Global Warming

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema crdbronx at erols.com
Fri Apr 6 06:32:22 PDT 2001


And does this constitute a reduction, or an improvement in the living standard?

Patrick Ellis wrote:


> James Heartfield wrote:
>
> - Less use of personal vehicles by more short-distance walking and greater
> use of public transit (funded & made more attractive by a gradual rise to
> European-level fuel prices?)
>
> - Use of rail for long-distance freight transport instead of trucks (move
> much of the highway subsidies back into the railroads, although I'm only
> guessing this would make a significant emissions difference)

To me the gain in sociability from use in public transport is clear. I ride the New York City Transit Authority daily. Somebody else is driving, I can relax, read, think, space out. I can't do that if I drive. Moreover this contributes to a more compact urban environment with concurrent gains in sociability through use of apartment buildings, (more energy-efficient than houses), on a smaller area, with less land paved over and correspondingly more land available for plant life to counteract global warming. I could go on.

Car-hating is a progressive political emotion. We ought to promote it. I also own one, but I still hate it.

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema



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