On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 03:19:46PM -0700, John Costello wrote:
> On 11/14/05, Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
> > ivan illich once wrote [echoing Thoreau on Trains] that the average velocity of a car was
> > slower than walking when one took into account the time spent earning the money for the
> > car, caring for it, parking it ....
>
> Average over what time-scale? Having a car allows you to shift all
> that time spent to periods when it's more convenient for you. If I
> want to get from Tucson to Globe, I would rather be able to do that in
> 3 hours and spend time at work earning the money to pay for the car,
> than having to do it in the 25 hours it would take me to walk the
> distance.
>
> There's a similar calculus involved in hybrid or battery-powered
> vehicles. It may be true that there's no net pollution gain from
> battery-powered cars. But over small enough space scales, they can
> make a huge difference. Los Angeles would breathe a lot easier, yes,
> at the expense of having to figure out what to do with all those
> batteries. Didn't we have a discussion here about whether or not the
> third world is vastly underpolluted? :-7
>
> --
> John S Costello
> joxn.costello at gmail.com
> "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age
> of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
> -- Adam Smith
>
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu