GM Trains can mitigate global crises

Roller-coaster energy price instability, global economic recession, manifold ecological crises, and climate chaos should tell us that business-as-usual will not suffice from now on.  The time has passed when commercial enterprises could shove their externalities – like pollution, addiction, cancer, traffic, and “accidents” – onto the public’s expense account.  The era of corporate responsibility arrived when tobacco companies had to pay for cancer deaths and car companies (e.g. FORD) had to acknowledge liability for passenger safety in SUV rollover casualties.  In today’s reality, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires General Electric (GE) to clean up PCB contamination in the Hudson River.  When big industry screws up, the world finds out about it and reacts.

With the advent of federal bail-outs of big industries, private sector problems have become public sector liabilities in a whole new way.  Behemoth industries of the recent past – namely automobile manufacturers – ran into trouble for a reason:  circumstances changed.  Cheap oil went away.  As James Howard Kunstler puts it in “The Long Emergency,” we will need to make other arrangements.  If the government will own 69% of General Motors, (NPR, 5/27/09) maybe Congress can persuade GM to build trains instead of cars.  The world has changed and economic recovery will not involve a return to the way things existed before.

We now know that a transportation system based on cars, trucks, and highways requires cheap liquid fuels.  We also have a pretty good idea that the era of cheap fossil fuels has ended (http://www.energybulletin.net/).  Transportation experts tell us that we don’t need new technology to reduce the fossil fuel requirements of our transportation network (http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_usa-new-deal-menu.htm).  Trains (not a new technology) use fuel more efficiently than cars, trucks, buses, or airplanes (not a new development) and help reduce fossil fuel consumption, greenhouse gases, and the trade deficit.  Electric trains can run on domestic renewable energy (i.e.: wind, solar, etc.).

Trains improve quality of life for elderly, disabled, and children who travel more easily, comfortably, and affordably by train than by car, bus, or plane.  An aging U.S. population will prefer trains.  Trains can serve city centers and small towns more affordably than airlines or cars; allow passengers to read, write, work, eat, or sleep en route.  Trains move passengers more safely than cars or buses; train stations occupy less real estate than airports; tracks use less land than freeways.  Cities based on railroad transport tend to sprawl less than cities based on highways.  Railroads bring people together.

GM might still produce automobiles in the future, but America needs to build trains right now to remedy a flaw in the transportation network.  Restoring and expanding American railroad systems can create jobs and lay the foundation for economic recovery in a more energy efficient future.  Trains can enable economic recovery without resumption of profligate petroleum consumption.

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Serenely seeking antidote for resentment

Salary offers a spurious surrogate for measuring personal or social worth. Wondering where my pay ranks on a scale relative to co-workers occasionally preoccupies me. Now that I know, I almost wish I didn’t. One could say that the information causes resentment or one could say it compels contemplation. I choose Timothy Leary’s dictum: “Question Authority.” After that, I question myself.

Spiritual poison, envy, resentment, contempt arising from some sense of injustice sickens the soul. A character in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” ridicules American myth and self-delusion. Paraphrasing: “Americans hate themselves when they cannot live up to the belief that anyone can become rich and powerful if they simply work hard enough.” This delusional thinking dovetails with the insanity identified by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.

According to AA philosophy, or at least my interpretation of it, alcoholics drink and engage in other self-destructive behavior to punish themselves for failure – or simply to obliviate about it. Those who do not believe in “a power greater than themselves” take full responsibility for their illness, inability to live up to unrealistic expectations imposed by oneself, and inability to succeed according to standards inappropriately imposed by others.

Most of us enjoy very little control over our own fates. Injustice and capriciousness pervade all our lives and indeed the planet. Generally speaking, God does not disclose Her plans for us to us. We humans constructed the concepts of fairness, justice, and the rule of law. We often forget that powers greater than ourselves prevail over human constructs and the shape of hair put to bed damp. Nature does not obey human laws or notions of justice. Rather, we must accommodate natural forces or else fall victim to them. Did anyone ask “Katrina” to behave nicely during her visit to New Orleans in 2005? Frequently, we learn important and spiritually enriching lessons by virtue of accidental circumstance. Human greed, favoritism, accidents of birth order, and the dénouement of history represent forces beyond the control of individuals. I might control my own impulses but not those of others. Evolution wired us in certain ways and predisposes us to certain behaviors. We grab all we can because our ancestors experienced chronic food insecurity. We live in a changed world.

Mom found a tee-shirt that says, “Lost in thought, please send search party.” That provoked me to imagine a band of merry psychologists with Rorschach tests, cocktails, confetti, and sniffer dogs. Ambiguity availed by multiple interpretations of practically everything we might say bestows the gift of surprising humor. Wandering down the rabbit hole of one train of thought sets the taste buds of our sense of inference for one sensation and a strategic pause or smirk from the knowing interlocutor springs the trap and the double entendre catches us off guard. The delight in irony or absurdity may require guidance or cajoling from someone with different experiences and perspectives.

People in recovery from addiction often admit that their best ideas and efforts yielded sub-optimal results; “We were so ‘cool’ it almost killed us.” With that track record in mind, it made good sense to surrender our will and our lives over to a higher power and a program of recovery. Recovery group meetings often begin and end with the Serenity Prayer for good reason. Discerning what I can change from what I cannot remains the most challenging, vexing, and confusing mental exercise I ever face.

That I took this or that course in college, obtained this or that job, won or didn’t the hearts and minds of these or those people remain accomplished facts today that I cannot undo. I might have wanted a certain thing while in high school, college, or early in my working career that never materialized. Failure to achieve my aspirations or expectations does not make me a failure as a person. It simply makes me a different person from who I envisioned before. I don’t know the mind of God and judge with suspicion those who claim to. I continue searching for the “secret decoder ring,” but haven’t found it yet.

Perhaps some friends would convene with me an organization called, “Peregrinating Inquisitively Disgruntled Employees” (PIDE). I did not misspell “pride” but the Spanish word for “ask.” Searching for the secret decoder ring with friends might yield better results than searching alone.

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Transportation modes and consequences

After last year’s $147 oil and the ensuing recession, one might expect elected officials to suspect that the rules of the game had changed.  However, here in Texas, rules, habits, attitudes, and legislators take longer to change than they do elsewhere. 

Local option gasoline taxes for highways represent a red herring in Texas transportation debates.  Many Texans unquestionably dislike the concept of toll roads as a means of paying for highways.  Legislators, lobbyists, and newspaper editors willfully confuse the issues about transportation.  Many Texans object not only to toll roads but to new freeways in general.  Many Texans want to see a transportation system that does not depend on imported fossil fuels and does not contribute to climate weirdness or ecological degradation.  Unfortunately, the Texas Legislature and the Austin American-Statesman editors (“Detour around Legislature on the fritz,” AAS 5/14/09) get distracted with “taxpayers’ rights” and the role of TXDoT in obtaining federal funding for highways – as if highways constituted the only federal transportation funding available.

The Texas legislators who view rail funding only as a reduction in highway funding should reconsider both highways and railroads.  Once again, democrats generally favor rail and republicans generally don’t (e.g. Kirk Watson’s [D-Austin] Senate Bill 1923 opposed by Senator Robert Nichols [R-Jacksonville]).  Like many road-hugging republicans, Nichols objects to diverting funds away from highways (Austin American-Statesman, 5/10/09, “Rail relocation effort fizzles,” Ben Wear).

The Austin Chronicle refers to TXDoT as a “rogue agency” and outlines legislative grievances with it.  Neither local periodical gives suitable attention to the lack of attention paid to the need for better rail transportation in Texas.

            For half a century or so, Americans became inured to the idea of using automobiles and highways as the basis of the national transportation system.  Things have changed, but many Americans still act as if we control the global oil market – the way we did prior to 1971.  The United States needs to invest in trains to catch up to the Europeans, the Japanese, the Russians, and the Chinese – in terms of economical and energy-efficient mass transit.  Lots of Texas legislators seem not to understand that both highways and railroads represent modes of transportation that serve not only personal mobility but commerce as well.  The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDoT) still seems not to have evolved from its origins as the Highway Department.  Neither highways nor railroads can serve all transportation needs.  Trains cannot deliver people and goods door to door at a moment’s notice.  Neither can individual or private vehicles deliver the quantities of goods or numbers of passengers in the same manner, limited corridors, or for the same low price that trains can.

            For routine trips or in heavily travelled corridors, personal cars and trucks cannot match the economies or amenities of rail.  Residents of such auto-oriented cities as Dallas and Denver have begun opting for the train rather than sitting in “freeway” traffic jams.  Driving might offer conveniences for certain trips at certain hours of the day, but requires user attention that precludes enjoyable and necessary activities allowed on trains, for instance:  reading, telephone calls, sleeping, writing, walking, standing, and toileting.  As the population ages, the amenity values of trains will become ever more apparent as they accommodate the needs of disabled and elderly people better than personal cars, buses, or aircraft.  Until someone restores rail passenger service between Austin and Houston, travelers will continue to mark the miles to their preferred McDonald’s or Buc-ee’s in Giddings or Starbuck’s in Brenham – not so much for the food or beverages as for the adequately maintained restrooms.

Probably even before we recover from the current recession, the matters of fuel prices and availability will reassert themselves in the public attention.  Trains can run on electric power more easily than either autos or aircraft.  Electric power allows for a wider range of fuels than autos or aircraft.  Cars and trucks run best on liquid hydrocarbon fuels at this point.  A few run tolerably well for short distances on battery power.  Electrified trains do not need to carry their fuel supply with them.  They stay connected to the power grid and can derive their thrust from fossil fuels, nuclear reactors, hydro power, wind turbines, solar arrays, geothermal turbines, or any number of means for generating electricity.  Each fuel represents a different technology with a different set of responsibilities and ethical consequences.

The various modes of transportation, like all technologies, demand from us certain responsibilities.  When we shirk responsibilities, we incur consequences.  Someone who fails to maintain his car appropriately causes larger than necessary increases in pollution to air, water, soil, and the auditory landscape.  At the scale of governments and societies, we see irresponsible use of automobile-based transportation systems destroying agricultural lands as well as wildlife habitats.  Certainly, streetcar suburbs can consume land as well as highway suburbs can, but the scale and scope of destruction generally varies enormously.

The shape of cities and their relationships to surrounding rural areas represents one set of responsibilities and consequences manifested by transportation choices.  Trains induce urban development to cluster; whereas, autos contribute to sprawling dispersal of urban development and population.  Population dispersal increases the cost of human interaction, utility provision, and commerce.

Our legendary rebelliousness and “rugged individualism,” and impatience with consensus-based negotiations tend to predispose Americans to prefer personal transport to collective modes.  We don’t want to deal with others if we can go it alone.  Cost thresholds for auto-based transportation belong to individuals; for train-based systems, they belong to communities.  As more Americans fall into the category of those unable to reach the threshold of car or truck ownership, we will become more predisposed to supporting mass transit.

Prior to WWII, railroads belonged to privately held companies.  More recently, public ownership had radically changed the character and politics of railroads.  Railroad robber barons of the 19^th and 20^th centuries abused their wealth and power, thus incurring animosity from the general public.  People who develop a hatred of the owners of railroads will go to great lengths to find other modes of transportation.  Predictably, Americans traded one set of industrial tyrants for another.  Now, we see the automobile-highway industrial complex dragging the nation’s economy into the pit of recession.

Global warming and peak oil represent epochal scale consequences for us in the present era.  We must overcome our past – in many ways.  Restoring train service within and between American cities can help us ameliorate the consequences of recession and global climate weirding. 

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Stewardship arises from wasteful absurdity if we so desire

Absurd life, United States of Dysfunctionality in 2009 gives us addictions to alcohol and drugs, drug wars, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stuck between a rock and a hard place, placing bets on epidemics, class warfare, recessions, climate change, ecological catastrophes, energy crises, species extinctions, ocean gyres with garbage patches the size of Texas, patching our tattered economy with borrowed money, basing economies on consumption and data manipulation rather than production of tangible goods.  Many of the “goods” we produce and consume become or come wrapped in paper, plastic, and aluminum which become litter on our streets and in our waterways.  Never mind that much, if not all of this litter could become recycled into new goods, containers, or composted back into the soil to grow plants and sequester carbon rather than overloading the biosphere with useful substances rendered toxic.  Walking around my neighborhood in South Austin, I can fill several plastic shopping bags in an hour with recyclable glass bottles, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, lead batteries, and countless other jetsam artifacts of our throw-away society.   We, the waste makers (Vance Oakley Packard), suffer from a surfeit of refuse that we refuse to deal with appropriately or sustainably.  Sustainable landscape maintenance does not include my neighbors’ common practice of bagging leaves and piling up tree limbs for the City sanitation workers to haul away.  It barely mitigates the ecological malfeasance to shred the landscape trimmings and compost them with sewage sludge for use mainly as roadside fertilizer.  Making “Dillo Dirt” of our organic wastes does not alter the fact that many of us mine organic matter out of our soils and expend a tremendous quantity of fossil fuels in doing so.  While I hoard organic material and return it to the soil as expeditiously as possible, many of my neighbors buy chemical fertilizers (e.g. “Scott’s Weed and Feed” or  “Miracle Grow”) in order to keep their turf brilliant green all year round – while poisoning the aquifer in the process.  I still contend that most of my neighbors fail to understand the salient differences between carpet and lawn.  The carefully tended lawns and weed-eatered sidewalks and curbs belie the economic and social malaise running rampant through our culture.  We lower-middling classes live relatively far from work and commute, either by personal car or public bus.  High-priced real estate near downtown forces those of us with modest means to live miles out from the city center.  The madding crowds, rude, scary people, and stressful work of the city induce many of us to seek out our own private refuges from the noise and mayhem.  Hence, we Americans (whether in America or elsewhere) destroy wildlife habitat and farmland to build cheap housing so some (real estate “developers”) can reap fortunes and many must expend tremendous energy maintaining these suburban lifestyles – inconveniently removed from the cultural amenities of the city.  Ironically or not, the noise and chaos of the city follow us into the suburbs.  Ironically or not, the low population densities of suburban subdivisions yield fewer “eyes on the street,” as Jane Jacobs used to put it (The Death and Life of Great American Cities).  Crime thrives in an environment where few witnesses see what goes on and few inhabitants know their neighbors.  In our absurd culture, inhabitants of suburban subdivisions resemble less neighborly members of a community but rather competitors for goods and services.  We compete in cars for space on streets, with dollars for groceries in the market, with power tools for “yard of the month,” and innumerable other ways.  We rarely compete on what we can produce but on what we can consume and ostentatiously display.  In this way, we tend to dissipate surpluses rather than accumulating them.  Consuming without producing or saving, we cause resources to grow ever dearer.  Price inflation brings shortages.  Shortages bring hardship.  Hardship brings into question customs and norms on which we base our behaviors and those accepted customs attenuate until they no longer support our civilization.  Let us now re-examine what of civilization and nature we have taken for granted.  What comforts us?  How do we define luxury, and do we really value it?  What do we consider necessary?  What do we consider optional?  What will go away if we continue on the present path?  What will we regret losing?  What kind of planet will we leave to future generations?  How will God judge our stewardship of Her creation?

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