From: silva@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Holly Silva)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: Cars and suburbs
Date: 24 Jan 1993 02:23:22 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>ddeocamp@pearl.tufts.edu (DANIEL M. DEOCAMPO) writes:
>>p00004@psilink.com (Michael Smith) writes...
>
>>>	Car-dependency is the symptom; suburban sprawl is the 
>>>underlying pathology. (There is, to be sure, something of a 
>>>chicken-and-egg question on the historical level.)
>
>Actually, I don't think that cars are the best way of getting around...far
>better than some stupid government-transit system.  I think most people
>racognize this since they volunatrily choose to buy cars while the government
>has to forcce people into trains. 

	Uh, hunh. Yoder's babbling again. Exactly where and how does
any government in America 'force people into trains'? By taking away
tax monies from the (heavily subsidized) American highways and re-direct-
ing them into public transit? I've yet to live anyplace where this is
occurring. 

>>>	What has to be 
>>>discouraged is car *ownership*; use will follow.
>
>Why can't you mind your own business and stop trying to make people's
>lives more miserable?  I LIKE my car, I don't care what you think.
>
	Well this is glaringly apparent. Unfortunately the world and the
net are full of people like me, who don't care what you think and who
don't have any particular affection for your car, either in the abstract
or when it's ten feet ahead of them on the freeway. 
	Given the extent to which our present car-dependent society is a
product of the sort of social engineering you so abhor, your underlying
premise regarding the evils of pro-active gov't. is especially weak.

>>Are there no realistic ideas for a mode of transportation which caters to the
>>individual while avoiding serious environmental harm?  
>
>Well, modern internal combustion cars fit this bill quite well.
>
	No it does not. It creates a considerable, well-measured pollution
problem. Conceivably this problem can be ameliorated with the adoption of
clean-burning fuels (i.e. compressed natural gas or ethanol), but some
degree of pollution is inevitable with this system.  

>>Even solar cars have serious costs (mining,
>>production, etc.).  
>
>They also don't work in any practical way.  Why do you thing that fuel is
>such a terribly important issue? 

	How about: Because fuel costs constitute ~60% of our annual
trade deficit, and the bulk of these costs are related to the cost of
powering motor vehicles. Because burning gasoline in such vast amounts
creates significant, measureable pollution which reduces the quality of
life in most metropoleis. Because this intense dependence on oil has
force the US to engage in warfare, and adopt a foreign policy towards
the oil-rich nations which is not in the long-term, over-all best 
interst of the nation. Because as individuals and as a nation we are
paying immense 'hiden costs' for every gallon of fuel that goes into
out cars.

>>What I believe is probable, however, is that the costs of
>>technology such as solar and zero-emission vehicles will be deemed acceptable. 
>I suggest you consult any introductory physics text and do a few back of the
>envelope calculations.  Solar-powered cars make absolutely no sense and
>never will.  You can't change the laws of physics.

	No he can't change the laws of physics, but there are no a priori
reasons why solar technology might not some day provide functional and
viable personal transportation. Your barrage of questions above [now
deleted] constitute a specious and not particularly logical nor 
scientifically valid attack upon his hypothesis in re: solar powered
vehicles. The vagueness of your statements strongly suggest to this
practicing scientist that you are as ignorant as he about the real
specifics of this branch of engineering/science. If you want to be
taken seriously on the net you will need to do quite a bit better than
that. This medium is top-heavy with technologically literate users, and
we tend to recognize the illiterati rather quickly.

	The US pays out large sums for oil. Some are readily quantifiable
and direct (trade deficit) others are more tenuously related to the cost 
of life here (costs of maintaining armed forces in
Kurdistan and Saudi Arabia, pollution costs, medical costs of those 
who are affected by foul air, skin cancers resulting from ozone depletion,
etc.) Your view that a active attempt to reduce America's dependence on
this stuff is somehow crackpot, scientifically and culturally naive
or unacceptably 'Liberalistic' is dimwitted. 
--
======================================================================
|| Holly Silva			I have nothing terribly clever to say||
|| Applied Earth Sciences	today.  You're in luck.		     ||
|| Stanford University						     ||
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