"Well of course. This [my argument that we are substantially dependent on motorisation] is hardly news to anyone, even the most avid car-hater. But that's not to address the point whether being so car-centered makes for a good society, or is ecologically sustainable."
These are just idle speculations, it seems to me. If you really think that the car is a problem, then the obligation is on you to propose how we might live without it. And to address that challenge seriously, you need to explain how the distribution of food, goods, labour, leisure could be achieved without motorisation.
None of the projections for climate change indicate anything like the accelerated risk to human life that the abolition of the car (and I appreciate that is putting words in your mouth) would entail. The daily reproduction of the American (as the European) population relies upon motorisation. Take the car away, and sentence your fellow citizens to slow starvation, within the year.
No solution to the problem of CO2 emissions that fails to substitute an equivalent to gasoline-powered engines would meet the demands of developed societies.
Saying get the train, or cycle (speaking as a London cyclist of 20 years) simply makes no sense. On British statistics, around 85 per cent of all journeys are by car. Around ten per cent by train. For the train network to reduce car journeys by one seventh, it would have to double in capacity. To halve car journeys, it would have to multiply five times. Seriously, who thinks that is going to happen? Even after a soicalist revolution. Or is it enough just to say things that mean nothing.
"Moore's position on the evacuation of New Orleans is demented. The major reason the city couldn't be evacuated quickly is that the plan, such as it was, was so auto-centric. A more collective system would have gotten more people out more quickly."
It seems to me that a lot of New Orleanites owe their lives to their cars. I'm not sure what you mean by a "collective system". If you mean Soviet Communism, or even West European Socialism, all I can say is that they too demonstrated a callous disregard of human life. My youthful experience of 'collectivism' taught me that a system that imposes planning irrespective of the opinions of its individual citizens rarely achieves results.
"I will concede he has a point on the car = individualistic and public transit = collectivist argument. So you've completely gone over to the individualist/libertarian view of things, James?"
Engels mocked those German socialists who thought that public ownership was socialism, saying that they must think that the Prussian Government's tobacco factories were the workers' republic.
Public transit is not socialism, whether it is the London Underground or the train to Auschwitz. Will there be cars under communism. I suspect so. But in any event, a social system that refuses to engage the individual voluntarism of the mass of its citizens will end in barbarism. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20051116/b5f1cbe5/attachment.htm>