chimera-gaia

Provenance ruminations, faith in foliage

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Zoning out in front of my bedroom window, I ruminate about the history of my garden and how it might look in some indeterminate future.

Sky dominates the upper half of the view; winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) dominates the lower half – separated by the hard edge of the neighbors’ roof. The Lonicera began its life in this spot as a divided sucker – no more than a few foot-tall sprigs – from a specimen in Clara’s back yard (which I planted 10 years ago as a one-gallon Barton Springs Nursery purchase); it now rises to a height of about eight feet and a width of 8-10 feet. Now, it forms a fairly dense visual screen that obscures my view of the neighbor’s gas meter, garbage cans, and gray brick wall. It normally blooms in January to February, when little else dares to attempt reproduction, and issues a profusion of new bright green shoots immediately thereafter. Its slightly citrusy perfume attracts many honey bees on balmy winter days. Through the summer and fall, it hardens up and turns a darker hue of green as it steels itself for the uncertainties of winter. The neighbor apparently does not take this into consideration when he gets the urge to shear shrubberies. Even though he does not make any particular use of the space between our houses; perhaps his wife harangues him into spasms of landscape intervention. If he shears the winter honeysuckle after its annual growth spurt, it remains raggedly-denuded on that side and rather less effective as a visual screen. Additionally, the opening in the shade cover encourages his lawn grasses to invade the ground under the shrub. He seems not to notice.

This year, 67 or so days of summer heat hitting at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit inflicted stresses on the Lonicera and many other plants in a manner not unlike the stresses of a harsh winter. At such temperatures, many plants simply shut down their metabolism and go dormant. When the temperature moderated in September and the rains came, L. fragrantissima – like numerous other species – put on a show that I call “second spring.” I have witnessed this phenomenon before when a significant break in a serious drought occurred at the end of summer. The honeysuckle bush only threw a little new growth but it did pop out numerous fragrant yellow-white blossoms to fascinate the pollinators.

Pink trumpet vine (Podranea ricasoliana) sprawls and scrambles over, under, and through the Lonicera. It springs from a base about 6-8 feet behind the board fence that separates the front from the back yard. “Liana” in the specific epithet refers to the woody vining behavior of this species. As a subtropical plant, everything above ground will freeze in a harsh winter but its hardy roots will produce a copse of shoots in the following spring. In the warm, frequently frost-free, winters of the Gulf Coast (i.e.: Beaumont, Houston, etc.) P. ricasoliana does not freeze back and consequently becomes a bit of a thug. If it does not smother any prized specimens nearby or drag down any utility lines or fences, one can generally forgive the thuggish behavior when, despite drought or wet, in mid-August through first convincing frost it reliably produces a cascade of spectacular pink trumpet-shaped flowers. Numerous pollinators, including butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds appreciate this plant. From my bedroom window, I can see this liana scaling the six-foot fence, scrambling across the top if the eight-foot tall lonicera, and scrambling through the knobby limbs of the cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), next in line. I started the P.ricasoliana about 7 years ago as a rooted cutting from another Barton Springs Nursery purchase that I planted in Clara’s yard about 10 years ago. The mother plant no longer exists, but numerous siblings survive and thrive in Mom’s garden in Beaumont. She loves it when it blooms and attracts hummingbirds but curses it when it drags down her telephone and TV cables.

Cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), originally an 8-inch tall unwanted volunteer in Clara’s garden, 7 years ago, occupies the next place, after the lonicera, in the queue lining up from the privacy fence, heading toward the street. It now rises a respectable 13 feet or more and its trunk measures about 4 caliper inches a foot above the soil surface. Its corky bark forms in knobs all over its trunk and limbs, making me wonder if it evolved that feature to protect itself from winter freezes or summer wildfires. The neighbors’ cats find the texture irresistible as a scratching post. It keeps forming major branches with crotch angles less than 60 degrees. I have removed several of these over the years to prevent bark inclusions. I hope it outlives me, but weak joints could subject it to disfiguring incidents in future ice storms. September’s rains came too late to trigger a growth spurt. As the rain fell, tiny elm leaves had already begun to turn yellow and tenuous. Its profusion of tiny delicate twigs creates a distinctive and evocative silhouette against the lingering autumn twilight.

Tradescantia beneath the honeysuckle bush and the elm tree broke dormancy as did the drought. Its basal rosettes recalcitrantly stray into the lawn from the blowsy bed in which I planted them several years ago. As native Texas wildflowers, they will persevere through whatever winter befalls them and around March or April will bolt into bloom with cool purplish-blue flowers. The provenance of these particular specimens became clouded by my reckless acquisitions of spiderworts from Round Top, Beaumont, and the previous owners of my house. Their rumored palatability leaves me wondering about the desperate straights of my forebears who made this startling discovery. I found them tasteless and barely edible, but then I didn’t need their medicinal powers.

Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria), also growing beneath the elm tree, should form a stalwart member of the under-story in my forest fragment. I purchased it as a named selection, “Pride of Houston,” from Marbridge Nursery – now defunct. This female specimen of a dioecious species supposedly produces abundant fruit. As providence allowed, two males volunteered in my garden and I have carefully cultivated them to ensure the setting of fruit in due time. This Pride of Houston, which I planted virtually on the property line, grows slowly and I must beseech the neighbor not to maul it where it encroaches on his turf.

Holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum), filling the role of sub-shrub in the shade of both the elm and the yaupon, struggles a bit – perhaps as a result of cat traffic at the scratching post. I scavenged the start of this fern from an accidental garden clinging to a brick wall in a downtown alleyway. I felt exonerated for my pilferage when I subsequently noticed that the landscrapers apparently attempted to remove the remainder of the accidental fern garden where it thrived in the drip of a leaky leaf-clogged roof gutter downspout. Happily, it will grow back; they left some minute remnants on the moist brick façade.

Narcissus (various hybrids) recently broke dormancy in this verdant grotto. They might have come from any of several way-stations: mail-order catalogues, Mom’s garden, received “paper whites,” or the previous occupants of my house. They express their satisfaction by multiplying vigorously and will probably bloom in January or February.

Closest to the window, and easily overlooked [or underlooked] because of its bare undulating trunk and branches, a Wright acacia (Acacia wrightii) rises above the direct line of sight. I sprouted it from seed that I collected from a young tree in Clara’s garden, which in turn came from seed I collected in Round Top, which in turn came from a Lynn Lowry (spelling dubious) introduction. God only knows where that Texas native plant guru found his start of it, many years ago. Green anole lizards enjoy sunning themselves on its thinly-clad branches in front of this southwest-facing wall. They stalk their insect prey high and low among its limbs and diminutive bottle-brush blossoms.

I can only imagine that Lynn Lowry collected acacia seeds in the arid wilds of West Texas or the chaparral terrain of the southern counties. I know that it grows perfectly well in the heavy clay soil of Mom’s back yard in Beaumont. Given full sun, it will tolerate a multitude of adversities. I helped it get started there by amending the soil with sharp sand but the forces of soil churning long since dissipated and dispersed the sand.

Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) that volunteered here periodically springs up in the hot spot below my window and blooms bravely in September – rain or not. Arizona ash (Fraxinus velutina [presumably]), appears as part of my borrowed landscape, which the neighbors planted in their front yard shortly before I moved into my house. Perhaps in part as a result of rough treatment by four rambunctious boys, it has grown stalwart.

At the edge of my perspective toward the street, I can just see the perpendicular branches of the burr oak (Quercus macrocarpa). I purchased it as a 3-gallon sapling, purportedly sprouted from an acorn collected less than a hundred miles south of here. Although it measured perhaps six feet tall when I planted it, the cedar elm has caught up to it in height over the seven years of its tenure here. Crowded among other trees, it strives to become the canopy. The neighborhood cats enjoy it too as a scratching post.

As I stare hypnotically at my personal bedroom window grotto, I fantasize about how this scene will develop and appear in future years – with or without me. I plant trees as a testament to my faith in the future.

No need for Geo-Engineering: Use Mother Nature’s Carbon Sequestration

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:21:00 +0000

After a dreadfully hot and dry summer, during which a great swag of Central Texas vegetation went dormant, the rains came in September. Rehydration and temperature moderation induced trees, grasses and practically everything else green to revive. As we learned in junior high school biology, plant growth uses photosynthesis to absorb carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into plant tissues and other carbohydrates – leaves, fruit, wood, roots, etc.

I just roll my eyes and shake my head when I hear about some new techno-geek scheme to sequester carbon from the air in order to save the planet. I want to slap them around and tell them that Mother Nature does a better job of sequestering carbon than we ever could – if we just let her do it. Agricultural enterprises in the tropics mow down the rainforest to grow massive monocultures (single-species plantations); suburb developers in the U.S. cut down complex biological systems of forests and prairies to grow a few ornamental species of grass, shrubs, and trees (mostly exotic).

Unfortunately, a variety of human customs induce us to cut, hack, mow, burn, and otherwise destroy Mother Nature’s most excellent carbon sequestration work – plants that evolved in that place (natives). Our mowing and blowing, slashing and burning, and scraping and paving cancel out Mother Nature’s carbon sequestration benefits. Our “labor-saving” power tools enable us to easily destroy the forests and prairies but with a tremendous expenditure of energy – mostly in the form of fossil fuels. Not only do we destroy forests’ worth of vegetation in the routine maintenance of our urban and suburban landscapes whenever it audaciously regenerates itself; we then emit tones of carbon dioxide exhaust to power the trucks that haul it away to… well, wherever. We generally don’t want to think about that. Our customs stand so thoroughly entrenched that we do not even recognize them as such.

Brewster McCracken, former Austin City Council member, now grants manager for “Pecan Street Project” (a “smart grid” energy project), recently gave a presentation to a group of concerned solar energy advocates at Opal Divine’s on South Congress. One of his pictures especially provoked me. He praised to the heavens the ecological sensitivity of the Mueller Neighborhood Development. In one particular picture, he referred to the use of native plants as the ecologically-responsible alternative to exotic species that require irrigation – so far, so good. Disconcertingly, the picture that he used depicted closely mowed lawn and widely spaced trees that looked about five years old (builders’ standard fare for new subdivision landscaping). In reference to this picture, he offered that this landscape sequesters more carbon dioxide than a forest of comparable size. I had to bite my tongue.

His preceding comments directly contradicted that statement. He had just discussed the enormous energy requirements of water supply systems. He had just discussed at length the artificial irrigation systems used in his “smart” development examples. [Why should “native” landscapes require artificial irrigation?] The picture itself showed an energy-intensive landscape made possible only by frequent use of power tools to mow and edge turf.

Mr. McCracken and his “smart” colleagues do not stand alone. The vast majority of Americans do not understand the enormity of the energy expenditures required to maintain the landscapes and lifestyles that we have grown accustomed to over the past century. Lawns in street medians, highway shoulders, residential yards, commercial and institutional grounds,… emit through maintenance practices as much or more carbon than they absorb. Their tendency to denude the soil also contributes to loss of topsoil – which, if not somehow replaced, will reduce the amount of vegetation that can grow there in the near future. Soil forms over millennia. We strip it away in a few years.

Frequent mowing influences the decay of grass and forbs, a process which also emits CO2 (i.e.: respiration of decomposers – bacteria, fungi, protozoans, and a host of arthropods). Some of this carbon might cycle back into the soil, but scalped turf offers little impediment to the downstream progress of both organic and inorganic flotsam in a flood event.

Mowed grass performs a very useful function wherever we need or want to walk or play. However, most mowing that I see does not facilitate this function. A great deal of mechanized vegetation control (i.e. mowing) happens in vast expanses where the property owners don’t necessarily want people going anyway. It also happens in drainage and flood ways. In such cases, the mowing and shredding (for larger plants) inhibits the ability of the land to detain flood water, filter it, and allow it to percolate into the ground. Most of us seem to mow without thinking why or what consequences will result. We mow and “clear brush” reflexively – out of devotion to “tradition.” Do I hear something about “a fiddler on the roof?”

If we look up and survey the landscape without blinders, we might see the wall in front of us that we will hit if we do not stop or slow down and turn. If we could simply learn to work with Mother Nature, instead of constantly fighting Her, we could enjoy the balanced climate and ecosystems that She developed for us over the last few billion years. In this case, “us” includes all life on Earth, not just humans.

Maybe we won’t look up in time to see the wall. Some alcoholics need to “hit bottom” before they embark on the path of recovery. Maybe our society must “hit bottom” before we will change. Maybe we need to hit that wall at full throttle.

Leaf blowers (aka dust cannons), an ignored public nuisance

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:37:00 +0000

A policy aide to Austin City Council member Randi Shade responded to my (4/27/2009) diatribe and subsequent emails against “leaf blowers” as “perfect delivery systems for airborne pathogens” reporting amusement by the exchange. He admits to hating leaf blowers himself for their tendency to disperse mold spores and particulate matter and release “tremendous amounts of ozone” in their exhaust. He acknowledges this as a “perennial issue” – but not a compelling one. Hmmm… not compelling… hmmm. The Council member’s office reportedly receives “a few complaints.” The aide elaborates that homeowners don’t want anyone to tell them not to do something with their property and they don’t want to pay extra for leaf raking instead of blowing. Never mind the unintended consequences. Despite his “lifelong aversion” to leaf blowers, he reiterates that the City of Austin lacks majority will to outlaw or even limit hours of operation for leaf blowers.

Well, it gratifies me to know that I amused someone with my expression of outrage over an ignored public nuisance, a threat to public health, and a major contributor to air pollution and carbon dioxide and monoxide emissions. When I refer to “dust cannons,” I do so in a Kafkaesque humor. I use the term not so much to amuse readers but to call attention to the malignant effects of an innocuously-named machine. In Kafka’s explanation of the world, "Lack of evidence is treated as a pesky inconvenience, to be circumvented by such means as depositing unproven allegations into sealed files ..." In the modern case, those in position to remedy the situation ignore abundant evidence of a clear and present danger – presumably because wealthy and powerful constituencies have intimidated them into inaction.

<<Police Power: The authority conferred upon the states by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and which the states delegate to their political subdivisions to enact measures to preserve and protect the safety, health, Welfare, and morals of the community. Police power describes the basic right of governments to make laws and regulations for the benefit of their communities. Police power provides the basis for enacting a variety of substantive laws in such areas as zoning, land use, fire and building codes, gambling, discrimination, parking, crime, licensing of professionals, liquor, motor vehicles, bicycles, nuisances, schooling, and sanitation. If a law enacted pursuant to the police power does not promote the health, safety, or welfare of the community, it is likely to be an unconstitutional deprivation of life, liberty, or property. The most common challenge to a statute enacted pursuant to the police power is that it constitutes a taking. A taking occurs when the government deprives a person of property or directly interferes with or substantially disturbs a person's use and enjoyment of his or her property. (The Free Dictionary, by FARLEX, [legal-dictionary])>>

If the Austin City Council banned “leaf blowers” within its city limits, could anyone argue credibly that the City had deprived them of their property or enjoyment thereof? If my neighbor uses a leaf blower to propel detritus and dust onto my property or into the public right-of-way, can he claim a constitutionally protected right to do that? Can a contractor, such as Easter Seals, claim a constitutional right to blow detritus and dust into the air and the public street even if doing so corrupts the air, water, and civic tranquility?

How, I must wonder, do leaf blowers square with Austin’s “Climate Protection Ordinance, or even EPA regulations?” Petrol-powered leaf blowers not only emit more contaminants than we allow from automobiles, but they gratuitously emit enormous quantities of greenhouse gases to perform tasks easily accomplished with brooms or rakes – if necessary at all. They directly spew contaminants into the air but they indirectly reduce vegetative vigor by stripping urban soils of organic matter (decaying leaves) necessary for plant vitality. The land scrapers return later to deposit mechanically shredded “mulch” to replace the fallen leaves they earlier blew away. The next crew blasts away the mechanically shredded mulch. Clever, no?

We require pollution controls on vehicles; why not on gasoline-powered tools? If we know that Austin routinely violates federal ground level ozone limits and that gasoline-powered leaf blowers emit copious quantities of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) – which interact in the presence of sunlight to become ground-level ozone; shouldn’t the City invoke its “police powers” to protect public health and safety. Ground level ozone (a major component of photochemical smog) causes severe damage to lungs. Houston and Beaumont, among other “non-attainment” places, require gasoline pumps to use special nozzles to recapture fumes that would otherwise exacerbate the local smog pollution. They and Austin now require sophisticated vehicle emissions tests. Austin neither requires vapor recapture at gasoline pumps nor does it impose any restrictions on how much unburned fuel can spew forth from motorized landscape maintenance tools. The sniff test demonstrates that they do spew.

Leaf blowers belong to the category of out-of-sight-out-of-mind nuisances. One might gag on the cloud of exhaust fumes, wince at the ear-splitting noise, or get a speck of dirt painfully lodged in one’s eye when walking too near one of these contraptions. The employee of a grocery store or doctor’s office residing in a shopping center with a parking lot swept daily with industrial strength dust cannons might not notice the fine particles of dust wafting in through the front door, but those particles do settle on every surface and air filter. Think of sinuses as a wet air filter. At any rate, in our busy lives, most people forget about it by the time they get to work or home or wherever they might fire off an angry note to a City Council member.

The Council policy aide assumes that a majority of homeowners would resent the City forbidding them to use blowers to blast their lawns, parking courts, and driveways. Well, that covers the wealthy and upper-middle-class. I wonder how many Austin voters consider themselves victims of the blow-and-go landscape crews. I wonder if anyone actually asked a representative sample of Austin residents how they felt about leaf blowers.

I also wonder if the Council aide checked with the folks at City of Austin Watershed Protection. Guys with leaf blowers generally don’t use them to corral leaves and litter so they can bag or compost the stuff. No, they usually blast leaves, acorns, twigs, cigarette butts, litter, snack wrappers, dust, and everything else not securely fastened, into the air, the street, neighboring properties, storm sewers, and nearby creeks. I doubt that occupants or owners of receiving properties feel neutral about this. I also suspect that “Save Our Springs Alliance” (SOS) and Lone Star Sierra Club, as well as all the other groups concerned about water quality feel indifferent about leaf blowers. Perhaps we should ask them.

Garrick Ohlsson's warm honey smooth melismas

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:34:00 +0000

I want to thank Performance Today, from American Public Media (heard on KMFA radio, Austin, TX), for stoically broadcasting Daniel Barenboim, with Asher Fisch conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, performing Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerti Nos 1 & 2. These public radio renderings demonstrated unequivocally the extraordinary difficulty of making enchanting music that so few can master. I might have enjoyed this performance more if I had heard it first, but I didn’t.

Garrick Ohlsson performed these Chopin masterworks dreamily on one of my most treasured recordings with Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk (EMI 1976). His warm honey smoothness evokes crystalline glittering mountain streams, butterflies gliding and fluttering among multi-hued falling leaves on a crisp but warm autumn afternoon. In some phrases, the soaring purity of Chopin’s melody takes me on a walk through a magical garden under a starlit sky. Truly, the Hand of God works through this man’s music. His style sounds so effortless, spontaneous, and natural as to convince me that the piano itself wants nothing more than, in fact lives, to produce this mellifluous stream of heavenly melismas before it dies, having produced the most beautiful sounds that could ever emanate from a lacquered black box with a harp of gold.

As for Mr. Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic, well, not so much so.

Unlike the aforementioned 1976 recording, Mr. Ohlsson does not belong to the past. In January 2009 he breathtakingly performed Antonin Dvořák’s Piano Concerto in G Minor with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Like a unique fingerprint, apparently no one else can produce eighth and sixteenth note melismas with Ohlsson’s warm honey smooth touch. Of all the magnificent performances in the 2008-2009 ASO season, Garrick Ohlsson’s performance stands out as one of my favorites.

Walk Scores, “smart growth,” and urban amenity

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:20:00 +0000

The Atlantic monthly described Los Angeles, California [back in the mid-1980s, before Google indexing] as having transformed urban sprawl into urban squeeze-all. Despite that 20-something year old observation, “Los Angelization” still means endless urban-suburban sprawling development. That helps justify my surprise to learn from “Walk Score” (http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/) that Los Angeles and – even more specifically – Long Beach had become two of the most “walkable” cities in America.

My friend, Jeff, who lives in a part of Long Beach called Belmont Shore, enjoys [based on his address] an enviable walk score of 83% -- “very walkable.” That reflects proximity of establishments and amenities that would not require neighborhood residents to use a car to enjoy. I did notice while visiting him recently that his very narrow street precludes high-speed traffic and discourages motorists from cutting through his immediate neighborhood – very important for pedestrians. The major thoroughfares within two blocks of Jeff’s house (actually a condo that looks like a townhome) can carry a large volume of traffic while not discouraging pedestrians from using the very generously wide sidewalks. Alleyways allow residents to park off-street without the nuisance of driveways crossing the sidewalk every 20-30 feet on the front sides of the houses. Alley-accessed garages also prevent motorists from blocking sidewalks with their parked vehicles. Maybe someday Austin’s Planning Commission will understand.

Walk Score represents a fairly sophisticated agglomeration of software technology and databases to derive a rather crude estimation of urban lifestyles. It relies on Google maps – not always the most up-to-date (except for all the others) and it asks no questions about personal habits. That said, in general terms, it works pretty well for what it does. Jeff receives no penalty in Walk Score for driving a big GM SUV to work every day and I receive no indulgences for owning a Honda Civic that mostly stays parked during the week because I ride the bus to work. I also get no credit for working in downtown Austin – with walk scores between 90 and 100. My home address rates a pathetic walk score of 32% in a purportedly “car-dependent” neighborhood in South Austin.

Austin’s City Council and Planning Commission could learn some useful things by studying walk scores, visiting, and studying places that rank low and high. Visiting a place tells me things that no formulaic score ever could. Texans have endured several decades of urban development designed to accommodate cars rather than people. It will take time to reverse the trend. It takes a conscious effort to understand what differentiates a “car-dependent” neighborhood from a “walker’s paradise.” Looking around Austin, I have noticed that numerous urban design features contribute to these different orientations. These include: large lots, long blocks, wide streets, no alleyways, frequent curb cuts for driveways, small floor-to-area ratios, zoning that separates most housing from commercial, institutional, and recreational activities by large distances, and sidewalks that look like afterthoughts. Whoever decided that a three-foot wide sidewalk, separated from 50-mile-per-hour traffic by only a curb and gutter, would suffice obviously never used one and never intends to.

Recent and repeated experiences with two starkly different types of urban development in Austin lead me to question the steadfastness of City Council’s commitment to so-called “smart growth” (not a tumor that developed cognitive capabilities, probably). “The Triangle” mixed-use development, between Guadalupe, Lamar, and 45th Streets, represents a new example of relatively walkable urban development. “South Park Meadows” exemplifies a pedestrian-hostile style of recent suburban development that the authorities should have banned decades ago. One glance, at the cyclopean brutalism of the JC Penney storefront that punishes shoppers by confronting them with glaring sunlight and the gauntlet of a very wide driveway immediately upon leaving the establishment, tells me instantly that the designers of this shopping center cared little or nothing about the safety of pedestrians – as long as they spend money and leave quickly. One glance at The Triangle, gives one the impression of a consciously urban neighborhood that intends not to look anything like a suburban shopping center.

The differences go on from there. Triangle involves mixed land uses; South Park sharply segregates land uses. T: covered and stacked parking vs SPM: featured & exposed surface lot parking. T: encourages walking vs SPM: discourages walking. How does the development connect to adjacent areas? Major local streets define the Triangle’s perimeter and separate it somewhat from nearby neighborhoods and office complexes but not insurmountably so. Residences inside the Triangle enjoy very easy pedestrian access to internal commercial tenants. Inter-regional freeway and high-speed divided arterial thoroughfares create daunting barriers separating SPM from nearby tracts of land that generally do not attract pedestrian interest. Very long stretches of narrow sidewalks immediately adjacent to high-speed traffic present a daunting prospect for residents of even the nearest external neighborhood. Apartments and detached housing inside SPM development lack inviting pedestrian connections to commercial areas.

Triangle businesses use windows to let in light as well as allow customers to see people and landscaping outside. SPM businesses hardly use windows at all. A few that exist allow customers to see traffic and sun glinting off of parked cars. Mostly, SPM windows exist to display merchandise. One restaurant has fake windows on the outside while diners cannot see out. A buffet place has huge windows that during lunch admit huge glare that screens and shades to not sufficiently buffer.

Vehicular access to and circulation within the Triangle resembles local, people-scaled streets in a logical grid pattern. SPM vehicular access appears poorly designed for cars and not at all for pedestrians or even bicyclists. The driveways provide access from one parking lot to another but offset intersections and lack of a discernible street grid tend to confuse and disorient motorists. I imagine that the maze-like layout in SPM parking lots increases the likelihood of vehicular and pedestrian mishaps. The multiple undifferentiated bays (retail strips surrounding parking lots) interferes with the ability of visitors to find particular stores except Wal-Mart, Target, and Starbucks – the ones with the biggest signs. Actual named streets with logically assigned addresses would have made this development much easier to navigate. To locate something in building B, slot 4, does not help. Actually, it might help, but they don’t even provide that.

Hours of operation and invitation differ considerably between Triangle and SPM. Even if a store reportedly stays open late, its immediate environment can render it uninviting. South Park Meadows provides a desolate prospect after dark: Vast, confusing parking lots, with numerous dark spots, and no visible passive [or active] surveillance to deter criminal behavior. Indeed, the SPM parking lot seems the most likely place around to find juvenile delinquents on a Friday or Saturday night. Only the armed and dangerous or the foolhardy would feel confident in this suburban wasteland after sundown.

The appearance and functionality of the Triangle differs markedly from the careless design features of SPM. Apartments and offices above ground floor retail space provide an abundance of passive surveillance. Dozens of windows overlook practically every outdoor space on the property. Bars, restaurants, and cafés enable patrons to watch passersby and several establishments offer outdoor seating. This kind of “watching” seems pleasurable rather than paranoid. Smokers congregating outside a place serving food and drink seem convivial; whereas, smokers outside Wal-Mart or JC Penney exude an aura of junior high school “bad kids” misbehaving behind the temporary classrooms. The enclosure created by narrow streets and nearby buildings gives the Triangle a sense of intimacy and shelter totally lacking from SPM. Wind and traffic noise at SPM drowns out voices. The Triangle’s sheltering outdoor spaces enable one to hear and overhear conversations. Such an auditory environment contributes to the sense of safety that I experience there. Adequate lighting and open design makes even the parking garage at the Triangle feel far safer than the lavishly landscaped, wide open parking lots of South Park Meadows.

Scale contributes to the sense of intimacy or not. Big box storefronts at SPM must shout visually enough to capture attention of motorists across a gulf of asphalt even with tasteful landscaping. Big box architecture menacingly admonishes people to move along. Human-scale urban design, such as in the Triangle, invites people to tarry, talk, and relax.

Creating a setting that encourages walking requires the complementary inclusion of access to public transportation. Only two CapitalMetro bus routes serve SPM (1L and 201) – infrequently. At least five bus routes serve The Triangle; overlapping and intersecting routes, as well as a park and ride lot, clutter up this part of the CAPMETRO system map such that I cannot say with certainty how many routes serve The Triangle.

In addition to aesthetics, infrastructure costs differentiate these two developments. Like all suburban projects, simply extending pipes and wires to an urban edge location and building new streets costs more than adding utility customers to an existing part of the city. Single story construction inherently disperses buildings and pseudo-streets over a larger area than would happen using multi-story buildings. SPM developers spent a great deal of money laying pipes (water, sewer, gas) and wires (electric, telecommunications) under so much impervious ground cover (new pavement) such that they greatly reduced the proportion of the total construction and maintenance budgets remaining for amenities – to say nothing of developers’ profits.

If Austin’s City Council and Planning Commission sincerely want to promote “smart growth,” they will encourage more development like The Triangle and discourage development like South Park Meadows. By the imperfect measurement of Walk Score, SPM rates 63%; The Triangle rates 88%. Ironically, the 63% for SPM probably gives it more credit than it deserves; Walk Score rates residential addresses, no one actually lives at 9300 I-35 South. On the other hand, people actually do live at 4700 N Lamar.

At what cost continuity?

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:22:00 +0000

John Kenneth Galbraith gets credit for saying, "things which can't go on indefinitely, don't.” John Maynard Keynes said: "In the long run, we're all dead." As well as: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”

Cheap energy facilitated an era of fantastic technological development and unprecedented population growth. Fossil fuels enabled concentrations of energy sufficient to allow humans to fly and travel tremendous distances at great speed. Cheap energy allowed humanity, using industrial agriculture, to feed a population several times greater than the Earth had ever supported before. We often forget that we fertilize those crops with the remains of micro-organisms deposited in the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago. That kind of compost takes a long time to cook. Cheap energy made the twentieth century an interval of profligacy. The one that follows will look quite different.

As the fossil fuel era draws to a close, current accounting restrictions will test the cleverness of humans to live on whatever biomass the sun allows to grow here day by day. We find ourselves rushing headlong into a period of parsimony. By this I don’t mean stinginess, although that will doubtless happen. I mean that the dictum of Mies van der Rohe, “Less is more,” will become a meaningful guiding light in a whole new way. I presume that Mies coined the philosophy as a design feature characterized by unornamented buildings with large expanses of glass. Twenty-first century use of the term will go more in the direction of: less energy expended on frivolous and unnecessary uses will leave more available for necessary and vital uses. Our values will change. Energy from the sun costs nothing, but building the apparatus necessary to collect it costs considerably.

As our priorities change, we will increasingly find ourselves cutting back on customary expenses to save up for “clean energy” hardware and infrastructure. Priorities, attitudes, and opinions change all the time, but once in a while the Earth moves beneath our feet. Probably every life involves a turning point, a moment of revelation. Nothing changes in the material world around us, but everything changes in our perception of it. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Albert Einstein reportedly said, “The release of atom[ic] power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” Alas, that genie will never go back into the bottle. Of course the world and the way we think both change constantly, if infinitesimally in our lifetimes. A life, such as Einstein’s, filled with exploration and discovery tends to throw these truths into sharp relief. Most of us don’t understand that except vicariously. Sometimes, charitable historians will clue us in.

In retrospect, philosophers and historians might label the unfolding era as one of revolutionary invention, or crushing disillusionment, or reckoning. As the era of cheap energy gives way to one of expensive energy, we will learn the harsh penalties for easy luxury and unearned wealth. We have lost our living memory of the hardship so familiar to our forebears. Someone must eventually pay the bill for a century’s worth of living beyond our means. Cheap energy, spending beyond our means, and living on easy credit has distorted our understanding of wealth and power. American ability to set energy prices to its advantage disappeared so recently that Americans still act like they control something. John D. Rockefeller established the Standard Oil global empire in the United States in 1870 and with it inaugurated the petroleum era. After the U.S. reached its peak of oil production in 1970, imports dramatically increased. U.S. net imports of petroleum first exceeded production, around 1995. At that time, power inexorably shifted to other parts of the globe. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice illustrated one of her moments of revelation in 2006, that the hunt for oil and gas was “distorting international politics in a very major way.”

Ms. Rice would probably never acknowledge that the petroleum business distorts many things at every step of its journey through the economy and the ecology. Like other fossil fuels, oil and gas distort our understanding of material wealth and ecosystem services. Oil tycoons reap fortunes by pumping out of the ground hydrocarbons that took millions of years to accumulate. Most people calculating the energy return on energy investment of an oil well will ignore those millions of years of sunlight (and countless microbes) and count only the relatively miniscule quantity of energy used to manufacture the equipment, build the well, pump the oil out of the ground, refine it, and transport it to market. The externalized distortions inflicted by fossil fuels extend to degradation of water quality, arable soil, air quality, wildlife habitats, insect populations that pollinate our food crops, and live green spaces necessary for mental health. An honest accounting would include not only direct effects of the industry but indirect effects that would not happen but for the presence of a global petroleum industry.

Petrodictators (as Thomas Friedman calls them) ruling over pre-democratic nations accumulate oil wealth for themselves and impoverish their compatriots. We first world inhabitants take great pride in looking down our noses at third-world despots, inventorying their manifold faults. We bemoan the destruction of tropical rainforests, wildlife habitats, and ocean fisheries. Other than a few self-righteous – and masochistic – intellectuals, hardly any first worlders care to look at the gross transgressions that our political leaders and captains of industry have inflicted on the rest of the world. American and European capitalism have created a thoroughly unsustainable economic system and involved the entire world in the scheme. Most of us don’t want to consider the implications of John Muir’s belief in the interconnectedness of everything.

The great circle of life goes way beyond carnivores and herbivores. As Carl Sagan pointed out, we come from “star stuff.” Michael Dowd, quoting someone else, refers to human consciousness as the universe evolved sufficiently to look back at itself (paraphrase). The sun provides the energy for everything on Earth. Climate and weather shape the surface geology and geography of the land (more star stuff) while circumscribing what will live where. The Earth shaped humans and we shape it in return. Energy, water, and nutrients constantly cycle through the biosphere. We appropriated an outrageous fortune left by our predecessors – plants, animals, microbes – in the form of fossil fuels. As we return their heretofore sequestered carbon to the atmosphere, we alter planetary climate, which in turn predestines the rise and fall of future species.

Luckily for us and our heirs and assigns, according to astrophysicists, the sun will continue to grace our solar system with its atomic fusion power for a few billion more years. After four and a half billion years of evolutionary struggle on this planet, about that many years left in our local star’s fuel tank, and 14 billion or so since the most recent “Big Bang,” we should feel reasonably confident that The Creator will allow us a considerable amount of time to screw up before finally pulling the plug.

That said, we probably need to steel ourselves for a prolonged period of trial and tribulation after the hydrocarbon extravaganza. If climate change had not alerted us to the need to change our behavior, the imminent decline in available fossil fuels certainly would have. Having burned through a legacy, that took millions of years to accumulate, in the course of two centuries, it might take some time to replenish our assets using current resources – i.e. energy provided by the sun every day. During such time, frugality and cleverness will serve us well. Mindless [or willful] profligate ostentation will come to symbolize the most shameful kind of immorality.

The Great Depression of the 1930s gives a foreshadowing of the parsimony we might need to survive in the near future. However, I predict that the coming era of thrift will cause previous eras of cautious living to pale in comparison. (See James Howard Kunstler’s “Long Emergency” for more fear and loathing on the way to a sustainable future.)

Quasi-tropical California Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:29:00 +0000

How annoying to fly half way across the continent and forget to take decent pictures! Bringing a camera does not help if it remains in one’s suitcase. A camera phone makes a poor substitute. On a recent six-day vacation, I took advantage of a sale on Southwest Airlines. For only the modest sacrifice of one plane change each way (Houston going, Denver returning), I travelled to Southern California for only $238.90 round-trip from Austin to LAX.

Motoring along the L.A. freeways, I saw real tropical plants and fake ones. They disguise their cell phone towers to look like either palm trees or Norfolk Island pine trees. On Texas freeways I generally don’t see tropical landscaping; TXDOT generally never gets fancier than loblolly pine trees and a few bluebonnets. The weather gods must have smiled on me and dissipated the famous smog. I had forgotten that on a clear day one can see downtown L.A. from LAX – only 8 miles distant. The wild fires in Angeles National Forest had died down such that I could not see them and only saw a trace of smoke flying in. On many of the freeways (and L.A. has very many) one cannot see much of anything because of the noise barrier walls protecting adjacent neighborhoods. I saw several freeways – some landscaped, some walled – on the 14-mile trip from LAX to Long Beach. Very oddly, the few episodes of heavy traffic I saw seemed uneventful, compared to the exasperating jams that I know from I-35 in Austin and the various freeways in Houston. California freeways carry a lot of traffic but don’t seem as gargantuan as, say, Houston’s Katy Freeway (circa ½ mile wide for about 30 miles).

My very dear friend, Jeff picked me up at LAX Airport and let me stay at his lovely home in Long Beach. His extraordinarily well-behaved English bull terrier, Victoria, never jumped on me and always obeyed Jeff’s commands. From the end of his street, walking along East Ocean Boulevard, we could see the cruise ships (way bigger than the Titanic) at the docks. Jeff informed me that the artificial islands only a mile or two from shore conceal oil drilling platforms. I might otherwise have mistaken them for offices or communications complexes – quite well disguised for oil drilling rigs. I did not see any surfers. Away from the beach, toward East 2^nd Street, we walked to all kinds of shopping and restaurants. I can see why Jeff likes Long Beach; it seems much more walkable than most other neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.

While walking around Jeff’s neighborhood, the vegetation impressed me. Although farther north than Dallas (which routinely receives at least one ice storm per winter), Long Beach enjoys the moderating influences of Ocean currents. I saw a tremendous variety of tropical plants growing outside, in the ground, established as if having lived there for many years. Jeff tells me that it never freezes in Long Beach. Plants I noticed included: Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla), Erythrina (crista-galli, I think), Princess flower (Tibouchina urvilleana), bird of paradise (Strelitzia reginae), Australian eucalyptus trees, the list goes on and on.

I still don’t understand how a place on the water, that never freezes, can enjoy relatively low humidity (they don’t realize how low) and virtually no mosquitoes. They also never get hurricanes. So what, if an earthquake rolls through once in a while?

Texas Megaregion rail choices: high speed, local service, electric, diesel, cities served, Where?…When?

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio comprise the larger cities in the “Texas Triangle Megaregion.” A variety of economic, social, and environmental issues demand attention at a scale that neither municipalities, counties, nor metropolitan area councils can adequately address. A group of well-informed and respected people from around the state and the nation met recently and placed transportation at the top of the list. Problems of traffic congestion, airport hassles, lost productivity, convenience, pollution, fuel consumption, trade deficits, economic equity, mobility maintenance for elderly and disabled, and maintaining quality of life in general urge Texans to think ever more earnestly about reinstating passenger rail transportation within and among Texas cities. As our legislature and any number of public meetings can attest; we in Texas do not find cooperation easy. Making big decisions about statewide rail transit systems will test our resolve, diplomatic skills, [and ability to get beyond talking] like nothing else.

Houston Tomorrow (www.houstontomorrow.org) convened a conference at the historic Rice Hotel, September 24-25, 2009, called “Megaregions + Metro Prosperity, sustainable economics for the Texas Triangle.” The representative of Greater Houston Partnership, Dan Bellow, apparently did not recognize the irony in proudly reporting Houston’s 8% annual population growth rate at a conference on sustainability. Ostensibly, conferees expected to discuss energy, water, food, green space, transportation, and equity – which we did. However, the sleek passenger train on the brochures might have biased the interests of the participants. Intercity rail transportation became the topic of strongest interest among those who gathered.

With event sponsors like Metropolitan Transit Authority, councils of government, architects, engineering firms, chambers of commerce, universities, regional planning authorities, and sustainability advocates – representing jurisdictions throughout the most populous region of Texas – it should have come as no surprise that inter-city, especially high-speed rail would dominate the topics of conversation. Another footnoted detail contributed to the collective angst; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus program caught Texas unprepared. With no statewide rail transportation plan [let alone one involving high-speed rail], Texas could not take advantage of the windfall made available by the President and Congress this year.

Interest in preparing for major public infrastructure investments does not occur naturally or evenly across our state. Unlike Houston, over the decades Dallas and Fort Worth did not engulf almost all of their adjacent municipalities. “The Metroplex” consists of a collection of varying sized cities. Their proximity and unwillingness to allow big neighbors to annex them has given all of those places a seat at any number of negotiation tables. Economic necessity required them to cooperate with each other for many years to build all sorts of infrastructure – including light rail transit. Unsurprisingly, the Metroplex has succeeded better than any other urban area in Texas at cooperating, negotiating, finding consensus, and planning big projects. Dallas Area Rapid Transit – DART Rail got up and running before any other light rail system in Texas since the demise of most U.S. urban rail systems right around World War II.

The inability to plan for the future seems to imbue public officials with a vague tinge of shame that manifests in timid apologies for letting major opportunities slip away. Every place in Texas seems to consider itself terminally unique. Speaker after speaker started out saying how other people in other places do things, “but [our city] is different.” Car and pickup truck culture, oil industry, agriculture, alien abductions, …whatever; I won’t go into all the unrepeatable claims to fame. Every Texas city undoubtedly deserves a mention in the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Representatives of each city can explain why automobiles, rather than trains, will always serve the vast majority of transportation needs in their domain. Conversely, they can also make reasonably cogent arguments for what places their city at the center of the triangle. The majority of conferees voted that Houston and Dallas should get connected first – as the two largest metropolitan areas, assuming the largest daily exchange of travelers. After that vote, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett explained that connecting Houston with Austin should come first. Emmett pointed out that Houston Metro owns or has rights to existing track in the highway 290 corridor out to Hempstead and Capital Metro owns the tracks in the same corridor from Austin to Giddings. Restoring the previously abandoned tracks in between those two segments – to serve the traffic between Texas’ largest port city and the state capital – made the most sense to him.

Judge Emmett’s argument, juxtaposed with the discussion of the earlier expression of preference, got me thinking about prioritization criteria. Where should the starter line go? Should the first line connect the largest cities; serve the most likely passengers; utilize the most easily-acquired right-of-way; or some other criteria? Who will oppose the project and what arguments will overcome the most likely objections? Can anyone prove rail’s cost-effectiveness compared to highways or airlines? Will the public care about benefits to the environment or safety? High-speed rail cannot share track with other types of train; but can it share the same corridor using adjacent track? Where will the funding come from? Will the public accept a new tax in return for a new public benefit? Who will build it? Who will operate it? Should it connect city centers, or airports, or both? How and where should high-speed rail lines connect to other modes of transportation? How will Texas’ high-speed rail connect with lines to other states? In the absence of a resolute dictatorial edict, a great deal of study and negotiation will probably need to precede the final decision.

Success seemed a very important criterion for the starter line because failure would undermine efforts to build future track segments. Several experts expressed the opinion that high-speed rail works best on trips of about 300-600 miles, while conventional rail works better on runs less than 300 miles – for local service, and airlines work better on trips exceeding 600 miles. Several participants believed that Prairie View A&M should get service to Houston and that Bryan-College Station should get rapid service to both Houston and Austin to improve student access, affordability, and intercollegiate ventures.

The Megaregions conference in Houston, as many do, seemed to raise more questions than it answered. It confirmed the existence of broad support for inter-city high-speed rail service in Texas. It also reminded a very earnest group of idealists that achieving consensus and acting on it in Texas can and often does become a quixotic exercise in futility and exasperation. I believe that many of the participants, like me, left the conference with a newly tempered sense of cautious optimism and perhaps a more realistic understanding of the difficulties we face in making high-speed passenger rail transportation in Texas a reality.

The [energy-economic] climate is a-changing

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:17:00 +0000

When the earth shifts beneath our feet, we can easily lose our sense of direction. When a fish finds itself out of water, it must learn to walk and breathe air or die. Ben Bernanke recently read the tea leaves and ventured to predict an imminent resolution to the current recession. His tea leaves seem to settle out in a very tiny corner of a very large cup. If he has acknowledged publicly any role played by global energy markets in the recent economic unpleasantness, I have not heard it. While studying energy market trends, it occurs to me that the lessons of the Great Depression provide only limited guidance to navigating our way out of the present “recession.” nb: If I still have a job, I call it a “recession;” if I lose my job and cannot find another, I call it a “depression.” Revolutions tend to subvert policy.

If economic recovery involves a resumption of petroleum and natural gas consumption patterns similar to those prior to 2008, energy prices will return to the highs that crushed the economy in 2008. Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Katrina/ Rita (2005) damaged the Gulf Coast natural gas infrastructure, caused prices to spike, and convinced consumers to conserve fuel. Subsequently, consumption crept back up. Global demand in excess of supply caused the historic oil and gas price spikes in July 2008. Industrial consumers said, “enough,” and shut down. That action freed up enough supply to cause the price to fall for everyone else who remained in the market.

Industrial consumption of natural gas (33% of U.S. market) has exceeded residential natural gas consumption (21% of U.S. market) since at least 1997 (U.S. Energy Information Administration). While residential (21%) and commercial consumption (13% of U.S. market) have recently remained relatively constant as a share of all U.S. natural gas consumption, industrial consumption has declined from 37% of all consumption in 1997 to 28.5% in 2008. (EIA started separating “industrial” from “commercial” consumption in 1997.) We all know about “outsourcing” but don’t always consider the complacency that it can promote in the general public. At the same time, natural gas used for electric power generation has increased from 18% of all consumption in 1997 to 28.7% in 2008. Electric utilities like to claim that they use the cleanest available fossil fuels – as opposed to “dirty coal.”

We can attribute today’s low market price for natural gas to both recessionary demand destruction (industry that stopped) and long-term decline in natural gas consumption by industrial consumers. Since 1998, industrial sector natural gas consumption declined by an average of 2% per year.

U.S. Natural Gas Consumption in trillions of cubic feet

Consumption Sector

1990

2008

Residential

4.5

4.86 (relatively stable, rising)

Commercial

2.99

3.1 (growing slightly)

Industrial

8.3

6.6 (declining markedly)

Vehicle fuel

0.009

0.030 (negligible, but growing)

Electric power

4.6

6.66 (growing markedly)

All consumers

20.4

21.3 (relatively stable, rising)

Large-scale speculation might or might not have occurred in the lead up to the price spike and subsequent collapse of energy prices in 2008. Rather than blaming the speculators who exploited a market opportunity, we must consider the vulnerability of an economy so utterly dependent on fossil fuels. We can assume that unscrupulous speculators will take advantage of commodities in limited supply. Rather than blaming the leopard for having spots, we can protect ourselves by not walking in front of the leopard’s nose. The sun shines and the wind blows, irrespective of the governments in power.

EIA statistics show growth slowing. Between 1931 and 2008, U.S. residential consumption of natural gas increased by an average of 3.8% per year while commercial (including industrial) rose 5% (average annual increase). Between 1990 and 2008 residential consumption rose by 0.2% while commercial consumption rose by 0.8% -- less than 1% each. Since July 2008, monthly natural gas consumption (compared to year earlier) has declined overall by 3.8%, residential increased 1.1%, commercial increased 0.85%, industrial declined 8%, vehicle fuel increased by 12.7%, natural gas for electric power declined 2.8%. This represents an acceleration of the decline in industrial consumption and an apparent reversal of the trend toward producing more electricity from natural gas combustion.

Coal consumed for electricity production also fell since July 2008. EIA shows overall coal consumption rising 1.44% from 2007 to 2008, electric utility coal consumption rising 1.72%, and industrial consumption rising 8.05% in the same period (first 6 months of the year). Comparing the January-June period of 2009 to that of 2008, overall consumption fell 11.11%, electric utility consumption fell 10.94%, and industrial consumption fell 11.21%. Clearly, industrial energy consumption has fallen faster than that of the rest of the economy. It also appears that coal-fired electricity production declined more than that produced by burning natural gas.

While industry and electric utilities strive to clean up their acts by switching from coal to natural gas, they have placed themselves in the position of directly competing with residential consumers for the same “clean” fossil fuel. EIA data show sudden drop offs in fuel consumption by industry, presumably a result of factories shutting down. Electric utilities change their behavior much more gradually.

The interplay of commercial and social behavior makes energy markets particularly tricky to predict. U.S. and global energy markets can rapidly reverse directions when fortunes lie at stake. Rising energy prices encourage drilling for oil and gas and consumer thrift. Falling prices discourage drilling and thrift. Exhaustion of conventional petroleum reserves encourages exploration of “unconventional” reserves. Unconventional reserves cost more to produce – otherwise, someone would have produced them before now. Production of unconventional reserves must wait for the passage of certain price thresholds in order to ensure profitability. All of the proposed production from unconventional petroleum reserves requires far greater energy investment than more conventional methods of extraction.

High energy prices in 2008 destroyed demand among those who could no longer afford them, thus inducing a recession. Energy industry workers laid off in the recession return to school to learn how to utilize unconventional [petroleum] energy sources – along with newly-minted engineers. Recessionary pressures depress natural gas prices, thus discouraging production of unconventional reserves and reducing demand for petroleum engineers. Dwindling conventional reserves might cause shortages and higher energy prices even before the economy recovers. The market does not set its clock for the convenience of everyone equally.

Concerns about climate change arising from greenhouse gas emissions cast doubt on the whole enterprise of fossil fuel production and consumption. With rising temperatures, energy prices, and rhetorical histrionics, the public and its leaders might lose track of whatever problems they can practically manage. Lacking a broad, long-term perspective, public energy policy takes on the behavior of a dog chasing its tail.

We need renewable energy to end this recession and avoid falling into dependency on foreign petro-dictators (see Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded). Factors affecting the costs and availability of fossil fuels differ from those of renewable fuels. Geology limits geographic distribution of fossil fuels. Renewable fuels experience different constraints but fewer governed by geology. Their diversity (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, biomass…) allows for wider geographic distribution than that of fossil fuels. Cartels cannot control the prices of renewable fuels. The sun will continue to shine and the wind to blow long after we exhaust all our domestic reserves of oil, gas, and coal.

High and unstable prices for fossil fuels make investment in renewable energy attractive by comparison. Low prices for fossil fuels make renewable energy investments less attractive for a while. Those who fail to understand the cyclical nature of fossil fuel prices will pay a high price if they fail to invest in renewable energy resources when given the opportunity. Those who hope to earn windfall profits when fossil fuel prices rise again might get a rude awakening when they find that the market simply will not bear extremely high prices but will instead destroy demand and reinvigorate recessionary forces. Even a monopoly commodity will reach a maximum price when customers can no longer afford it.

Today’s recession-induced low energy prices lull many consumers into a false sense of security about future fossil fuel prices and availability. The academies of energy engineering still cling to the belief that fossil fuels will dominate our energy resources for the foreseeable future. They seem not to understand that something fundamental has changed in the energy markets. Perhaps petroleum drilling technology will someday translate into geothermal technology.

The Texas Railroad Commission, Natural Gas Trends (8/31/09) recently reported, “The Colorado School of Mines recently announced its establishment of the Unconventional Natural Gas Institute. The Institute’s focus is on upstream research and development of natural gas from unconventional natural gas resources such as shale, coalbed methane, gas hydrates and tight sands.” http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/forms/publications/ngtrends/2009/NatGasTrends083109.pdf

All of these resources involve fossil origins and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. In these examples, “unconventional” suggests expensive and energy intensive production methods. Conventional natural gas production extracts gas in more-or-less its natural state by drilling deep underground. These unconventional methods require addition of heat and other extreme processes to liberate the methane from its host geological formations. At some unknown point, the energy costs of production will exceed the energy value produced. If the energy return on energy investment (EROEI) ratio does not yield a number greater than one, the dollar cost no longer matters and the endeavor becomes pointless. The energy expended in research and development of unconventional methods belongs to the “energy investment” side of the equation. Since we don’t know how much energy unconventional methods will yield, we could easily exceed possible energy returns without knowing it until long after the fact.

The existing glut of natural gas, noted in the Railroad Commission’s newsletter, keeps the price low. It also discourages exploration and development of the aforementioned unconventional reserves. The existence of the natural gas surplus suggests something else to me: that the economy remains firmly mired in recession. Idled industrial activity has made its otherwise sizeable share of consumption available to everyone else. Even a modest economic rebound might easily reclaim enough industrial market share to send natural gas prices sharply upward again.

In order to keep natural gas prices low, every sector of the economy must find ways to reduce, eliminate, and replace natural gas consumption with renewable fuels or conservation.

Why run trains in Texas’ US 290 Corridor? Why now?

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:01:00 +0000

Increasingly, it becomes clearer that declining oil production and subsequent rising prices contributed more to the current recession than most commentators admit. (Richard Heinberg’s Museletter, #208: Temporary Recession or the End of Growth? 8/6/09) The reality of oil shortages places the economy in a perpetual see-saw dilemma with the price of crude oil. High energy prices crush the economy. As the economy begins to recover, oil prices rise in tandem. Rising oil prices jack up business and personal costs enough to depress the economy. Until we radically reduce our dependence on petroleum by creating attractive alternatives to the automobile-centered transportation system, this nauseating tango will persist.

Geography offers one set of justifications. The US290 corridor connects the State Capital with the largest city and ocean port in the state. Rail can offer more economical transportation than trucking for these distances – even if running on diesel, but especially if running on electricity. The hassles associated with airports and highways have made both flying and driving thoroughly unpleasant for travel between Austin and Houston. Add high fuel costs and travelers lose interest in all but absolutely necessary trips.

History created social, economic, and cultural connections among cities and towns in this corridor. The City of Giddings might not exist if not for the Houston & Texas Central Railway. The historic cotton gin in Burton sits next to the dormant train depot. Highway 290 somewhat supports the relationships created more than a century ago by the railroads, but it does so rather differently. Whereas the railroad focused commerce and development around train stations and gave towns a strong identity, the highway provides only a linear focus and development tends to disperse around it, losing any recognizable uniqueness of place. Population dispersion challenges local merchants to serve a recognizable community and tourists tend not to associate any given location with a good reason to pull off the highway.

Cultural enrichment suffers as barriers to travel prevent small town residents from enjoying fine arts events in distant cities and city dwellers practically never even consider visiting farmers’ markets in small towns close to the actual farms. Cheap gasoline enabled many commuters to live in exurban communities and work in Houston or Austin. Rising energy prices will eliminate that lifestyle option if commuting to work by rail does not materialize.

Food security may very well become a serious social and political issue as fuel prices go back up. The average distance that food travels to reach our dinner tables reportedly may exceed 1500 miles (Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture). Rising fuel prices may force us fairly soon to grow more of our food locally. Alluvial soils between Houston and Austin can provide fertile grounds for feeding the millions of residents in this corridor. A publicly-owned railroad with competitive rail service providers could keep food transportation costs reasonable. Electric powered trains would not only help to localize food production and distribution but to localize the purchase of fuel (wind and solar) to transport farm produce to market.

Train service can expand travel opportunities between Houston & Austin more cost effectively than highway expansions. Not only do trains occupy far less land than highways and parking lots, but cost estimates notoriously underestimate the cost of vehicles. Actually, highway cost estimates probably cannot include estimates for vehicles. Over the life of a highway, countless vehicles of all descriptions might use a highway. Vehicle ownership represents the cost of access to highways. Trains cost more than cars and trucks but they last much longer and many more people share the cost. The cost of a train ticket represents the cost of enjoying access to travel on a railroad – if some group of people had the foresight to establish passenger service. As the population ages, more elderly and disabled people will want to travel by train if our generation makes it available to them. Otherwise, all but the most affluent will become isolated and unable to travel.

Train travel can improve productivity and safety. Individuals traveling by car cannot read or work on their computers while driving. The drive might take 3-4 hours while an express train might take only two. Even the local train might save time because it does not get caught in highway traffic. Drowsy and intoxicated drivers tend to have more collisions. Dozing off while riding the train carries no such penalty. Train collisions make big news partly because of their rarity, but truthfully, far more people die or get injured in the thousands of daily car wrecks than in train wrecks.

Train service between Austin and Houston made sense a century ago and three decades ago and it still would make sense if the people so willed it. Most people don’t think about it as an option because they only think about what they can see today. If our generation does not remedy this situation soon, we will all experience more difficulty with daily living than we care to think about. The time to reinstate train service between Austin and Houston has come. We must act deliberately and as quickly as possible.

Soiled Economy, Cleaner Transportation

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:34:00 +0000

Economic development and soil conservation don’t often go together, but they should. We and everything we eat or do comes from the earth and, unless we launch it into interstellar space, all those things eventually return to the earth. As far as I can tell, the economy resides on earth. We all enjoy Earth’s benefits but not in any measurable proportion. Transportation infrastructure comes very close to approximating the dilemmas associated with ensuring that those who enjoy a public benefit share liability for its maintenance. Industries that pollute the air do not pay for health consequences downwind. People who cause soil erosion do not necessarily pay for its consequences. The builders and users of highways and airports do not necessarily pay the taxes for their upkeep. Remedies for such externalized costs might limit access to benefits, prevent deterioration of resources, or impose remediation fees on those who enjoy the benefits and consume the resources. Remedies only happen when a legal authority intervenes. People create new jurisdictions when a need arises that no other jurisdiction can address. Here at the dawn of the energy-climate era (Friedman, “Hot, Flat, & Crowded”), we will need to create some new jurisdictions.

Soil conservation belongs to a category of activities called “Ecosystem Services.” Until recently, no one mentioned or thought about these because nature provided them in abundance, for free. The ubiquity of ecosystem services caused us to take them for granted and few people recognized their necessity for economic functioning, until recently. As the human enterprise has grown to thoroughly dominate the workings of the planet, we have come to realize that unless we invest in the protection of ecosystem services they might not remain as helpful or reliable as we need. By their very nature, ecosystem services represent a public benefit – clean air, water, productive soil, flood control, climate stabilization, pest control, pollinators, and the abstract concept of the sanctity of nature.

Kevin Anderson’s lecture on soil building, for Austin Water Utility Center for Environmental Resources (August 3, 2009) gave me some memorable images. One slide showed a shopping mall parking lot under construction. Bulldozers had scraped down several feet into caliche and limestone to level the parking surface. They had left a few earthen pedestals with existing trees on top. A veneer of soil, only a few inches thick, sat atop freshly cut embankments of limestone. Kevin pointed out not just the recent traumatic disturbance by the bulldozers but the insidious damage over decades. He noted that a century or two ago, before cattle ranching and other intensive uses, several feet of soil would have resided atop this limestone base. Rich productive soil takes centuries to form and accumulate but only a few decades to strip away through mismanagement – or a day with heavy equipment. Denatured landscape provides no ecosystem services.

Wild enclaves between human communities, agricultural fields, and along transportation corridors can provide an ecological framework. Such a green infrastructure provides ecosystem services. It filters water and dissipates the force of damaging wind and floods. It harbors beneficial organisms including pollinators, birds, reptiles, and insects that prey on destructive pests. Soil conservation requires green swards to interrupt wind, water, and excessive sun exposure. Whether on flat or hilly terrain, natural forces can dislodge and relocate soil when agricultural or other commercial enterprises strip off too much protective vegetation. The general public enjoys benefits from ecosystem services.

Public benefit from ecosystem services provides justification for placing economic responsibility for their perpetuation with a public authority. Publicly funded economic development in rural areas can and should include maintenance of ecosystem services. Individual property owners cannot afford to bear the burden for everyone else. What kind of jurisdiction can logically balance economic development and ecosystem services? Transportation systems exert enormous influence over ecosystem stresses and economic development. Transportation represents a major cost of commerce and can determine economic success or failure. As opposed to highways, railroads can more effectively assign and charge fees for services and limit access. Fees and taxes associated with a regional transit district, if accrued in excess of transportation requirements could justifiably help pay to maintain economic development infrastructure, including ecosystem services and natural enclaves.

Wilderness conservation might bring to mind protecting bears, owls, and other critters in their natural habitat so people can go and enjoy looking at them “in nature.” Ecotourism usually means expensive excursions to remote, pristine wilderness areas – usually for the more affluent. Wild enclaves, perhaps creating a network connected to State Parks, can provide opportunities for a brand of ecotourism that people of very modest means can enjoy close to home. An inexpensive train excursion to a nearby farm town with adjacent greenbelt parks could provide affordable, high quality recreation for the humbler classes. Their purchases would remain in a relatively localized economic domain.

Travel by electric train would tremendously reduce environmental damage compared to transporting the same number of people by car or bus. The environmental effects of petroleum-powered personal vehicles include not just air pollution, but water pollution. Chemicals deposited on pavement wash into streams and aquifers. Pavement for roads, driveways, and parking lots displaces natural vegetation by itself but accommodating cars forces businesses and homes to occupy more ground space, pushing them farther apart, and making towns consume more land and farms than they would without so many cars.

Cars not only affect long-term climate by burning fossil fuels and dumping excess carbon into the atmosphere; accommodating cars with pavement causes localized “urban heat island effect.” Even if every yard in a suburban style subdivision planted enough trees to completely shade their property, the canopy edges created by streets and parking lots admits desiccating wind that dries vegetation and increases irrigation requirements. Placing homes and businesses in clusters, while leaving large tracts of forest or prairie undisturbed, reduces wind desiccation and improves hydrological benefits. Water that falls on a typical urban landscape rushes off in a flash flood event, leaving little to soak in or nurture streams. Water falling in a forest filters slowly through the soil and maintains base flow in streams as well as aquifer recharge. Preserving or restoring this ecosystem service makes more economic sense than any amount of technological tinkering.

The industrial culture that we evolved over the past century, dependent on burning fossil fuels to power our factories and transportation systems, will not serve us well going into the next. Not only do we throw carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels; we strip carbon off the land by mining organic matter from the soil. Some of this soil carbon goes into the air as well but much of it washes eventually into the ocean. In either case it becomes unavailable to us as a vital soil nutrient necessary for growing crops and instead becomes a pollutant. As we increasingly focus on capturing and sequestering atmospheric carbon to save the planet from climate havoc, we must remember the important role that soil plays in feeding us and maintaining a beneficial climate.

In order to survive the imminent transition to the energy-climate era, we must learn to appropriately appraise the value of soil and all other ecosystem services. Even if we can find a magical substitute for petroleum fuels to run our cars, we will never find a substitute for the land we pave over to accommodate millions of personal vehicles. Trains occupy far less space in the landscape than cars – even when accounting for switching yards and stations – compared to freeways and parking lots. Trains can run on electricity which we can generate in abundance without burning fossil fuels or removing mountain tops to extract the coal under them. Train-based transportation systems tend to cluster urban development, leaving more land unpaved. Unlike airlines, trains can deliver passengers and goods to the center of the city. Cities served primarily by trains can more easily limit urban sprawl. Imagine not sitting in “freeway” traffic for over an hour just to get out of town. Imagine letting someone else do the driving and not worrying about avoiding car wrecks. Just enjoy the view.

Indefensible Space

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:02:00 +0000

Really, I just wanted to let someone know about the lush growth of poison ivy that posed a threat to passing pedestrians, including patients visiting a nearby clinic. It did not occur to me that I would find a prime example of how not to lay out an office building for security. This smallish, but lavishly-appointed office building in downtown Austin (granite, polished wood, chrome) consists of two parking levels and two office levels. The parking valet, who had just left the vicinity, apparently presents the only visible human greeter near the entrance.
No one greeted or challenged me as I entered the ground floor foyer, walked past the door to the stairs and pressed the button to summon the elevator. The slightly cryptic control buttons inside the elevator offered “P1”, “P2”, “L1”, and “L2”. The “P” apparently indicated parking levels. If “L” meant “Lobby”, they seem to use a definition of lobby with which I have not become familiar yet. I found no seating, receptionist, or security guard anywhere in sight. No one asked me if they could direct me to the proper office. I entered “L2” because the word “offices” next to that button suggested building management. I guessed wrong.
The open door nearest to the elevator belonged to a conference room. Several people gathering there exhibited no curiosity about my presence or my puzzled glancings around. Walking all the way around the building core, passing several hermetic looking office doors, I found a door with a side window that made it look like a reception area. Opening the door, I found an unattended reception desk. The room full of cubicles showed no curious or helpful faces at first glance. As I stood there for half a minute with the door open, a woman finally craned her head around a cubicle partition and asked what I wanted.
When I told her about the lush growth of poison ivy near the entrance to the building, she offered to give me the phone number for the building manager – probably off-premise. I pointed out to her that I do not work in that building but merely wanted to let someone know that this plant might present a health hazard to the occupants and visitors to her building. Finally, she understood that I did not want to spend any more of my time taking care of a problem belonging to her building. She acknowledged that she did not want to brush up against any poison ivy and that she would relay the information to the building manager.
“Crime Prevention through Environmental Design,” the focus of a seminar that I attended many years ago in Houston, derives from the work of Jane Jacobs and the “Defensible Space” movement. Ever since attending that seminar, I notice the layout of buildings and how they inherently discourage illegitimate behavior – or don’t. The idea of actively or passively monitoring traffic into and out of a property represents one of the most important crime prevention strategies. If no one with a vested interest, say a tenant, owner, or agent of either, can and does observe who enters or leaves a building, that lack of surveillance makes that building inherently less safe than one that does offer such traffic monitoring.
The presence of a parking valet constitutes minimal surveillance. I say “minimal” because observation of people coming and going through the front door does not constitute his primary responsibility, nor does he stay within view of the door. Furthermore, he does not actually work for the building management but for a contract car parking company with multiple locations.
Long before 9/11, crime prevention experts and urban planners became concerned about the tendency for crime to occur in buildings with certain characteristics, namely those with unattended entrances. Surveillance – whether active or passive of access and egress constitutes one of the most basic features of defensible space. Defensible space, whether inside or outside, refers to that where illegitimate users or intruders feel watched. The environmental setting of the place tells visitors implicitly that the legitimate occupants of the space will not tolerate illegitimate or illegal behavior. Illegitimate behavior might consist of littering, graffiti painting, double parking, vandalism, theft, assault, battery, rape, or worse.
Jane Jacobs and her apostles referred to “eyes on the street.” On her legendary Hudson Street, in New York’s SoHo District, these eyes on the street included curious, or even “nosey,” homebodies watching their kids and those of their neighbors from apartments and flats with windows open to the street just above the storefronts. The “eyes” also included small shopkeepers who knew the neighborhood regulars, trustworthy or suspicious, and immediately noticed visitors and strangers who warranted special observation. They could quickly size up strangers and distinguish the harmless from the threatening.
Today’s office buildings, with multiple tenants and attached parking garages, create pedestrian “streets” inside anonymous, sterile corridors. Lacking lobbies with seating, newsstands, snack bars, cafés, etc., many modern office complex occupants never develop a clear distinction between “regulars” and visitors, let alone harmless versus threatening. Heavy-handed zoning restricts not only land use but hours of operation. Both kinds of restrictions create “off hours” during which underutilized spaces become no-man’s lands where victimization can happen with impunity.
Local news routinely includes accounts of rape, robbery, assault, and theft perpetrated in parking garages. The routine nature of these reports makes them predictable at some point. The study of crime prevention through environmental design tells me what might make parking garages inherently unsafe and prone to criminal activity. Framed another way; think how it feels to walk to your car within sight of numerous people in a busy shopping center as opposed to the garage of an office building after hours – alone, abandoned. The lack of witnesses, lack of casual but memorable encounters among routine users of the space, lack of passive or active surveillance, abundance of hiding places and blind corners, and a multitude of legitimate reasons for strangers to frequent the space makes parking garages attached to single-use properties prime locations for criminal mischief as well as violent crime. These exact same features make many modern office buildings ideal locations for criminals to prey on victims. In places where most people arrive and leave at virtually the same time, early birds as well as the stragglers become extremely vulnerable. One can say more-or-less the same thing about single-family, suburban, residential subdivisions that become veritable ghost towns (a burglar’s paradise) when the occupants all go to work at roughly the same time.
In a relatively prosperous economy, with relatively low unemployment, these environmental safety and security infractions might not matter much. However, in a deteriorating economy, with rising unemployment, increasing incidence of untreated mental illness, and increasing desperation among a growing segment of the population, dysfunctional environmental design features will present a growing threat to personal safety as well as social welfare.
Jane Jacobs liked the idea of an all-night pub in her neighborhood because it would draw nearby residents out onto the streets at all hours. The 24-hour neighborhood seemed inherently safer to her than one that goes dormant when the sun goes down. In a city experiencing urban heat island effect and shortages of parking space, it makes sense to allow mixed land uses. Not only do they create 24-hour street surveillance but complementary land uses can share parking. Offices, a market, a restaurant, a theater, a bar, and apartments in close proximity could share parking because they use it at different times of the day and night. Not only will the occupants and customers share parking, they might drive less and walk more, thus allowing more frequent incidental contact among “regulars.”
Austin City Council probably had “defensible space” in mind several years ago when they began encouraging development of street level retail space in the central business district. We still have a long way to go before achieving “great streets,” but we had to start somewhere.
As our buildings get larger and turn inward, we must incorporate the concepts of safe streets into designing interior spaces. Mixed uses of properties within a particular vicinity provide better opportunities for business, opportunities to share parking and other public amenities, and safer, more hospitable public spaces.

“World Leaders” fail to “negotiate” with Mother Nature

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:56:00 +0000

“There is no relief in sight,” the weather man blandly but ominously blurbed today in the Austin American-Statesman. Didn’t we break heat records last year? This tiresome breaking of records wears me out. If we did it again this year it means still higher temperatures or a longer duration. For 22 days already this year Austin reached or exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.77°C). Of those days, eleven set records. Heat advisories continue to discourage outdoor activity. Actually, the National Weather Service did not need to say anything; the heat discouraged activity all by itself.

The numbers do not viscerally convey what we feel. We jokingly [or morbidly] quip about walking around in a sauna, standing in front of an open oven door, the breezes feel like either a giant blow dryer or the engine exhaust of a Metro bus. Plants wilt, grass turns crispy and yellow-brown, trees die, creeks run dry, birds pant, and squirrels lie prone on the ground or on tree limbs – indifferent to the possibility of predation. Cars overheat; bus air conditioning proves inadequate by 5:30 p.m. to cool commuters. Tempers flare. As I walk on scorching pavement, the raspy chorus of cicadas whines its raucous continuo to accompany the hellish misery. Cicada songs perfectly represent the bleak draining away of enthusiasm, initiative, and optimism. They provide the appropriate sound track for sweltering “ozone action days.”

Elsewhere… Illustrious, industrious, and pragmatic “world leaders,” meeting this week in L’Aquila, Italy, in the picturesque Abruzzo region, decided to limit climate change as much as politically possible. Among themselves, amid recent earthquake-damaged antiquities, these illustrious, industrious, and pragmatic “world leaders” negotiated a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, that they would “allow” the average global temperature to increase. Without a ring-side seat, I cannot know if anyone present expressed any hint of irony. They negotiated with each other but they neglected to notice, amid the earthquake-damaged antiquities, that Mother Nature neither negotiates nor recognizes treaties of men.

Presently, at a mere 1-2° Fahrenheit average global temperature increase since the inception of the Industrial Revolution about two centuries ago, we already see dire consequences. The rapid melting of glaciers in South America, Africa, The Philippines, and Central Asia already threatens to deplete fresh water supplies that millions of people have depended on for generations. Arctic sea ice disappearance threatens not only polar bear and walrus existence but survival of indigenous arctic people, to say nothing of the Gulf Stream that keeps Northern Europe habitable.

With scarcely half of the “negotiated” limit to global warming already met, melting arctic permafrost rots anaerobically, creating methane which “burps” up out of the tundra and rapidly evaporating arctic lakes. Methane (CH4) acts even more effectively than carbon dioxide (CO2) in trapping heat and warming the planet. (Elizabeth Kolbert, “Field Notes from a catastrophe”) Already, corals suffer terribly from greenhouse gas emissions. Excessive atmospheric CO2 dissolves in sea water, increasing its acidity. Changes in oceanic pH and temperature kill algae living symbiotically with the coral, which then “bleach” as the corals evict their dead tenants. Because of their symbiotic dependency, the corals die without the algae. Coral reefs nurture many species of fish that millions of equatorial people depend on for sustenance.

When the Austin, Texas meteorologist commiserated, “There is no relief in sight,” he might well have referred to the lack of understanding among the illustrious, industrious, and pragmatic “world leaders” who forgot that Mother Nature does not negotiate with them.

Union Pacific Corridor Houston-Austin Railroad Transport (UP CHART)

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:03:00 +0000

Historic name: Houston and Texas Central Railway
Proposal to Reinstate Train Service Between Houston and Austin, Texas
July 2009

Rising gasoline prices, intolerable traffic, and brutal, suffocating heat, regularly breaking records, tell me we must change something. The economy, energy, and climate will overshadow all else on the national and state agendas for the foreseeable future. State and federal officials will not address local concerns until local jurisdictions unite to express vital needs. Texas needs better train service and local jurisdictions must work together to make it happen. I encourage affected jurisdictions to create a consortium to establish full-service passenger and freight train service in the Houston-Austin corridor.

Fragments of the historic railroad remain. With concerted effort the interested communities can reconnect the pieces. Legislative plans to relocate freight rail out of cities will not serve the economic interests of these communities. Area residents and businesses will need regional train service, using modern technology, to survive the economic transformation now underway.

Traffic and expensive energy threaten very soon to cancel out the convenience of driving one’s personal car or company truck between distant cities. The price of oil will not stay low. Since the 1971 peak of U.S. oil production, our dependence on oil has held us hostage to unreliable suppliers of a fuel that promises to wreck our economy and climate. The imminent peak of world oil production ensures that transportation costs dependent on oil will rise. Rising fuel and vehicle costs restrict travel options for ordinary people and business. Road construction costs exceed state revenues. Cars can run on electric batteries but not as efficiently as trains connected to the grid. Trucks work well for local delivery but not efficiently for long hauls. Expensive air fares make travel less practical for moderate and low-income people. Airlines and package delivery companies struggle to stay solvent. Scientists around the world agree that man-made sources of greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. Texas weather gives us some clues: drought, record heat, warm winters, and catastrophic hurricanes. Who wants to wait for more proof? If Americans continue to import motor fuels and vehicles, the trade deficit and climate will worsen, more Americans will lose jobs, and the economy will further deteriorate. We need not wait passively for that fate. Domestically built trains can run on clean, renewable, domestically generated electricity.

Train and railroad technology have advanced considerably in the 30-60 years since Texas abandoned inter-urban trains and local trolleys. Energy efficiency, passenger comfort, and safety have all improved. The overall safety record of trains far exceeds that of personal vehicles. Railroads use less energy and materials to build and operate than highways and fleets of vehicles. If the economy somehow begins to recover, demand and price of gasoline will rise. Railroad construction can put people to work, reduce our trade deficit, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and help the nation maintain and expand affordable transportation options.

Publicly-owned, electric powered railroads can help Americans maintain mobility at costs affordable to most members of the public. Public ownership can permit access by multiple private freight companies, thus allowing competition. The public authority acquires right-of-way and operates passenger service; licenses, permits, and controls access by service providers. Individual communities would own the stations in their jurisdiction with coordination through the corridor authority.

Travelers with mobility issues include the aged, disabled, and children. They either cannot, should not, or prefer not to drive cars; ride buses, or board aircraft. These populations will grow. Trains provide a more viable travel option for these citizens and tourists. Public passenger rail transit helps to ensure affordable transportation and access to goods and services. Commerce feels the effects when travel restrictions or affordability prevent potential customers or producers from participating in the market – whether small town shops, farmers, and festivals or big city enterprises, tourists, and cultural events.

No public or private transit authority currently exists to administer or plan for a rail line between Austin and Houston. No politician at any level will pick up this torch and run with it unless a conspicuous constituency hands it to them. The communities in the Austin to Houston Corridor must form a coalition to persuade the Legislature, Governor, and Congress to enable the establishment of an inter-urban railway authority to serve them. Our state government will not magically charter this authority on its own volition. A vocal and conspicuous constituency must conceive a coherent vision and demand that the State enable them to make it a reality. Enabling legislation can help enlist public participation in the planning process which will ensure its effectiveness. Interested jurisdictions that organize to influence legislation stand a better chance of getting their needs addressed.

Facing Fear, Reining in the Risk Manager

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:41:00 +0000

Whether it makes one’s hair stand on end, blood run cold, or just tweaks the intuition, it gets our attention. It might paralyze us or goad us into action. Fear, a conditioned response to various environmental cues, serves us in our desire to avoid harm. One school of social psychology personifies this conditioned response as the “risk manager.” We owe our very survival to our internal risk manager. Whether avoiding the wrath of a raging bully, the bite of a mosquito, or the impact of a speeding car, our risk manager takes charge and tells us to get out of the way or assume a defensive posture.

“The Gift of Fear,” a nonfiction self help book (1997) by Gavin de Becker, describes pre-incident indicators (PINS) or behaviors of various nefarious characters who might attempt to harm us. These seem to include a laundry list of confidence games that crooks and deceivers use to take advantage of the unsuspecting. Most of us react defensively to inappropriate familiarity from strangers, but we might not realize what kind of con the stranger might plan to perpetrate.

Everyday life in the school of hard knocks teaches us to detect danger and experience fear in situations that caused harm or withdrew security in the past. Our risk manager naturally catalogues these fears and the circumstances that trigger them. Risk managers and fear monitors may belong to what Michael Dowd calls “our lizard legacy,” (“Thank God for Evolution,” c. 2007). This relatively primitive part of the brain does not talk much or think very deeply or trouble itself with ethics. No, this part of the brain only concerns itself with eating, mating, and surviving. Anything that threatens one of these three things falls under the purview of the risk managing lizard brain.

The risk manager trained in childhood or adolescence but not retrained later tends to think in absolute terms. He lacks nuance and social skills. He can easily become a crippling collection of irrational inhibitions that limit personal development. He can lead us to all manner of self-defeating behaviors. He might keep us from getting fired or assaulted but also from climbing a career ladder or finding a soul mate.

“Facing fear” came up as the topic of discussion in a self-help, mutual support group. Interlocutors focused mainly on matters of trust or faith in a “Higher Power.” They glibly refer to “false events appearing real.” They equate any manifestation of fear as de facto lack of faith and the basis of a character defect. For listeners troubled by talk that sounds even remotely religious, talk of “faith” and a “Higher Power” creates a barrier to interaction and possibly to recovery – whatever that means. Not uncommonly, a charismatic speaker will get the ball rolling in one direction and a majority of the subsequent speakers will follow in that initial vein. In this particular group, the nebulously defined “Higher Power” frequently morphs into “God” and few members will courageously beg to differ.

One speaker identified childhood neglect, or not getting what one considered important for survival, as the root of many adult character defects. For many, identification of “character defects” seems important to their recovery. Some seem to consider character defects as pathological, essential, and permanent. Others can consider them dysfunctional but learned, superficial, and changeable behaviors. Of course, childhood trauma can exert profound influence on adult psychology and behavior. However, with repeated reminders, many of us can learn to change the way we perceive threats, neglect, and unsatisfied want. If we don’t change our perceptions, childhood fears and traumas can become the bases of adult obsessions.

Constructively, rather than considering fear a source of pathological behavior we can identify benefits of fear. Pain and fear can motivate action to bring about beneficial change. Facing fear and walking through it, over-riding the warnings of our risk manager, we can find strength and progress. No victory can happen without confrontation – a test of our mettle. Confrontation does not always involve violence but it usually involves standing one’s ground. A coworker might consciously or unconsciously project a disdainful attitude that evokes dreaded childhood memories of ridicule. By confronting him about his dismissive or belittling gestures I can claim my self respect and perhaps persuade the coworker to modify his behavior in order to improve his communication and effectiveness as a member of the team.

Assuming that an unpleasant experience with a colleague reflects an irrevocable feature of his character and therefore that all future experiences with that colleague will involve unpleasant exchanges represents a phenomenon that I like to call “prisoner of the moment.” Some Attention Deficit Disorder literature mentions “prisoner of the moment” mindset as a feature of ADD. I have come to believe that everyone exhibits ADD behaviors from time to time but some of us suffer more extreme or dysfunctional manifestations of these. Belief that momentary conditions will persist indefinitely suggests some sort of emotional immaturity. Some people overcome this misperception without assistance. People with ADD, or something like it, might require repeated reminders that nothing will last forever and that simply waiting a short while will allow a situation to change in a beneficial direction. They need someone to sit with them through the fear.

Junior high school fears often develop into irrational fears in adulthood. Fear of insufficiency, fear of losing or not finding love, or fear of physical violence can become pathological lack of faith. Repressing the expression and definition of fear leads to paralysis. Support groups work, in part because they enable people to externalize their fears. Verbalizing, writing, or creating art can externalize fear, exposing it to the light of day. Through rational scrutiny, irrational fears become redefined and placed in proper perspective. Externalizing justifiable fears can enable a person to recruit allies. Some might call it “Holy Spirit,” others might call it group process; at any rate, externalizing fears enable us to cope maturely with them. With help, we can subject our fears to rational analysis. We can consider the biases, feelings, and judgments of others. Through this process, we can frame our fears appropriately and functionally.

Our risk manager wants us to maintain tight control over everything. Our rational mind realizes that absolute control cannot exist for long if at all. Sometimes we can accept life on life’s terms, let go and let God, and even turn it over to a Higher Power. Other times, we need trusted friends to talk us down from the ceiling, and maybe even pull our claws out of the sheet rock one at a time.

Peak oil, recession, climate change, and carbon taxes

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Let the markets work to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If we still waste energy and emit too much pollution, then obviously, we don’t pay enough for them. Fred Julander, columnist in the Colorado Statesman, advocates for carbon taxes rather than “cap and trade” systems. The complexity of cap and trade will make it prone to manipulation, fraud, and abuse. The transparency of carbon taxes will make them more difficult to manipulate or evade.

Julander’s thesis seems to agree with that of Thomas Friedman in “Hot, Flat, & Crowded.” Friedman seems to argue that long-standing tax subsidies for fossil fuels and ancillary industries have biased our economy against renewable energy or sustainable lifestyles. Strategic alterations of tax policy can level the playing field, make renewables competitive with fossil fuels, and consequently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Taxes levied against dirty, old, fossil-fuel industries can generate revenues needed to create the transition to a sustainable future. Lester Brown (Plan B 3.0) has argued this before. Even with “relocalization” of economies everywhere (growing your own food, manufacturing your own clothes and tools), the need for transportation will not go away. Electric trains, powered by renewable energy can replace most trips currently powered by liquid fossil fuels.

Activity in the global oil markets over the past few months makes it clear that the Recession will not depress oil and gas prices indefinitely. Climbing out of this Recession will require revolutionary changes in the ways that we all use energy and generate power. Finitude of fossil fuels guarantees that they will become disastrously unaffordable to most people at some point – probably sooner than most people think. The world’s reaction in summer of 2008 to $147 per barrel oil and $4/ gallon gasoline clearly laid bare the folly of widespread dependence on this finite resource.

The Recession-driven collapse of oil prices in the past year undermined support for private sector development of renewable alternatives. It seems obvious that governments must intervene at a high level to keep fossil fuel prices high – probably through the imposition of carbon taxes – in order for renewable energy developers to trust that their investments will bear fruit and remain competitive with fossil fuels.

If we don’t wean ourselves off of finite fossil fuels, we will condemn ourselves to a downwardly spiraling global economy punctuated by devastating recessions and half-hearted “recoveries.” The people must assure the politicians that they will support carbon taxes as a means of generating revenues to subsidize the development of a sustainable economy.

Accommodating our evolutionary heritage in the brave new world

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:40:00 +0000

Cockamamie ideas we think up on our own help to explain why we humans need to live in groups. The myth of rugged individualism and living in isolation belongs on the shelves of fiction. We need constant reminders of our own fallibility and misapprehensions. Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. “They told you that what would cause hair to grow in your palms?!” “No, you cannot dig a hole to China.” “Watermelon seeds will not sprout inside your stomach.” “You won’t learn your multiplication table by osmosis, you must actually study it.” Sorry Virginia,… Kindergarten teachers might have started us out by telling us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, but we go temporarily insane on a regular basis and forget the “golden rule,” the brass rule, the quacks-like-a-duck rule, Murphy’s Law, and most other matters of horse sense. Luckily, not all of us go crazy at the same time. Whether bipolar or simply egomaniacs with inferiority complexes, we need the wisdom and perspective of friends to recognize the reality of difficult situations. We need a little help from our friends. Didn’t Barbra somebody sing a song about people needing people?

“Sustainable” and “green” have fallen into such hackneyed popular usage as to have lost any objective meaning in the common parlance. I feel tempted to call it “dude syndrome” (doesn’t understand double entendres). Thomas Friedman (Hot, Flat, & Crowded) rants at length about the prattle of cynical or simple-minded hucksters who offer “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth.” Screwing in a few compact fluorescents and buying a car that bears a tag on the back end saying “Flex Fuel” will not accomplish anywhere near enough to cope with the global problems we face today. Individual efforts will help – about as much as using a thimble to bail out a flooded New Orleans. To address global problems, we need governments around the world to make concerted efforts and revolutionary changes.

Americans need to see the world through the eyes of the poorest billion people on the planet. What we call “poverty” looks like a comfortable existence to a majority of humanity. Our inherited abundance blinds us. We live in such a culture of entitlement excess that even dedicated conservationists and supporters of such august institutions as Sierra Club fail to recognize the irony in their lives. “Dale and Pat” live here in Austin in a house that includes a wide variety of energy efficiency features – special windows, sophisticated air conditioning systems, lighting, etc. They consider their 4,000 square foot home in a leafy west side suburban neighborhood “modest”. What would they think of a family of 4 living in less than 1,000 square feet? Not to dismiss or in any way diminish the value of the important work that they do on behalf of the environment; Barton Springs, Edwards Aquifer, and all that, but they provide a decent example of the kinds of people who either don’t understand the magnitude of the problems we face or choose to believe that technology will eventually solve all of our problems.

Enormous quantities of materials used to build detached, luxury housing, elaborate infrastructure to serve a low-density suburban subdivision, and the outrageously wasteful automobile-based transportation system required to live in such a “real estate development” renders practically trivial the energy savings obtained by all the expensive, modern, high-efficiency systems and hardware incorporated into the house itself.

“Lester,” a celebrated local example of visionary self-sufficiency, built a mammoth edifice in the picturesque [but semi-arid] hills west of Austin, using all manner of water collection and purification, nutrient recycling, thermal mass architecture, etc., etc. He seemed sincerely to believe that he could grow his own wheat and subsist in his castle on sprouted wheat bread for an indefinite interval. He too failed to see the irony or the implausibility of “surviving the collapse” – whatever that means – in the seclusion of his custom-built home in the caliche hills of Central Texas. If the original settlers of the arid Southwest could not figure out in 10,000 years or so how to eke out a sedentary existence – as opposed to a nomadic or migratory one – what makes anyone today believe that the soil in a few acres of this hard scrabble will support a family today without artificial additives? Let alone imported food.

“Relocalization” makes sense for certain aspects of our lives and diets, as a means to reduce the amount of fuel required to transport food from producers to consumers. Community supported agriculture offers tremendous promise in this respect. However, no individual or even an average-sized family can live “on its own” away from the rest of society. The world as we have structured it simply will not accommodate that option.

Riding the bus to work, cultivating a “water wise” landscape, separating out recyclable materials for collection by the City, drying laundry outside, using compact fluorescent lights and a programmable thermostat in my house, I try to walk the talk. That said, I try not to kid myself that the life I lead can continue unaltered when oil returns to stratospheric prices and the economy really starts to unravel.

Struggling to envision the future, I can imagine a few alternative arrangements that denizens of American city and suburb would not have considered before now [at least not since the Great Depression] but might adopt. Stalwart suburbanites might demolish abandoned ticky-tacky tract houses to make room for crops. Properties developed too close to flood and drainage zones might find productive use as water quality protection zones [instead of homesteads requiring expensive flood insurance], where native plants cover and hold the soil while filtering storm water runoff and mitigating flooding for areas downstream. Some avant-garde households might form cooperative ownership agreements in which several parties would collectively own the property on which their houses previously stood. They replace the dispersed group of ticky-tacky tract houses with a cluster of housing units adjacent to a “common element” which would host a farm that would benefit them all in appropriate measure. [Hmm… didn’t Europeans live this way before the Industrial Revolution?] Whether they call it a commune, village, co-housing, or cluster farm matters not. The inhabitants might form their own home-village school or barter economy. They might form a company that manufactures software or hardware to support a “smart electricity grid.” They might commute to work in the city by electric train. Anyone read “Ecotopia” by Ernest Callenbach (1975!)? Who knows?

We have barely begun to see the kinds of social and economic variations that will transform our nation in the next few decades. Whatever happens, I firmly believe that life in these United States will change profoundly to accommodate the new circumstances. The industrial reactionaries will lose their footing because the conditions that supported their fiefdoms in the past will cease to exist – namely cheap fossil fuels. I don’t pretend to possess all the answers. Anyone who does, I call arrogant, ignorant, or deluded. I predict that these revolutionary changes in response to impending exigencies will not treat kindly either those who cling to the past or those who attempt to isolate themselves from society and live outside anything resembling a community. Our ancestors evolved, survived, and thrived as gregarious animals. We must follow their example.

Green invaders gracefully cloak concrete, reconcile us with Earth

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:16:00 +0000

Pavement smoothes rough surfaces, facilitating passage of wheels and feet. Monstrous machines disgorging mass quantities of wet or sticky aggregations and accretions resist artful control to produce artificial stone. They rambunctiously strive to cover everything possible. They often engulf and entomb more than we would want. Powerless men with powerful machines laminate the soil beneath our feet, separating us from Earth’s mysterious richness.

A modicum of separation from the plethora of nature’s idiosyncrasies imbues us with special privileges and perspectives that enable commerce and contemplation. However, a little privilege whets the appetite for more and more. Privilege easily seduces the reptilian sector of the brain and induces arrogance. Arrogance breeds egomaniacal desire to control the chaos, to fix every perceived problem, to expediently impose order. Each tiny success intoxicates the victor, whose rewards increase his aspirations. Eventually, the fruits of his cleverness curse him with the delusion of omnipotence. He forgets the limits of his powers. Attempting to exceed those limits, he runs afoul of Mother Nature’s laws. Subsequently, She imposes Her order to remind impudent man of his place in the Cosmos.

Transmogrified by delusion and gluttony, ego induces me to place my own interests above others. I forget that members of my gregarious species need company to survive. That which separates me from nature and camaraderie condemns me to hell. I fear and loathe the unwashed and uncivilized hordes. Their odors, appearances, and sounds offend and repel me. I fear the tar pit in which they dwell. A bureaucratic career, private house, and car insulate me from the objects of my disgust. That which facilitates my passage, increases my convenience, and minimizes the likelihood of contacting the baser classes improves the quality of my life and my satisfaction from it. Maximum pavement minimizes chaos, subjugates the forces that might complicate my life, and ensures my security.

Alas, pavement cracks. Dominance of personal transportation insulates the affluent and isolates those who lack threshold access to resources and ability to afford cars, trucks, fuel, and all the other appurtenances necessary to make the system work for them. Individual ownership of such a crucial component of such an integral feature of civilization as the transportation network ensures emergence of pathological competition. Those who cannot gain access to the system by socially acceptable means will discover others. Clever people deprived of privileges clearly available to others will find alternative ways to get what they need or want to survive or enjoy themselves.

Deviant behavior might mean weird, annoying, or even dangerous actions. Those who control social institutions often define acceptable behavior, often to support extant social structures. Those not rewarded by the social structure possess no vested interest in supporting it. Seeking satisfaction, they become de facto deviants. When their numbers reach a certain threshold, they undermine the social structure. Vast inequality begets vast unhappiness which begets revolutionary rage.

The privilege of convenience instills a sense of entitlement and normalcy. Who gives a second thought to driving a few miles for whatever reason? Busy people mindlessly adhere to obsolete traditions as long as they appear to work for them. When traffic overloads the freeway, we of course widen the freeway. If the system works at all – even awkwardly, at least for everyone we know – no one wants to bear the burden of instigating change. The illusion of functionality hypnotizes us. No one knows exactly where a given gallon of petrol came from or which dictator reaped a profit from it. We become blind or inured to global forces, effects, and phenomena. We assume that the air and water will replenish themselves; that petrodictatorships will not affect us here, and that global warming exists only in the minds of environmental nut cases. Paradoxically, we believe that we can do whatever we want and not suffer consequences because we cannot believe that the byproducts and blithe choices of humanity could possibly render the Earth uninhabitable to us. Can we fathom an alternative future?

Rebellion looks like what? Rip out gratuitous, invasive, and oppressive pavement. Triangles, trapezoids, and ellipses collect trash, trapped gravel, and ineluctable detritus of tire traffic turning and tossing tumultuously. Under foot, stiletto, and tread, impervious artificial stone sneers at pedestrians through blackened plasticized mastications and eructations that festoon these paths of heartless dread. Tar and nicotine laced detritus betray the purgatory where everyone smokes. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen hypoxide, formaldehyde, benzaldehyde, benzene, butane, and hydrocarbons,… ahhh… Breathe deeply the devil’s poison perfume. Pavement absorbs not, forgives not, provides only temporarily a smooth surface demanding constant maintenance and accommodation. The progress of pavement demands tribute in blood and treasure. Utilitarian, joyless, a necessary evil in this civilization we’ve built; pavement functions ideally when lifeless and sterile.

Abandon illusions of power that we cannot wield. Invite higher powers to heal the blight of synthetic stone plague! Banish to hell the damning carapace of our own misplaced contrivance. In its place, welcome Flora’s abundance, plant pleasant trees, and welcome wild creatures – singing birds, buzzing insects, slithering reptiles, and crafty mammals – the terrestrial ecosystemic symphony. Sheltering shrubberies and fortifying forbs will remind all urban denizens what natural life should resemble at this latitude.

Urgency’s cosmic hourglass admonishes haste. Relentless solar swelter bakes pavement and reradiates infra-red waves lapping the shores of our urban heat island. Giga-joules of juice we combust internally to perpetuate condemning sterility of the paved metropolis. Hectares of aggregated concrete, re-bar, caliche bedding, and black-topped asphalt imperviously cover the soil to control powers greater than ourselves – biology, geology, and hydrology. Thoroughly constricted, channeled, and repelled, rain runoff rushes away so rapidly that it no longer pauses to refresh life or percolate into subterranean aquifers. Soft rains transformed by pavement into brutal flash floods require marshal law detention “ponds” to mitigate their malice. Barren basins, sterilized by powerless men wielding powerful tools, lend the illusion of domination to precarious existence.

Frenetically we strive to stay in the privileged classes, enjoying modern conveniences and “security.” One faux pas sends one stumbling out of favor with the powerful economic arbiters. Earnestly seeking work, we “pound the pavement.” Such pounding exerts little discernable effect on concrete or granite block but distressingly alters the peregrinating pedestrian. Perhaps the pavement pounds the employment pilgrim into oblivion. The bludgeoned yet earnest seeker sees not that which compromises the concrete.

Intrepid seeds under earnest feet investigate and test every crack and seam where a thimbleful of soil might accumulate from motes of dust carried by wind or water. Even high above the nurturing ground, on freeway flyovers, grass seeds sprout in desolate landscapes of petrified Portland and rapidly rotating vulcanized and carbon blacked rubber treads. Rooster tails from vehicular wheels resuspend roadway moisture to irritate fun-loving speeders and irrigate sun-loving seeders. Lumbering maintenance lorries excoriate pounded pavement to discourage recalcitrant renegades bent on restoring vestigial vegetation to the faux stone wasteland. Spinning brushes whoosh and scrape and vacuum and blow grit and dust and detritus every which way.

Tornadoes churned by machinery disrupt life, relocate soil, rip ecosystems asunder. We render mountains from molehills and make the rough places plain with our contraptions and connivances. We seek out places of extraordinary natural beauty and proceed to despoil them. Constructing suburban subdivisions, we cut down the trees and name the streets after them. Build a charming cottage or several beside a picturesque creek. Then remove the trees, cattails, and other riparian flora to ward off snakes and other wild beasts. The surfeit of streets, cottages, driveways, patios, and parking lots destroys the land’s natural ability to absorb storm water flows. Subsequently, we excavate and culvertize with reinforced concrete the erstwhile picturesque creek so that flood waters go elsewhere – we question not. We defile the soul of the land. What of our own?

Professionals parsing “permanent” pavement costs probably neglect the terrible price we pay in separating ourselves from nature’s beauty. Tenacious seedlings sprouting between edifice and alleyway attest to the boundless persistence of life and whisper of the glory that once existed. We disdainfully condemn the upstart sproutlings as “weeds” in a manner of punishing them for popping up where we did not authorize them. Who bothers to consider the reverse?

Despite our ignominious efforts to banish these impetuous green invaders, they quietly go about their quotidian tasks – cleansing our wastes, softening hard edges, mitigating sun’s heat and wind’s bluster, producing and purifying air for us to breathe. Plants return our grief with grace. They suffer malign abuse with divine equanimity and perseverance.

GM Trains can mitigate global crises

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:56:00 +0000

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.

Serenely seeking antidote for resentment

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:39:00 +0000

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.

Transportation modes and consequences

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:26:00 +0000

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.

Stewardship arises from wasteful absurdity if we so desire

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:42:00 +0000

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?

Leaf blowers: perfect delivery systems for airborne pathogens

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Good reasons to ban “leaf blowing” machines keep piling up in my head. Swine-bird flu in the news this week sensitizes everyone to air-borne pathogens. Austin residents stay constantly aware of air-borne allergens – pollen, mold, dust mite excrement, what have you. Some yeas ago, hantavirus outbreaks sensitized Americans of the semi-arid Southwest to the dangers of inhaling dust that contains traces of mouse feces. Many got sick; several people died. People with compromised immune systems (AIDS) find out about the dangers of toxoplasmosis (transmitted via cat feces) in the most gruesome ways. Thanks to a population of feral cats in the city, landscape dust contains this pathogen.

All sorts of potential disease vectors reside in soil and dust. Indeed, soil could not provide all the benefits to life if it did not contain a multitude of things that we should not inhale. That said, it seems insane to intentionally stir them up and blow them around where we can breathe them in.

Takoma Park, Maryland, as recently as January 2009, began discussing a ban. “Takoma Park residents presented a letter to Mayor Williams requesting … ‘city action to phase out the use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers in Takoma Park.’ The letter states that harmful emissions, energy inefficiency, and noise results from the use of the leaf blowers.” Council work session documentation enumerates municipalities that have already enacted bans on “leaf blowers:” Berkeley and Palo Alto in California; Township of Montclair, New Jersey; and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Leaf blowers,” or as I prefer to call them – dust cannons, when new and operating according to manufacturer’s specifications emit ear splitting noise, noxious pollution, and dust that we would never tolerate from any motorized vehicle on our city streets. Inefficient, unsophisticated motors that power the dust blowing machines, in addition to disseminating biological agents of disease, contribute to our ground-level ozone pollution problem.

Blowers emit copious quantities of unburned hydrocarbons (aka: volatile organic compounds or “VOCs”). When VOCs meet other combustion by-products (e.g.: NOx, SOx) in the presence of sunlight, they produce photochemical smog. Smog contains a large component of ozone. This form of oxygen, when suspended in the stratosphere, protects us from damaging ultraviolet light. However, near the ground, ozone causes serious lung damage when inhaled. Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety gives an alarming summary of the health threats.

Ozone pollution in the air we breathe seems a particularly dangerous companion to airborne toxins and pathogens contained in dust. Even in small quantities, inhaled ozone increases our bodies’ adverse reactions to everything else in the air. Leaf blowers seem perfectly designed to deliver allergens and pathogens to our respiratory systems – in the most irritating and destructive manner possible.
When someone becomes contagious with the flu, we admonish them to stay home so as to avoid transmitting the disease by sneezing or coughing germs into the air that we all breathe. Why in the world do we allow people to intentionally use power tools to blast dust into the air and emit chemicals that make our lungs even more vulnerable to the pathogens residing in the dust? Landscape blowers represent a clear and present danger. We must ban them for the sake of public health and safety.

Big retail versus big real estate and a choice between decay or renaissance

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:00:00 +0000

One more time, the Austin American-Statesman reported yet another casualty of the post peak oil crisis without recognizing it as such. Nor did the Statesman or the parties involved recognize the opportunities for urban renaissance inherent in the local manifestation of the global economic crisis.

Suburban shopping mall developers finally receive their comeuppance. Simon Property Group, Inc., a principal owner-operator of Highland Mall in Austin, Texas, finds itself the subject of a lawsuit brought by a major tenant (Dillard’s Department Store) distressed by the decay ensuing around it. Simon trades on the S&P 500 as “the largest public U.S. real estate company,” (according to its web site http://www.simon.com/About_Simon/ ). Simon presides over interests in 386 properties comprising 263 million square feet of gross leasable area (GLA) in North America, Europe, and Asia from its headquarters in Indianapolis.

Simon owns 33 properties in Texas and six in Austin. The 13 properties within 100 miles of Austin include: Arboretum at Great Hills, Barton Creek Square, Gateway Shopping Center, Highland Mall, The Domain, The Shops at Arbor Walk, Lakeline Plaza, Lakeline Mall, Round Rock Premium Outlets, Wolf Ranch Town Center, Rolling Oaks Mall, Ingram Plaza, and Ingram Park Mall.

Simon describes itself as “a fully integrated real estate company.” What Simon says might make sense to a shopping center developer with an MBA, referring to “vertically integrated management structure.” However, it rings hollow to an urban planner who looks at land use and community zoning. Simon properties rarely ever contain any other land use besides retail. Practically no customer can walk there from their home or office. Good luck arriving by bus.

In the U.S., Simon’s 246 million square feet (GLA) earned tenants an estimated $62 billion in total retail sales in 2008. Regional malls (like Austin’s enclosed Highland Mall) together represent 64.5% of Simon’s U.S. portfolio, as of 12/31/08. Although Simon claimed a lease occupancy rate of 92.4% for its U.S. properties, a lawsuit brought by Dillard’s department store complains that Highland Mall suffers from a roughly 50% vacancy rate. Simon owns only 50% of Highland, which officially enjoys an occupancy rate of 60.5%, according to its own reporting. Simon owns 100% of Barton Creek Square (97.7% occupied) and 100% of Round Rock Premium Outlets (100% occupied). Dillard’s alleges, in court documents (Dillard Texas, LLC and The Higbee Company v. Highland Mall limited partnership, U.S. District Court, Austin, 3/27/09) that the mall partnership’s neglect of the property brought about deterioration and loss of tenants in the property. Clearly, neither party acknowledges the global situations affecting them both.

Court documents outline a saga of successive ownerships, changes of store names, and economic transitions. The mall, built in the late 1960’s, opened in the early 1970’s; at the height of U.S. oil production and price hegemony – the “oil peak.” Cheap gasoline at that time enabled nation-wide aggressive suburban sprawl. Hardly anyone cared how much gasoline they consumed driving all over the urban area. Big department stores like Scarbrough (one of Dillard’s predecessors) moved out of downtown Austin to cater to suburban subdivision dwellers.

The concrete and paint had hardly dried on Highland Mall when petroleum production in the United States began to decline and imports began to increase. Gasoline prices rose accordingly. The Arab Oil Embargo occurred in 1973-74 and Americans suddenly became aware of our vulnerability to energy shocks resulting from foreign manipulation of the market. We had long since become inured to domestic market manipulation.

Since 1974, a major recession, an oil glut, plummeting investment in energy development, resurgent energy demand, an historic price spike, another major economic recession, and epidemic denial have left the U.S. no better prepared to cope with an energy transition than we found ourselves in 1974. The economic system that created isolated single-use urban zones called “shopping malls” assumes and requires cheap motor fuels and widespread automobile ownership, to say nothing of a transportation system that focuses on moving cars rather than facilitating mobility choices for people.

Highland and other malls could salvage their future and that of their surrounding communities if they transform themselves through transit-oriented development (TOD). Highland could even capitalize on its proximity to the new CAPMETRO commuter rail line just across Airport Boulevard.

The owners and managers of Austin’s Highland Mall do not need to reinvent reinvention. Chattanooga, Tennessee already provides an excellent example of how to do it. Congress for the New Urbanism featured the redevelopment of Chattanooga’s Eastgate Mall. Redevelopment began in 1997 with a nearly empty shopping center. A visionary group reintegrated the retail-only zone into the urban street grid. The shopping center no longer faces inward to private space but outward to public space. By 2001, occupancy rate returned to 90%.

We must all recognize that we cannot return to business as it existed prior to 1970. Prosperity will not return if we expect to power our economy on cheap fossil fuels. We must adapt our existing urban areas to cope with the new energy and economic realities. The Galleria in Houston offers a near example of the direction we might want to go. It provides almost all the pieces for mixed-use development except for the rail transportation link and mixed-income housing options. The Galleria contains shopping, office space, hotels, residential properties, and a variety of services catering to local and international clientele. The Galleria might yet succumb to its own success. The traffic around the Galleria remains virtually gridlocked for hours practically every day. Adding light rail lines to connect the Galleria to other urban villages and activity centers around the metropolitan area would help mitigate traffic problems and ensure mobility for merchants and customers.

Although Austin and Houston lack the population density of European cities that use efficient electric mass transit, both cities would redevelop themselves and cluster population and activity around transit nodes as they came on line. This has already begun in Dallas with the DART Rail system. Examples abound of ways to cope with the unfolding crisis. We need only adjust the way we view the world around us.

Gas hogs – no! Trains – yes! Make real revolution with GM bailout

noreply@blogger.com (chimera) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:37:00 +0000

General Motors wants a bailout from American tax payers. After losing 53% in sales over the past year, GM obviously needs to reconsider its product line. We all need to consider today’s $2/gallon gasoline a very temporary situation. It will rise again.

Tom Whipple (“The Peak Oil Crisis: Seize the Moment,” Falls Church News-Press, Energy Bulletin, 4/2/09) recommends one strategy for GM’s bailout by the federal government. Among President Obama’s stipulations for the big automobile manufacturer, Whipple wants a requirement for very high-mileage cars. Whipple wants to see 100mpg cars getting ready for the post-petroleum era. I want to see more alternatives to cars.

I partially agree with Whipple. The U.S. government should not subsidize GM while it continues to produce low-mileage gasoline and diesel cars and trucks. In my opinion, GM should cut back on cars or stop altogether, at least for a while.

Instead of manufacturing personal cars and trucks, GM should build electric locomotives and other rail rolling stock. The U.S. government should take a hint from the Chinese. They have chosen to invest in infrastructure that reduces automobile dependence. According to Keith Bradsher (“China’s Route Forward,”NY Times, 1/22/09), “A $17.6 billion passenger rail line across the deserts of northwest China, a $22 billion web of freight rail lines in Shanxi province in north-central China and a $24 billion high-speed passenger rail line from Beijing to Guangzhou here in southeastern China are among the biggest projects. But extra spending is being planned in practically every town, city and county across the country.”

Rebuilding, restoring, and expanding the American network of electric trains would give GM something socially redeeming to do for the nation and the planet. At the same time, GM could build wind turbines, tidal turbines, and geothermal turbines to generate the electricity necessary to power the expanded rail network – without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. economic stimulus packages of 2009 would indeed waste precious national resources if we try to use them to do more of what we did to get us into this predicament. Fossil fuel consumption and prices act like a ratchet in this economic recession. Oil prices go up, consumption goes down, energy prices and profits go down, energy investment goes down, consumption goes up, supply goes down, prices go up… the cycle repeats itself again and again.

The future of this nation depends on finding ways to maintain mobility and access to transportation without burning fossil fuels. Electric trains move a lot of passengers and cargo in other countries; they can do it here as well.

Consumption Sector	1990	2008
Residential	4.5	4.86 (relatively stable, rising)
Commercial	2.99	3.1 (growing slightly)
Industrial	8.3	6.6 (declining markedly)
Vehicle fuel	0.009	0.030 (negligible, but growing)
Electric power	4.6	6.66 (growing markedly)
All consumers	20.4	21.3 (relatively stable, rising)