The news that 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded in Australia comes at the end of a year in which, to the extent that facts can settle anything, the debate over human-caused global warming has been settled. Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.
More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics, along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians, have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.
Ten years or so ago, the divergence between satellite and ground-based measurements of temperature was a big problem – the ground based measurements showed warming in line with climate models but the satellites showed a cooling trend. The combination of new data and improved calibration has gradually resolved the discrepancy, in favour of the ground-based measurements and the climate models.
Another set of arguments concerned short-term climate cycles like El Nino. The late John Daly attributed the high temperatures of the late 1990s to the combination of El Nino and solar cycles, and predicted a big drop, bottoming out in 2005 and 2006. Obviously the reverse has happened. Despite the absence of the El Nino or solar effects that contributed to the 1998 record, the long-term warming trend has dominated.
Finally, there’s water vapour. The most credible of the contrarians, Richard Lindzen, has relied primarily on arguments that the feedback from water vapour, which plays a central role in climate models, might actually be zero or even negative. Recent evidence has run strongly against this claim. Lindzen’s related idea of an adaptive iris has been similarly unsuccessful.
Finally, the evidence has mounted up that, with a handful of exceptions, “sceptics” are not, as they claim, fearless seekers after scientific truth, but ideological partisans and paid advocates, presenting dishonest arguments for a predetermined party-line conclusion. Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility. Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science which I plan to review soon, gives chapter and verse and the whole network of thinktanks, politicians and tame scientists who have popularised GW contrarianism, Intelligent Design and so on.
A couple of thoughts on all this.
First, in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.
Second, now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options. There are legitimate issues to be debated here. But having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental think tanks in the first phase of the debate, we shouldn’t give them a free pass in the second. Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both here and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.
John Quiggin 
Realclimate This is the clearinghouse for GW discussions. It’s great resource.
Anyone remember when diesel cars were supposed to be the next thing to take over in the US car market?
Mike (January 5th, 2006 at 7:48 pm), I agree in full with your remarks. As for Jared Diamond’s question – what was the Easter Islander who chopped down the last tree thinking? – Diamond’s students suggested a few answers.
deleted due to repeated violation of site rules.
“S Chidio” I don’t appreciate your trolling and sock puppetry. You have repeatedly violated the rules of civilised discussion, posing as an extreme lefists, denying this when challenged, and only admitting it when exposed. This is what I have come to expect, but I don’t intend to put up with it.
Please stop posting on this site under this or any other pseudonym.
Damian,
Perhaps the Easter Islander was thinking that the King, standing over him ordering him to do what he may have known to be stupid thing, was a greater threat to his survival. Governments can be like that.
hey S. Chidio can I buy in 😉 1st look at an energy efficiency drive. Better design planning and vision not only of individual communities esp new ones, but as a whole nation.
Real support for renewable mix not just lip service as from current bunch of jokers.
Microgeneration Potential | Jamais Cascio
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003883.html
Real gem this, great name:)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/alternative_energy/
Adoption of sa 8000 and triple bottom line, ethical business practices instead of the short term, short sighted, head in the sand profits first and business as usual model.
BTW
http://www.triplepundit.com/
is also a fav of mine.
Dogz writes:
Putting CO2 into the atmosphere is nothing like putting a flame under a pot of water. A flame is hot and so simple thermodynamics means the water temperature will rise.
CO2 is more like a catalyst that operates in the presence of other catalysts, some of which have positive feedback on temperature and some which have negative feedback. It is complex precisely because of that interaction. It is no accident that many scientists believed as recently as 30 years ago that the earth could be heading for another ice-age.
No. No. No.
While carbon dioxide is sort of like a catalyst, it also warms the planet by absorbing IR radiation from earth and warming up (conversely it also cools the upper atmosphere). This has been known for over one hundred years (anthropogenic global warming was first proposed along time before there was any experimental evidence for it, simply because the proposers knew their thermodynamics).
As for catalytic behaviour, for the most part, it is the heat that it adds which causes the feedbacks (plant growth is one important exception to this).
As for the ice age predictions – this was thought to go about from particles cooling the atmosphere, not CO2 related feedbacks. It was well known that greenhouse gases would reduce any cooling.
And off topic, do you have problems getting to sleep or maintaining it? I have minor problems with getting to sleep and find that a half hour walk before bed helps.
“I wasn’t advocating excision of those free parameters, just conversion from free to bound (for want of a better word). There are 20 of the most poorly understood parameters listed …”
Thanks Dogz. It seems to me that you would be prepared to change sides on this debate if the model for AGW were made tighter. This may be interpreted three ways:
1. You are close to being convinced of AGW.
2. You are not close to being convinced of AGW,
3. It doesn’t matter how much these parameters are tweaked, you’ll never be convinced of AGW,
Notice that your prescription for support of AGW entails elaboration, not falsification in the Popperian sense.
Ken, on the other hand, proposed a tightly Popperian methodology to falsify his own commitment to AWG.
I guess the ultimate falsification for AWG disputers is for humans to stop production of asserted AWG activities such as production of CO2, etc. This is a rather drastic experiment, akin to a patient being killed by the exploratory surgery.
Moreover, as I understand it, it is asserted that global climate may already be subject to a positive feedback from AWG. Thus even the rather extreme test hyothesised above may not be sufficient in any reasonable timeframe to indicate the potency of AWG.
“Perhaps the Easter Islander was thinking that the King, standing over him ordering him to do what he may have known to be stupid thing, was a greater threat to his survival. Governments can be like that.”
Which to me looks more like an argument against stupid decisions by large organisations of any flavour (government or corporate) rather than an argument against government.
If the chief/King was not an absolute idiot he would have seen the idiocy of his decision. Same as the oil companies and people with vested interests in burning our fast depleting fossil fuel reserves.
You could have just as easily put “big corporation can be like that” at the end of your post.
Pingu,
The difference is that, if it were a big corporation, an appeal could have been made to the King to over-rule. With a strong and unaccountable government there is no appeal.
If, OTOH, there is no appeal from the corporation, then the corporation is the government and the same arguments apply.
This is why governments should be accountable and decentralised.
There is nothing in hybrid electric technology that prevents you from making a car that is both big and powerful. The US Army in building a hybrid electric Humvee are not looking for a less powerful machine and not likely to tolerate a loss of power (see earlier article that I linked to).
And I would expect that the current design bias in hybrid-electrics towards fuel efficiency will shift towards power for those models where it is demanded. They will still be fuel efficient vehicles but still powerful and potentially more powerful than existing all petrol designs. In some instances some cars will be switchable between power mode and efficiency mode. And in fact with an mostly electronic control system there is much less need to compromise between the two as you have to for a combustion engine.
The electric motor is not some weak pussy of a propulsion system.
“The difference is that, if it were a big corporation, an appeal could have been made to the King to over-rule.”
Unless the corporation and the King were in bed with each other.
“There is nothing in hybrid electric technology that prevents you from making a car that is both big and powerful. ”
ah, but you have to pay more for a hybrid. Remember, Americans didn’t voluntarily pay more for pollution control devices, they had to be mandated.
“And I would expect that the current design bias in hybrid-electrics towards fuel efficiency will shift towards power for those models where it is demanded. ”
maybe, maybe not
“They will still be fuel efficient vehicles but still powerful and potentially more powerful than existing all petrol designs.”
Potentially being the operative word.
“In some instances some cars will be switchable between power mode and efficiency mode. And in fact with an mostly electronic control system there is much less need to compromise between the two as you have to for a combustion engine.”
I know you’re sold on hybrid. The question is will all Americans be sold on it as well. I remember many of the same arguments when diesel was the big thing. And when tiny, tinny Japanese was the big thing. You may very well be right this time, but it remains to be seen. At the moment, Americans are not flocking to hybrids. Perhaps mandating would be the way to make it happen.
Terje, when you see people driving around with huge black clouds of smoke coming out of the usually exhaust-pipe free junkers that we all see every day all across the US, it’s hard to believe that the average American WILL spend several thousand extra dollars on a hybrid car but WON”T recycle their newspapers and plastic coke bottles. It would be nice, I agree, but I don’t think it’s likely.
Will the average US community raise taxes so that their police cars can all be hybrids? Will the guys who buy specific cars as indicators of their manhood (and we all know who you guys are, btw) buy a hybrid? Will the mother who drives her only child to school in an Armada when the school bus goes right by their house purchase a hybrid?
Dave S – sorry dave they are not rational at all as I have tried to get through to you on many different occasions. And I did answer all your questions clearly and consisely to the best of my ability at:
http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2005/12/global_coolingw.html
avaroo – apparently tinny japanese is a winner in Australia as Toyota has topped the car sales this year for the 10th straight year. A lot of the most popular models are not available in the USA.
Dave S…
“Ender says:
“you are touting the arguments that are commonly used to refute action on climate change. �
Well, yes, Ender, I am. Because they’re rational.”
There are massive immediate benefits – no exotic technologies required – to be had in reducing CO2 emissions through reducing consumption via more efficient use of energy. I’d like to hear the ‘rational’ arguments for maintaining inefficient energy use.
Here in Brisbane we have water rationing. Now, our main water supply is the Wivenhoe dam, which last I heard still held 34 percent of its capacity. The deniers/skeptics line of argument would be that we should continue to waste water, since the dam has never run dry to date and we are overdue for a flood (the last one being over 30 years ago) that will fill it to the brim. After all, why impose the costs of water rationing on the Brisbane economy when the ‘dam will dry up’ hypothesis is completely unproven, even if most meteorologists see it as highly likely? The fact that a loss of water supply would be catastrophic should matter not one jot, apparently.
I invite deniers/skeptics to argue that demand reduction is not the most prudend policy response to scientific consensus about impending disaster. As for Tim B, his ‘dont give a damnalist’ line was used to effect by the metaphysical poet Marvell in attempting to seduce a reluctant girl… “Come let’s sport us while we may”… No doubt his intentions for the planet reflect the same motivation.
“avaroo – apparently tinny japanese is a winner in Australia as Toyota has topped the car sales this year for the 10th straight year.”
Toyotas are very popular here in the US too. They just aren’t as tinny as they used to be. The Toyotas of today are much more like American cars than say a 1977 Toyota Celica was. That was my point, Toyota changed to be more like American cars.
“A lot of the most popular models are not available in the USA. ”
That’s true in Europe too. My sister-in-law in Germany drives a Micra (which may not be a Toyota, may be a Nissan, but it is Japanese) and a tinnier car you have never seen. But that’s not considered a drawback in Europe, tinniness, it definitely is here in the US.
Katz,
Falsification of AGW in the Popperian sense may be nigh impossible, as controlled experiments where _only_ human-liberated CO2 is varied is itself nigh impossible. The earth is not a very good test-tube.
In the absence of controlled experiments, the best we can hope for is more of what the climate scientists are doing already, which is beefing up the models and narrowing their variability. I have modeled highly complex systems myself, and I know how difficult it can be to get such models to the point where they have any predictive power at all. The climate models are in a league of their own in terms of complexity and variability, hence my scepticism. I have no doubt the scientists will get there, but I don’t believe they are there yet.
avaroo – I think it is more a question of what you are used to. Americans are used to generally larger cars and naturally view smaller cars with suspicion. What you say about tininess has to do with weight. A lot of the apparent solidness that you attribute to American cars is contributing to high fuel consumption without really increasing the safety. ‘Tinny’ cars are designed to crumple in an accident which is sometimes actually better for the occupants than a solid car. There are several cars like the Toyota Echo/Yaris, the Honda Jazz and several efficient European cars that are not available in the US. Toyota did not so much change as made sure its larger models were sold there like the Camry and the Prado SUV
The point is that your love of solid cars is working against you when trying to reduce emissions and use less oil.
Ender, sure it’s a question of what you’re used to. But sorry, Toyota did most definitely change. As have all the Japanese car manufacturers for the US market, they adapted. Certainly nothing like the Toyota Avalon, a near luxury car, was available in the 70’s.
And high fuel consumption doesn’t appear to bother the US consumer the way it does consumers in other countries. Not saying it’s right, but it is the way it is. There is in the US, a perception that in an accident, he who is in the larger vehicle, wins. That’s what much of the ridiculous auto size is all about.
You are working on the assumption that the cost of hybrids is higher because its an inheriently more expensive product to build. This is true to a small extent however only while factories re-tool, which is already underway for Toyota.
The higher price of Hybrids has a lot to do with stong demand. The reason they can charge 25% more is because demand is so strong. And with the new 2006 US tax rules (ie government intervention I know) the demand will only get stronger.
Your scepticism is not unreasonable, but I don’t think it is correct. Ultimately I agree that it will be the market place that decides. However my interpretation of the market trend is optimistic in favour of hybrids. I have been wrong before though.
“There is in the US, a perception that in an accident, he who is in the larger vehicle, wins. That’s what much of the ridiculous auto size is all about.”
Hm…. Sounds like a mighty good example of a commons problem to me….
“You are working on the assumption that the cost of hybrids is higher because its an inheriently more expensive product to build. ”
Not at all. In the US, a car is worth what people are willing to pay for it. That’s why you have people paying MORE than sticker price for some cars. It makes no sense to pay more than sticker price for any car, yet, it’s not uncommon. What people will pay for a car in the US is less a function of what it costs to build it that it is of the relative desirability of that particular car. For example, the Honda Odyssey, now that wasn’t a particularly expensive van to build, yet people paid thousands over sticker for one.
“The higher price of Hybrids has a lot to do with stong demand. ”
Demand isn’t actually all that strong in the US. The people who are willing to pay a premium for a hybrid, are people whose desire to be environmentally conscious is stronger than their desire for a cheap price on the car. You’ll find the same thing with other products, some people will pay more for a clothes washer that uses less water even if it does nothing else better. But most people won’t.
You may be right about everything. It’s possible that American consumers will wake up tomorrow with a completely different view of their environmental responsibilities and start walking or biking to work as so many people in other countries do. We may decide we don’t have to have a new car every other year, moon roof, all power windows, pre-heated seats, programmed safety belts, dvd/cd/stereo, all leather interiors. We may all start recycling everything and turn off all of the 15 plasms tv’s, 8 dvd players, 9 iPOD’s and 11 cell phones found in every home. But don’t bet your retirement fund on it!
I don’t think Americans (on mass) will buy Hybrids for environmental reasons. They will buy them if it aligns with self interest. And manufacturers will sell them if they align with their self interest.
I actually think some Americans WILL buy hybrids strictly for environmental reasons. The one person I know who has one, bought it for that exact reason. It’s just that most people won’t.
There were even a few celebs who made the hybrid statement. But most are still tooling around in horrendously over-priced luxury casr.
Anyone remember when Volkswagen brought the new Beetle back, so to speak, a few years ago? Now, there are few cars cheaper to build than a VW Beetle, yet you couldn’t get one to save your life for long time, at any price. People were paying ludicrous amounts for a BEETLE! Not based on any reasonable concept of self-interest for sure. Just trendy. We’re big on the trends.
Ender, if I asked you, “Is that car red or blue”, you’d give me a monologue about experiments with reflected light frequencies in various atmospheric conditions. Then I’d put a bullet in my head.
We now have climate records, thanks to ice core drilling going back 650,000 years. To give a perspective, that’s back father than before the evolution of modern human beings.
The IPCC work is based on these records, and over 4,000 pieces of research by around 2, 000 scientists from all over the world. Their work as compiled by the IPCC, has been peer-reviewed, accepted and endorsed by the vast majority of credible scientists across the world.
They_all_agree.
There’s probably not a single other issue where you could point to more expert material, and more agreement from relevant experts.
Only a fool would disregard this, or someone so ideologically bent that they have become incapable of irrational thought. The debate is over. There are literally millions of people now concentrating on the real job, how can we mitigate and prepare for climate change as much as possible. It is a waste of time to talk to people who remain skeptic or dogmatically opposed, because the real game is well-afoot.
The debate here on the costs of radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and switching to alternative energy sources is also sadly out of date. For example, solar cells are now built into building materials, can be rolled out in plastic for $15/m2, wind and wave power are now competitive, and solar nearly in price with fossil fuel sources, solar is possible & profitable in cold climates, geothermal heat pumps are well and truly back on the agenda, and local companies are making competitive, high-tech products.
All that is missing for a more rapid, successful and I’d profitable switch is political will.
As for the costs of Kyoto – I was listening to Radio National & caught a replay of a Science Show – they were talking about how a government report showed that is Australia didn’t sign Kyoto, our GNP would double by (I think from memory) January 2010. If we did sign Kyoto, our GNP would double by March 2010. So the total cost to our economy would have been 8 weeks’ worth of GNP over about 10 years. Scaaaarrry.
Aw, heck, just for fun – Ender, go up to my earlier post and pick a number from 1 to 5. Couldn’t be simpler.
that should be capable of rational thought. Apparently I’m not capable of rational typing today.
An friend who has returned from several years in Conneticutt(spellg?) has said that several/a few of her friends there own hybrid Priuses (spellg?). They’re a status symbol, which might be a stronger ‘selling point’ than their environmental advantages.
The greatest, most beautiful, stately, dignified and gentle form of mechanical transport ever devised is the tram. Every city should have fleets and fleets of them.
Please, everyone out there (Esp Dave S.) blog chatter is not a valid reason for suicide.
Connecticut would be prime Prius territory
Hal9000 said: “Here in Brisbane we have water rationing. Now, our main water supply is the Wivenhoe dam, which last I heard still held 34 percent of its capacity. The deniers/skeptics line of argument would be that we should continue to waste water, since the dam has never run dry to date and we are overdue for a flood (the last one being over 30 years ago) that will fill it to the brim. After all, why impose the costs of water rationing on the Brisbane economy when the ‘dam will dry up’ hypothesis is completely unproven, even if most meteorologists see it as highly likely? The fact that a loss of water supply would be catastrophic should matter not one jot, apparently. ”
What if your every-30-years flood was so severe that the impact would strain the structure of the dam, so that filling it to over 34% capacity would compromise its survivability? In that case, water rationing will have doomed your city.
What if the economic costs of water rationing over the years exceeded the cost of a temporary loss of supply that may never have happened anyway?
This is what becomes so frustrating in this argument- the fact that some folks seem to have no grasp of unintended consequences. There are ALWAYS unintended consequences to actions, which is why the default position when one is not certain is, “Do nothing.” And please, please do not use the words “consensus” and “science” in the same sentence. Consensus is not a scientific concept. There was “consensus” in physics until Einstein came along.
An illustration of unintended consequences that Prof Quiggin might appreciate- years ago, the geniuses in the US Congress decided that a popular way to raise some revenue would be to tax luxury goods (who’s going to bitch about a tax on fatcats, right?) So things like yachts were taxed. So rich people bought fewer yachts. And yacht builders had to lay off workers. So these workers had no incomes to pay taxes on, and they were drawing unemployment benefits from the government, with the net result being that the government LOST money and working families suffered.
Imogen,
According to the climate models implementing the Kyoto protocol will delay global warming by a few years at the end of this century.
So if we ignore Kyoto and continue with business as usual then global warming at the end of this century might arrive a few years earlier. Scaaarrry.
Regards,
Terje.
“a few of her friends there own hybrid Priuses (spellg?).”
I believe the plural is Priii.
“They’re a status symbol, which might be a stronger ’selling point’ than their environmental advantages.”
Definitely. Hybrid Accords look like gasoline Accords, and they can’t give ’em away.
“The greatest, most beautiful, stately, dignified and gentle form of mechanical transport ever devised is the tram. Every city should have fleets and fleets of them.”
Ugh. Mass transit. Utterly dehumanizing. “You will go WHERE we say WHEN we say, and sit next to a lice-ridden odorous booger-picker who will fall asleep on your shoulder, unless of course we go on strike.” Did it from age 12 to age 24, and will never do it again. The automobile is the single greatest symbol and facilitator of individual freedom ever devised, and owning one is the single best thing about not being poor anymore.
Also, I’m skeptical about the cost-per-passenger of cars vs public transit, both environmentally and in dollars. If a nuke plant is powering electric trains, I’d be slightly more amenable to supporting them. But I’ll still drive, thanks, what with the whole odor and lice thing.
“and sit next to a lice-ridden odorous booger-picker who will fall asleep on your shoulder, unless of course we go on strike”
Of course if the public transport were better maintained, more frequent and went to more locations then several things would change the scenario you describe.
1) More people would be willing to save money and time to use it because it would actually be a good alternative to driving.
2) This would have the knock-on effect of dilluting the number of drooling lice-ridden booger-pickers relative to ordinary office workers. (Who presumable pick less boogers and keep their lice population under control)
Using a car to get to work is fine if you don’t work in the city, otherwise the cost of sitting in traffic burning petrol, and then paying extortionate amounts for parking, doesn’t seem like good economics to me.
“Ugh. Mass transit. Utterly dehumanizing. “You will go WHERE we say WHEN we say, and sit next to a lice-ridden odorous booger-picker who will fall asleep on your shoulder, unless of course we go on strike.â€?
thanks, I so needed the laugh! 🙂
“Using a car to get to work is fine if you don’t work in the city, otherwise the cost of sitting in traffic burning petrol, and then paying extortionate amounts for parking, doesn’t seem like good economics to me.”
Surely it isn’t, but the economics of it aren’t always the deciding factor. Some places in the US, you cannot even get people to use HOV lanes (high occupancy vehicle lanes), much less public transport. Or rather they use them but they don’t actually have the required number of passengers.
Avaroo said:
‘Connecticut would be prime Prius territory’.
Yale.
T.Petersen has said
‘So if we ignore Kyoto and continue with business as usual then global warming at the end of this century might arrive a few years earlier. Scaaarrry.’
Yes, what do we mean by global warming? Is it one degree or three? We should start dismantling the fossil fuel economy, but will anything that we do make a rat’s worth of difference? Will we simply have to ‘ride it out’?
Or act according to the worst case scenario and plan new forms of agriculture, disaster mitigation and so on.
Dave S – I try to answer your questions with what I think is reasonably accurate data and all I seem to get, is not an argument, but abuse and bluster. You have not responded to any of my answers with any contrary data or references.
“What if the economic costs of water rationing over the years exceeded the cost of a temporary loss of supply that may never have happened anyway?”
Here in Perth catchment into our dams has diminished almost 66% over the last 30 years from 338 gigalitres in 1975 to 120 Gl now. If we did not have water restrictions then we just simply would not have any water to drink. It is not a question of economics just limited supply. A temporary loss of supply can be tolerated if is temporary and predictable.
Ref: The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery p129,130
“here are ALWAYS unintended consequences to actions, which is why the default position when one is not certain is, “Do nothing.â€? ”
So Dave, how do you ever manage to do anything?
Just to add to the tram/mass transit debate.
Electric trams and trains also have the bennifit that unlike cars you don’t need to replace a whole fleet just to take advantage of improvements in power-sources.
So while we may run them on coal-burning power plants now, there is no reason why a switch to a combination of solar/wind/wave/hydro/nuclear/coal later down the track wouldn’t be possible. That, to me, looks like a good reason to start putting the infrastructure in now in prperation for when peak oil hits and causes te cost of driving a car to work to skyrocket.
Then your afforementioned odor and lice problem on transport would likely increase with the packing of more people onto an already strained system. Of course then you wouldn’t have as much of a choice about whether to use your car due to the oil prices…but it would be too late by then.
“Some places in the US, you cannot even get people to use HOV lanes (high occupancy vehicle lanes)”
Do people anywhere use them correctly? No one polices them so people just ignore it. At least that is what I have observed.
“much less public transport”
Probably a good reason for government to step in and make it attractive for people to use until such tme as the culture changes to make it a part of the lifestyle.
“Do people anywhere use them correctly? No one polices them so people just ignore it. At least that is what I have observed.”
Occasionally you’ll actually see vehicle with the required number of passengers. And in some places, the fine is very high for riding in them without the numbers. I was in Houston, where they call them something different, and the fine was like $400 for getting caught in the lanes with only one person in the car. And then there’s the whole pregnancy issue, would that be one or two people in the car?
“Probably a good reason for government to step in and make it attractive for people to use until such tme as the culture changes to make it a part of the lifestyle.”
Not everyone thinks that government mandating lifestyle is a great idea.
Dave S. has said
‘Ugh. Mass transit. Utterly dehumanizing. “You will go WHERE we say WHEN we say, and sit next to a lice-ridden odorous booger-picker who will fall asleep on your shoulder, unless of course we go on strike.’
Gosh. I always enjoy the tram ride into work every morning and the ride home and I hope the occasional poor or smelly person does too. I’m lucky to be able to live within 10 km of the CBD, but when I look around at 50 or so other commuters, most of them reading or listening to music, I will admit that it’s all utterly dehumanizing. In the same way that a public library is utterly dehumanizing.
Dave S. has also observed:
‘The automobile is the single greatest symbol and facilitator of individual freedom ever devised, and owning one is the single best thing about not being poor anymore.’
As Scarlet O’Hara howled at the end of the movie: ‘I’ll never be poor again!’
Meanwhile, adolescent petrol heads with more Eccies in their tummies than dollars in the bank can turn the music up rool LOUD to demonstrate their symbol of individual freedom.
Ah, the sweet smell of freedom!
Note: ‘Mass transit’ is an American term. The Australian term is ‘public transport’. Long may it prosper.
MARTA