My Personal Rapid Transit 

If I was to be granted the scepter for a day I would brandish it high above my head and command that the privilege of driving is taken away from all mankind. You ask, what does this mad man think? What folly is this? But wait you must hear me out for what I command is based in reality and could be our salvation on many fronts.
First of all, think about the horrors of driving, massive traffic jams that infuriate millions during the morning and afternoon crush, drunk drivers killing thousands every year, aggressive drivers who cause accidents, create tension and havoc on the roads.
Then there are those who talk on cell phones, brush their hair, read, look at the scenery while driving with their knees who inevitably get into an accident maybe killing themselves or someone you love. There is the horrific air pollution that kills us through cancer, asthma and emphysema.
Fine, you say, get to the point! Well here it is. Think of the Rover on Mars. You know that little vehicle that roamed around taking pictures of the Red Planet. That vehicle is millions of miles from earth and earthlings sitting in a control room in Houston drive it.
Right now, as you read this, American, Japanese and German planners, engineers and transit experts are developing exactly what I am musing about. Highways that control cars. Roads with electronic seems embedded in them that send signals to the car and tell it where to go. This is not "Future World"” it is being developed today.
Think about this scenario for a minute. It's 7:30 A.M. and you head for your garage. You get in your Chevy, BMW or Toyota and your voice activated control console asks you for your destination. You respond by telling the car you are going to work. It already knows where your job is located and your route is automatically programmed. The console tells you that there is moderate traffic today and your 60-mile trip down Interstate 15 will take approximately 32 minutes.
Because cars are electronically controlled they can travel with literally no space in between them allowing for roads to handle far greater capacity.
You drive through your neighborhood manually and then you reach the first electronic grid on a major thoroughfare that takes control of your car and whisks you down to the Interstate and on to your exit where you again resume manual control of the car as you near your job.
Now think about how you might use this downtime? Your car could be a mobile office equipped with a computer, fax, phone and printer. You could spend that drive time working or on some creative endeavor. You could watch TV, listen to music, read the paper or sleep. If you were really lucky you would be traveling with your significant other and perhaps you'd get lucky. You could black out your windows and have a romantic interlude. Now, I think you are becoming rather enamored with my scheme.
Again, this is not some half-baked idea. Check out the Wall Street Journal, July 25th 1997. A car dubbed the Navlab is described as a robot vehicle with about $25,000 dollars in extra equipment and some sophisticated software designed by scientists at the Carnegie-Mellon University.
These cars will join busses and trucks in a test to see how traffic can be controlled on a 7.6-mile futuristic freeway.
GM, Toyota and Honda, you are aware of those names, are part of a transportation consortium with 160-million in federal bucks to develop this system.
What we are talking about are cars that see the road, analyze obstacles and are controlled by a computer. A Navlab vehicle has actually driven 122 miles without human intervention.
Well, lets assume the system works and we can build it. Cars truly could travel at speeds up to 90 miles per hour and literally be ten feet apart, quadrupling the amount of vehicles we could have on the road. Not that we want more cars on the road but it is inevitable that more will come now isn'’t it? So, I command that our Federal Government decree that all major roads be retrofitted with electronic sensing devices and that all future new cars be equipped with navigation systems, electronic brains and robotic cameras. Any foreign carmaker that wants into America must adhere to our standards. Think about it. It would be so wonderful to get into the car and to know exactly how long your trip is going to take. There are not going to be any accidents to slow you down and you a’re going to be able to enjoy the drive in ways you only dreamed of.
Now what about pleasure driving? I will set aside pleasure zones where one can actually steer, brake and accelerate. It will be a trip designed for nostalgia. But only those with excellent driving records will be allowed to enter the zone.
Your car will have a brain connected to a Vehicle Data System and if it thinks you’re a risk, well you just won‘t have the privilege of driving now will you.
I know an electronic road system and will be costly and will take time to build out but the benefits are immeasurable. Can you imagine not having the angst of being late or missing that plane? Not to cringe behind a sea of brake lights. Not to have some moron cut you off. To be on time for your son or daughters piano recital. To actually have traffic moving in an orderly, cohesive manner. To relax while commuting in total safety and comfort. This would truly be the fruition of a dream, the PRT, personal rapid transit. And having a system to black out your windows would be optional!

The Bush Legacy

He doesn't realize it yet, but President George Bush will go down in history as having the worst environmental record of any President whoever sat in the oval office.
As the polar ice caps melt atop both the Arctic and in Antarctica, Mr. Bush turns a blind eye to the near unanimous scientific conclusion that human consumption of fossil fuels is damaging the atmosphere and our fragile planet is in peril.
Whether it be opposing the Kyoto Protocols, which calls on all nations to reduce greenhouse gases, allowing mega wealthy utilities to continue pouring poison into the atmosphere, allowing automakers to manufacture gas guzzling monstrosities like the Hummer or to roll back air quality regulations, Mr. Bush is helping to set the stage for an environmental catastrophe.
What will Mr. Bush say to his twin daughters Jeana and Barbara and their children as coastal flooding wreaks havoc on the majority of the globes population who live along the continental seaboards?
How will Mr. Bush explain to his grand children that he stood idly by while the world’s temperatures increased and fertile farm land turned to desert, coral reefs bleached away and died, that great mammals lost their habitats and perished and that summer heat for the majority of the world's people became unbearable.
All of this destruction of our precious earth so that Mr. Bush can keep the economy pinging along today to maintain political capital in Washington and so "his base" as he calls his ultra-wealthy supporters, can continue to live in splendor and high style.
But one day the President will have to confront his legacy. He will have to account for the decisions he made that are slowly destroying the world.
Instead of leading, Mr. Bush has been lead by the dictates of the rich who benefit by the selfish, greedy and near sighted view of living for today and not having a vision for tomorrow.
Someday Mr. Bush will look back as an old man and say "what have I done".

The People v the Bush Non-Policy

President Bush has finally, in all of his wisdom, accepted the thought that perhaps, just perhaps, man is in some small way responsible for global warming. Mr. Bush actually made the shocking revelation at the G8 meeting in Scotland today.
But Mr. Bush didn't even get close to endorsing the Kyoto Protocols on limiting greenhouse gases released into our atmosphere, instead Mr. Bush says the world should be looking at moving into the post Kyoto era. In Bushspeak one wonders if there is any definition at all as to what that actually means.
Mr. Bush's environmental philosophy is based on insuring in his words "that we don't wreck the American economy" after all he believes, if we were to clean up pollution that would cost jobs.
Doctors and nurses might not be in such high demand because of the reductions in cancers caused by toxins in our air. Funeral directors may too find their customer base declining. Then there would be coffin makers, florists and the manufacturers of hearses that would be feeling the squeeze.
The President continues to pay lip service our energy crisis. Not once in the nearly five years he's been in office have I ever heard the word conservation pass his lips.
He talks about drilling for oil in the Arctic, he talks about conversion to hydrogen, he talks about nuclear but never does he suggest that we as Americans try and use less.
If Mr. Bush won't suggest it and use the bully pulpit to get us to move off our keesters then why don't we create a grass roots movement and do it ourselves.
What if we could reduce the importation of oil by ten per cent if each of us did our part to conserve?
What if we were to each make an effort to turn off a few lights in our homes that we really don't need to have on? What if we replaced our outside lighting with motion detector lighting? What if we didn't leave TV's burning when we're not watching them? What if we were to take a few less car trips to the store or the mall and instead combine those trips into one and get all the shopping done at once? How about if we didn't leave our cars running just to keep them cool in the summer heat when we're outside the vehicle talking to a neighbor or waiting for someone?
How about if we began to truly push our legislators to build comfortable, accessible light rail systems and new subways so we could leave our cars at home?
What if we didn't air condition our homes quite so much in the summer or heat them so much in the winter, just a degree or two, would we really be so uncomfortable?
What is we pushed our governmental leaders to mandate that new homes be built with solar panels, that wind power be exploited where possible, that we find ways of cleanly burning our garbage to create electricity rather than trucking it to distant landfills? What if the big automakers were forced to produce a greater percentage of hybrid cars? What if we spent more on R&D to create fuel cell technology and hydrogen fuels? I know you can think of a dozen more ways to lessen our use of energy.
What do we accomplish? First we reduce our dependence on Middle East oil and stop funding regimes that are hostile to America, we reduce our own household energy costs and we create less pollution.
Why hasn't Mr. Bush spoken out and said let's get with it America? The answer is obvious. The President is beholden to big oil and their largesse to his many political campaigns and those of his father's. That is pretty much a given.
So we have no alternative to spread the word and do what we can as individuals to turn the tide. Either we do or we just continue to look at the possibility of $100 for a barrel of oil that will be burned in our cars, homes and power plants that will eventually choke us to death by depleting our atmosphere.
Is it really that hard to sacrifice just a little comfort for the planet?