[lbo-talk] Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Sun May 7 21:36:43 PDT 2006


All I can do is again recommend a deep reading of the research of the IPCC. I think you'll find it hundreds of times more depressing than you imagine. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than a shift to trains. I consider myself a rather pessimistic person where the future is concerned so I think the future of the poor is pretty much guaranteed to suck far more than it does today.

Unless the developed nations drastically cut back, more than trains, or hybrids, or better insulating dwellings and businesses, I mean really cut back and actually reduce the standard of living for the top 25%, the lot of the poor is guaranteed to get much worse. You can either work to increase the living standards of the poor worldwide or you can work towards US lifestyles improving or even stagnating but you cannot work for both. It is a physically impossibility to have both. Unless you're a Star Trek fan and so believe some great technologies are going to come along and save us.

I recommend a good bottle of Brazilian Rum to go with those IPCC working group papers.

John Thornton

On 7 May 2006 at 19:35, Gar Lipow wrote:


> I think we agree. If you mean that poor people have to stay in
> peasant huts and properous workers and the middle classes have to move
> into peasant huts .. but you've never given any indication of
> thinking that way. I suspect you mean that U.S. can't drive giant
> pensis instead taking trains indefinitely and that the rest of the
> world can't afford to adapt them - which is true. But as you know
> from Manhattan, a decent public transit system that gets you where you
> want to go as quickly as an automobile is as attractive a technology
> as an automobile.
>
> Actually some of the train systems I favor look more like dicklike
> than cars do.I suppose painting them some shade of flesh color would
> be too obvious; but possibly a good marketer could do something with
> the fact that they are bigger than automobiles/SUVS and can keep
> thrusting tirelessly forward longer.



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