working on solutions such as public transportation, energy efficiency, walkable communities, and renewable fuels.
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 6:08 AM
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