<p>I really like the robotics for disabled people. Something that can be done with enough money in the next 10 years or so.</p>
<p>Amazing architecture…</p>
<p>[Inhabitat</a> » Architecture](<a href=“http://www.inhabitat.com/category/architecture/]Inhabitat”>Architecture)</p>
<p>
It’s always interesting hearing from people who are so brainwashed about “the enemy” that they can create a boogeymen out of them. So, Barrons, it was “the enviros” who trucked all the electric cars out into the desert and crushed them, eh?</p>
<p>
Actually, its a significant environmental benefit (“triumph” may be an overstatement.) There was a rigorous study in Great Britain comparing both fuel consumption and pollution from grid-charged, battery powered electric vehicles with the consumption and pollution from high efficiency gas and diesel powered vehicles, on a complete “energy source to miles on the road” basis. Battery powered vehicles won by a wide margin. The efficiency and pollution control of stationary power plants - even coal fired ones - is so much better than that of small in-vehicle engines that even taking into account the power loss of transmission lines, battery charging inefficiency, etc. the battery powered vehicles consume and pollute less per mile.</p>
<p>Obviously, to the extent that photovoltaic, wind, hydro, etc. power sources are included in the grid mix the gap between battery powered and gas or diesel cars just gets wider.</p>
<p>What does the electric car have to do with my point? My main point was that many enviromental activists are opposed to roads themselves. Their priority is forcing people into public transit and to the extent possible removing public roads from the mix.</p>
<p>Please cite sources.
I didn’t see the word “many” in there anywhere, and I did see you referring to cars, not to roads. Also, could you define “enviros” and “many” in your current context, please? Thanks.</p>
<p>Actually, Barrons, the issue isn’t so much with those you refer to as “the enviros” as it is city planners. Starting in the 1950’s building and zoning codes came into vogue which encouraged development which pretty much made it impossible to live a normal life without driving your car everywhere. I don’t know about you, but for most most people in my community running out for a loaf of bread would become an all-day task if they didn’t use a car. There are a lot of negative consequences of that planning - not just pollution, but obesity for people whose only opportunity for exercise is in a gym, added flood risk from rain runoff from acres of paved surfaces which can’t absorb the water, and a host of other ills. So it’s not so much that city planners these days are trying to make it impossible to use a car as we’re trying to make it possible to not use one. That requires the creation of safe places to walk or bike, not putting all the markets and commercial areas miles away in highway-front strip malls, and ensuring safe and reliable public transportation, among other planning changes.</p>
<p>We’re actually trying to give people more freedom than they have now. And of course we’re getting smeared by the usual sources of right wing distortion for doing so.</p>
<p>kluge: Yes, there’s benefits, but that’s why I said it wasn’t exactly an environmental triumph - because it isn’t. Not until the electricity being used is itself clean. Not denying there’s benefits, though, because there certainly are.</p>
<p>Here’s a start with some refs. As I mentioned there have been many writings by environmentalists blaming the I system for a host of things.</p>
<p>[The</a> Impact of the American Interstate Highway System](<a href=“http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/wjohnso2/essay3.htm]The”>http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/wjohnso2/essay3.htm)</p>
<p>Also I live is Seattle where every whiff of road expansion is met with a large loud anti-movement despite the fact that our roads were built for a city half this size. A recent proposal that included road and transit improvments was resoundingly defeated with the enviros opposing it due to the inclusion of some roads.</p>
<p>[Politics</a> | Huge roads-transit plan gets trounced | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003998763_elexroadsandtransit07m.html]Politics”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003998763_elexroadsandtransit07m.html)</p>
<p>BARRONS</p>
<p>I’m a total tree-hugger and would welcome the things you say I’d reject.</p>
<p>Barrons - did you bother to read the articles you linked to? The first is a brief, nonargumentative discussion of the impacts of the interstate highway system; the other was aptly summed up with: “People like roads, people like transit, people don’t like taxes.” Nothing in either one about “enviros” hating anything.</p>
<p>If you read some of the links from the highway article and noted the Sierra Club celebration you might have gotten more out of it. I thought the enviro condemnation of the Interstate system and any new road project were pretty common knowledge–guess not. You have your view of the vote and reasons behind it and I have mine. Of course the article does not explore all the reasons in detail.
Are all enviros so anti-car/highway, no but a vocal and powerful minority is and with court cases and other obstructionist tactics they can control the issue for decades. I hear from them every time the topic is raised here.</p>
<p>[People’s</a> Waterfront Coalition](<a href=“http://www.peopleswaterfront.org/transportation_principles.html]People’s”>http://www.peopleswaterfront.org/transportation_principles.html)</p>
<p>[Carless</a> in Seattle: Prop 1](<a href=“http://blog.carlessinseattle.us/prop_1/index.html]Carless”>http://blog.carlessinseattle.us/prop_1/index.html)</p>
<p>Barrons, I do not know where in Seattle you are, but the Prop 1 was too light on road improvements in my neck of the woods and too heavy on the light rail spending (not the actual rail). I love the rail idea, but how are you going to get to it and where are you going to leave your Prius or Vespa while the choo-choo train is taking you downtown? It’s not like everyone in my area would have a train station in their backyard… It was a bad plan put together by the folks who are still building the light rail to SeaTac, so it was not welcome by “enviros” and asphalt fans alike.
We do not solve the trafic problems here in Seattle, we study them 
until we run out of money.</p>
<p>Solar is coming in a big way.</p>
<p>[PopSci’s</a> Best of What’s New 2007](<a href=“http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html]PopSci’s”>http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html)</p>
<p>“Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. Thats the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power thats ubiquitous because its cheap. The basic technology has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valleybased Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality.”</p>
<p>I live wayout in Snoqualmie aka god’s country and commute downtown via carpool every day. Did the bus for a few months but it toll twice as long. Trains require large parking areas as they have in Chicago burbs. Works well there. People buy homes by access to the train.</p>