gildone

^I've been through plenty of small towns in Ohio and elsewhere with downtowns that are dead, dying, or at least a shadow of their former selves, which means local economies have lost their diversity (because most of the agricultural wealth is currently going to multinational agribusinesses, not staying in the hands of farmers and local communities). Our agricultural sector is much less diverse than it used to be. It has been taken over by multinational agribusiness which works best: 1. on large farms (which requires lots of cheap fossil fuel inputs) 2. by picking crop species that are easily harvested and can survive long distance shipping (which requires cheap fossil fuel inputs). (Loss of farm species diversity is another major problem, but not appropriate to discuss here). 3. by serving the industrial, processed food sector (which also requires a lot of cheap fossil fuel inputs). Long story short, agriculture in America has lost its diversity and just about any amount of the local focus it used to have. It's a real problem, because almost food dollars don't stay local anymore and the economic multiplier effect of keeping a healthy amount of food dollars local is lost. Talk to people like Brad Masi at Oberlin College about the positive economic effects of keeping more food dollars local. Even the Governor gets it, that's why he created the Ohio Food Policy Advisory Council. It's subsidized, multinational agribusiness from the US and Europe that's exploiting trade deals (which is driving small farmers off of their land in developing countries. In Mexico, it has been a significant contributor to illegal immigration, but you won't here any politicians in DC talk about it). The only way the we can survive energy descent, is to re-diversify and re-localize our economy. That's Kunstler's main point. It applies not just to agriculture, but to manufacturing, retail, and every other sector of the economy. I disagree that Kunstler is too broad, but I tend to be someone who sees the big picture anyway. He's broad because Peak Oil is really a broad problem. Cheap oil underpins every sector of economy as it currently exists. So, when you lose cheap oil, it affects just about everything. That's ok, though, we can agree to disagree. Diversity in opinion is helpful to us all.

I have a problem with Kunstler's arrogance and attitude, but, so far, things appear to be playing out as he has been predicting. He hasn't always been right (i.e. y2k), but this time, it looks to me that he is. Kunstler's point about family farms is that we had a more locally based agricultural system back then which is more suited to supplying food to people in an era of growing oil-scarcity. I have to wonder if farming wasn't doing so well back then because our agricultural system was in the nascent stages of industrialization, but I don't really know. Anyway, our entire economy is based upon the farcical notion of infinite growth, particularly growth of cheap oil supplies. There are several reasons things are coming unglued. The end of cheap oil may be only one of them, but it's exacerbating all the others.

Exactly, and as KJP also points out, Obama is equally clueless. There is no path forward from here that does not include America having to learn to live with less and less energy as this century progresses.

Believe it or not, the airline industry's problems are affecting Amtrak. When there is a derailment or event that causes a significant trip interruption or train cancellation, Amtrak had special deals with various airlines and would provide some passengers with airline tickets. My brother was booked on the California Zephyr to go to Denver this week. The train was canceled because of the flooding. When he contacted Amtrak to ask about an airline ticket, he was told that all of the airlines that had special pricing agreements with Amtrak have backed out of the agreements. Now, the price Amtrak has to pay is too much for them to afford, so they had to do away with the program.

I have a good personal example of the benefit of the OHio Hub.... We're fast approaching the end of the fiscal year where I work. I've been busy this week trying to finalize items I need to before 6/30, I have to have my office packed up by Friday because of remodeling that's going on (it's taking longer than I expected), and I have an important meeting in Columbus tomorrow. I haven't had the time I would have liked to this week to prepare for the meeting. I'm prepared enough to get by adequately, but I still could have used a couple more hours. Now, I have to blow 2 1/2 hours driving to Columbus in the morning, when if we had the Ohio Hub fully built out by now instead, I could drive 5 minutes to the Hopkins airport station, hop a train, and finish my preparation for this meeting, maybe even have a few minutes to catch my breath before I enter a room full of attorneys for the meeting. On the way back tomorrow afternoon, I could catch up on e-mail, voice mail, and end of the year paperwork, but no, I have to pound I -71 for another 2 1/2 hours. Between the motorpool car cost, gas, and lost productivity, it costs my employer somewhere in the neighborhood of $250.00 to send an employee (traveling alone) to our main office in Columbus. The gas and car costs alone are just over $100. What would a round trip ticket on the Ohio Hub be? $50? $60

Because they are cheaper to operate. LED lights use a lot less electricity and the LED bulbs last an incredibly long time, reducing labor costs for bulb replacement.

Right on. It's way past time to start thinking outside the highway-only box. Cincy-Dayton needs the Ohio Hub, just as much, if not more than widening I-75. It's time to start moving traffic off the highways and onto the rails. Also, I hate to say it but considering we're staring down the barrel of Peak Oil, how many more highway projects do we really need?

Unfortunately, sometimes the train operators forget to announce it when passengers have to exit from the front door at certain stops at certain times of the day. It all depends upon whether or not there is a ticket agent on duty at the station stop in question. If there is a ticket agent, then all doors are opened. If there isn't, then everyone has to pay on the train, so to prevent people from riding for free, everyone is made to enter and exit from the front door. I've been on the Red Line at times when the drivers either don't announce that the stop is "front door out" or the internal PA system isn't working correctly. It doesn't happen often, but it happens. Also, there are always a few operators that come across as abrupt no matter what. I've seen considerable improvement in this regard over the past several years, but unfortunately, I think, there will always be a few. One of the biggest blunders I've ever seen RTA do was about 3 years ago on a tribe game day when RTA didn't schedule a ticket agent to work at Puritas. Tons of people were taking the train downtown, but with no agent at Puritas, several dozen passengers were boarding, and all had to pay on the train. In addition to the sheer volume on game days, lots of the Red Line riders on those days are ones who have never or rarely ever take the train, so they need more assistance while paying. Anyway, we sat at Puritas so long, that the next train caught up to us and was waiting a couple hundred yards back. Even the train operator was exasperated, and couldn't believe that such a mistake had been made. The train also filled to the brim well before Tower City. Game days are good days to run longer trains-- like 4 cars-- and have ticket agents on duty at all stations. I'm looking forward to the all pre-pay ticketing system that RTA is supposed to adopt at some point.

Why does the media keep insisting on calling "Peak Oil" a theory? It's doing a grave disservice to the public. Theories are something that are not entirely proven. We have dozens of oil-producing nations that are past their oil production peaks-- this is proven by simply plotting their oil production over time. It's the same scenario over and over-- oil production follows Hubbert's Curve. The rest are following Hubbert's Curve, they just haven't reached peak, yet. There's nothing theoretical about it. The only theoretical part is trying to predict when the global decline will begin.

^It's about time a hard-hitting piece about peak oil entered the mainstream media. America certainly needs to wake up. And, I appreciate that he's so adamant about restoring our restoring our rail system. However, I get tired of Kunstler constantly and incorrectly saying that the only solution the Rocky Mountain Institute embraces is hydrogen-powered hypercars. They very much embrace better land use and considerably less driving, among other things. It's particularly sad that he keeps doing this when just a few years ago he and Amory Lovins got into an exchange at Salon.com about this very thing and Lovins buried him. (http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2005/05/26/lovins_kunstler/index.html) Plus, he criticizes people who ask for solutions, then offers several solutions himself. When the concept of peak oil first starts to sink in, I think a lot of people get it that it means less driving, but they don't fully grasp how to adjust to that. Yes, there are a lot of people who cling to things like electric and hybrid cars, but there are a lot who understand but can't initially get their brains around the ways to adjust, that's why they are asking. It's an important message that needs a strident delivery, but Kunstler would do better service if he would ratchet down the arrogance.

A message from an attendee at the ODOT Task Force public meeting on Thursday, May 22. This is not good. Rail and transit advocates have to do better at the next meetings or we have no one to blame but OURSELVES: "I attended the first regional meeting in Dayton yesterday. The room was full of Task Force members (wearing red carnations) and ODOT staff (wearing yellow carnations). The rest of the audience consisted of appointed public officials and others. very few regular citizens, despite the late afternoon time frame. No one spoke from the audience on behalf of rail. The speakers who were invited to speak simply re-stated their long held view that all they needed in Southwest Ohio was the widening of I-75 and a new bridge over the Ohio River into Kentucky. No vision, no recognition of today's emergent problem and denial of future problems, although they paid lip service to global warming and our carbon foot print. The director of OKI complained about the $7 billion Ohio Hub Plan. He was the invited speaker. If this is a model for the rest of the regional meetings, we have a lot of work to do."

We still get plenty of oil from Chavez. He hasn't cut back sales to us, yet. He will when demand from other customers increases enough that he has other places to sell more of their oil. Nothing you said about Venezuela changes the fact that they are past peak. They are also getting plenty of help with their oil infrastructure from China now, if I recall correctly. I'm no fan of Chavez (just check out what humanrightswatch.org says about him), but geology is a bigger factor right now with Venezuela's oil than geopolitics. Concerns about Iran's expertise and mismanagement of their oil reserves are overblown. A couple of European energy companies as well as Sinopec of China have contracts with Iran to develop their other fields and build refineries. That fact of the matter is that Iran is also past peak and they know it. It's the chief reason they want nuclear energy. This doesn't change geology. Besides, it's their oil, not ours. They can do what they want with it. This doesn't mean they are withholding oil from world markets. Just like the US did when it was an oil power-- they meet domestic needs first, then export the surplus. This is a major elephant in the closet, by the way. Export capacity from oil producing nations is declining faster than the depletion rates in most declining fields. It pales in comparison to the geologic problem. Not empty but in decline. The list is long and includes US, Indonesia, China, Australia, Kuwait, the Philippines, and many more. The majority of oil producing nations in the world are in production decline. Again, it pales in comparison to geology which is the elephant in the room. Geopolitical issues are just the fleas.

No one is holding oil hostage. Chavez, Russia and Iran need money and they have plenty of customers clamoring for their oil. All three are also at or past their natural, geological production peaks. Iraq is probably the only current oil producing nation that actually does have output suppressed, yes because of the chaos, and unfortunately, we're ultimately responsible for that. Amen. None of the major party candidates get it. The best we could do is vote against incumbents for Congress and for a third party for president, and we'd still end up with the same circus, different clowns.

Overall Feagler's piece is pretty good. Too bad he's so dense about the Euclid Corridor. If it was ill-conceived there wouldn't be so much development interest along Euclid Ave now.

mistake post... I replied in the GCRTA thread, where what I have to say is more relevant.

I'm in the middle of John Stilgoe's book: Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the American Landscape. I highly recommend it. If he's right (and he lays out a compelling case), railroads are going to come back in a big way-- bigger than even most rail advocates dream about. The real estate industry, freight logistics industry, and others have already begun making investments, buying property based on an increased role for railroads-- both freight and passenger. He says in recent years, people in these industries have been pouring through archives, old timetables, official guides and what little history is left from the Railway Express Agency, and more trying to piece together how things used to work in the heyday of America's railroads. Stilgoe blends appropriate and interesting parts of American railroad history and puts it in a context as to why a major railroad revival is vital for the future and is being sought after by investors (and he makes a great case without even mentioning peak oil-- peak oil will only make a rail revival that much more vital). A few interesting tidbits from the past... In 1929, America's railroads operated 10,000 mail trains a day. The system was very efficient at distributing mail. Back then, for the price of a first class postage stamp, you could have overnight delivery of mail between New York and Chicago, and many other cities-- something that's impossible today without paying a premium. Americans lost much more than they realize with the demise of mail and express trains and the Railway Express Agency (I never knew this, because the REA went under around the time I was in first grade or so). The REA offered shipping services to Americans that were not only very efficient, but they would ship just about anything just about anywhere-- whether it was luggage shipped ahead of you for a vacation, or your row boat and your refrigerator to your summer property, live animals, and all sorts of bulky, awkward items that are difficult and expensive to ship nowadays. In many parts of the country, you could make a telephone order out of a J.C. Penny catalog on Monday and receive your item on Tuesday. Almost no one carried anything but an overnight bag with them on a trip because people shipped their bulky luggage through the REA and would find it waiting in their hotel room upon arrival at their destination. Personal experience: this would have been a great service to have when my family and I went to Flagstaff and Santa Fe last year-- we had to UPS (and it wasn't cheap) some items-- like a backpack carrier for our toddler-- because they were too bulky and cumbersome to deal with on top of our luggage. And, it would be helpful this year when we go to Ontario and have to rent a stroller and car seat because those items are too much hassle to haul around. It's amazing how much this single mode of transportation was able to do, and how we have three modes of transportation doing it now, and it's not being done as well or as efficiently. :whip: Here's an interview with Stilgoe from a recent NPR-Living on Earth program: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=08-P13-00019&segmentID=8

Last year, OPEC was blaming refinery capacity. This year it's speculators. Hmmm. I wonder what their scapegoat will be next year? If you ask me, OPEC isn't increasing production because they can't, at least not enough to make a worthwhile dent in the price.

James Howard Kunstler on Colbert: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3935

Hey, at least Rockside road has sidewalks now. (as opposed to 3 years ago). I noticed that too, but I think they wanted to pick a point between Akron and Cleveland so they could combine the meetings. If you ask me, there should have been a separate Akron meeting.

^just go here: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/21ctptf/ It's pretty easy to do. We all have to be active participants in this conversation ourselves. Don't defer to others what we can and should do ourselves.

Airlines face bankruptcy, greatest peril since '01: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN2846947020080501 this article says United and US Air could both be bankrupt by year's end.

^looks like the author of the letter needs to call the Dispatch...

Baloney it happened too fast. I hate to say this, but American automakers are just plain dumb and short-sighted. Toyota and Honda knew what was coming and planned for it. Now, they are reaping great rewards for their foresight, as they should. But, the "Big 3" just plain blew it. They are too focused on short term profits to recognize, let alone plan for, the future. ' Of course, I lost my allegiance to the American automakers back in the 80's upon hearing a news story that Detroit had lobbied for tariffs on Japanese vehicles because they were supposedly "dumping" their cars here at below cost. What did the Big 3 do upon getting the tariffs? They raised their prices to match the tariff increase. To heck with them...

Actually, Ohio has been quite progressive with respect to clean-ups of contaminated urban sites. Ohio has provided a lot of money through the Clean Ohio funds (with more in the Guv's Building Ohio Jobs bond issue). Also, the state's Voluntary Action Program (though imperfect) has resulted in the clean-up of many urban sites. That's not to say that there isn't more that needs to be done, but a lot has been accomplished in Ohio in this area.

For some strange reason, this made me laugh.