Comments | rumpleteazaer: Damnable oil companies

rumpleteazaer

Damnable oil companies

Nov 09, 2007 08:38

Well, my much anticipated plans for this weekend got shot to pieces and completely re-arranged. I had been looking forward to making an appearance at Cleveland game. Been doing more on-line rp stuffs lately and was looking forward to seeing folks again ( Read more... )

economy, society, game

Comments 14

2eclipse November 9 2007, 14:32:15 UTC

i think part of the real problem is that we are not set up for short commutes. in germany everyone takes public transit....but also everyone lives close to the city because "why would you want to live far from your job?" and so the tram and the trains rock! because everyone takes them....but when the majority of the work force lives far from the metropolitan area, public transit cannot be as efficient or reach as many people.
i live 7 miles from my job. and i expect that if i am still there come summer, i will bike to work. if i get the job i interviewed for last week, i will DEFINITELY bike to work. it is 5 blocks from my house. but most people can't do this. prices for living in the city are too high for most people to afford to have the space they want near their jobs.

i think the way we are going to go is toward cleaner burning fuel and more efficient cars, rather than toward mass transit.

rumpleteazaer November 9 2007, 14:40:12 UTC

I agree with you to a point. Moving toward cleaner burning fuel including ethanol blends has had the effect of raising corn prices. That has been good for the corn farmers (feed corn not sweet corn) but not so good for the dairy farmers. Milk is quickly becoming a precious commodity with increased consumption in the US in the form of pizza and lattes and in China and India where milk is a sign of wealth and status.

I believe our best option is more efficient vehicles. We really need incentives for companies to put the money into R&D on moe efficient engines. That combined with more responsible conservation efforts would do wonders.

2eclipse November 9 2007, 16:24:48 UTC

i think we are moving toward both of these...but not just ethynol as an alternative fuel, also bio-diesel and vegetable oil and other options.

controlledfall November 9 2007, 16:36:28 UTC

Corn is also a horribly, horribly inefficent crop for making ethanol. Sugar is far better. Problem is, not a lot of America is set up to compete with our Latin American neighbors as far as sugar/biomass. This makes ethanol a very (artificially)expensive fuel to produce. But now every politician that comes from a corn-state will bend over backwards to get subsidies and tax breaks and ethanol initiatives for their constituents. In effect, we've institutionalized another inefficiency ( ... )

Thread 11

auroracita November 9 2007, 17:44:56 UTC

As one of "those people" who has to take the bus every day, I'd like to stand up for all the other people who would love to be able to take their cars rather than take public transit. Hell, I'd even do it, damn the expense, but it's just not possible. There's a six year wait at the university for parking spaces. The cheapest ones are $90/month, and -then- we talk about gas. It would cut about a half hour, maybe more, off my commute each way every day to take my car. Instead, I ride the bus (or sometimes tram or streetcar) about an hour and a half each way every single day to get to work and back because that is the shortest route. Portland is very well-connected, public transit-wise. Hippies here support it immensely. It still sucks ( ... )

ashestoheroes November 10 2007, 00:26:54 UTC

I'm gonna pick up my girlfriend and come home and play music or watch a movie. No game tonight. I'm only STing the sabbat portion of things, so I'm unneeded tonight anyway.

I wanna go to cleveland and cinci and columbus too. It's just too much. I need to get the motorcycle thing taken care of for when the warm weather comes again.

Motorcycles... mmm... freedom and stickin' it to the man. I already got my temps, but they scare the shit out of me! I have to slow down to 35 on just about any curve because I'm so afraid of flying out into oblivion from the centrifugal force.

I'm not a very scary outlaw am I?]

Anyway, I know how you feel. I wanna drive places and can't. I make a hundred bucks a week at KMart.

BLUE LIGHT!

patzilla November 10 2007, 18:04:46 UTC

Public Transit in Columbus just sucks. I haven't been on a COTA bus since I was a teenager, but they sucked back then and I can't imagine they're any better now. We need a better transit system that doesn't just focus on getting all the workers downtown and to the local hospitals, there are a lot of jobs in the suburbs that are hard to get to via COTA because all the express buses are inbound to downtown, not outbound to the 'burbs, in the morning, and outbound in the evening ( ... )