"Imagine" UPDATE

2010-01-16T08:40:00.001-08:00

During the recent slump the production of vehicles fell by around half. Then the automobile industry was artificially revived to bring back production when a better idea would have been to switch from cars & trucks to public transport vehicles., trains in particular. Stupidly the Obama administration has tried to return to business as usual instead of seeing the recession as a chance to move to the New Economy (www.davidkorten.org/NewEconomyBook)(www.charlielennoxsos.com) and Change We Can Believe In.

To save the planet from Global Climate Change it is recognized we need to reduce emissions by 80% per cent this means reducing consumerism by 80%. Public transport has to become the norm in our lives reducing fuel use and vehicle production. For car production itself is a GHG disaster as well as the fuel used to run each car over it's lifetime.

Imagine:- GM & MILITARY INDUSTRIAL GIANTS TO BUILD HIGH-SPEED RAIL SYSTEM.

2008-11-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

GENERAL MOTORS are good at building large vehicles that are too large for a sensible fleet of road going people movers. During the recent slump the production of vehicles fell by around half. Then the automobile industry was artificially revived to bring back production when a better idea would have been to switch from cars & trucks to public transport vehicles., trains in particular. Stupidly the Obama administration has tried to return to business as usual instead of seeing the recession as a chance to move to the New Economy (www.davidkorten.org/NewEconomyBook)(www.charlielennoxsos.com) and Change We Can Believe In.

The brains of America (and many immigrants from foreign universities) are employed by the likes of GE-NBC & Bechtel in the military industrial complex, working away on ideas to kill people via fighter aircraft, drones and modern electronic devices. Why waste these brains? Let's re-employ them to design the best most efficient people movers in the world.
You have probably read or even traveled on the trains of Europe. They travel at up to 100 mph and are fuel efficient. The large diesel engines used on freight trains are 20% more efficient at moving freight than diesel trucks. Electric passenger train systems are even more efficient. With more research, these efficiencies will improve even more.
China has a new monorail system, Maglev. The trains travel at 265 mph and the system was built by Siemens a German company, a huge foreign development contract that will earn money for the German economy for years to come.

MagLev, the magnetically levitated train, is the fastest of all land transportation vehicles with a high speed of 267mph. Opened in 2002 it runs between Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road Station. (During Siemens' testing it was clocked at 380mph).

We could build an electric intercity mono-rail down the center median of our Interstate Highway network. An extended freight-train system would be be cheaper and more efficient than the current dependence on long-haul trucking. Imagine an Interstate with just a few large trucks using it, refrigerated food trucks, local delivery trucks and mostly local car traffic as people take to the trains for a more relaxing way to travel long distances.

This transformation would go a long way to solving both our energy and our climate changing weird weather problems, two birds with one stone.
By having an efficient rail system between American cities we could travel between those cities faster than by plane. This would lead to plane travel being used mainly for travel over seas. Air travel is a double edged sword of energy waste and climate damage. By switching to trains we would again be two steps ahead.

Ubbm

"Imagine" UPDATE

Imagine:- GM & MILITARY INDUSTRIAL GIANTS TO BUILD HIGH-SPEED RAIL SYSTEM.