<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2769" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Doug writes:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>"Well of course. This [my argument that we are substantially dependent on motorisation] </FONT></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>is hardly news to anyone, even the most avid <BR>car-hater. But that's not to address the point whether being so <BR>car-centered makes for a good society, or is ecologically <BR>sustainable."</FONT></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>These are just idle speculations, it seems to me. </DIV> <DIV>If you really think that the car is a problem, then the obligation is on you to propose how we might live without it.</DIV> <DIV>And to address that challenge seriously, you need to explain how the distribution of food, goods, labour, leisure could be achieved without motorisation.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The daily reproduction of the American (as the European) population relies upon motorisation.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Take the car away, and sentence your fellow citizens to slow starvation, within the year.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Saying get the train, or cycle (speaking as a London cyclist of 20 years) simply makes no sense.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>On British statistics, around 85 per cent of all journeys are by car. Around ten per cent by train.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>For the train network to reduce car journeys by one seventh, it would have to double in capacity.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>To halve car journeys, it would have to multiply five times.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Seriously, who thinks that is going to happen? Even after a soicalist revolution.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Or is it enough just to say things that mean nothing.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR>"Moore's position on the evacuation of New Orleans is demented. The <BR>major reason the city couldn't be evacuated quickly is that the plan, <BR>such as it was, was so auto-centric. A more collective system would <BR>have gotten more people out more quickly."</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It seems to me that a lot of New Orleanites owe their lives to their cars.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm not sure what you mean by a "collective system".</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My youthful experience of 'collectivism' taught me that a system that imposes planning irrespective of the opinions of its individual citizens rarely achieves results.</FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> <DIV><BR>"I will concede he has a point on the car = individualistic and public <BR>transit = collectivist argument. So you've completely gone over to <BR>the individualist/libertarian view of things, James?"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>