Richard Heinberg on high fuel prices

I would agree that a gas tax would be a hard thing to do in the USA. However it is the only way we are going to get people to quit wasting so much gas.

If we could reduce the income tax at the same time we raise the gas tax and build mass transit, then maybe people could see a benefit to changing the tax structure. The income tax penalizes people for working hard. We should penalize people for creating air pollution instead.

We could also transition to Electric Vehicles for short trips also. Here is my low cost EV. See link below. Kyle

www.zevutah.com

Gunnar Henrioulle, tahoevalleylines.org sez:

Every locale in the USA has some remnant or definable corridor of the former rail network- be it branchline, warehousing/manufactury/military base or electric interurban railway. New sprawl since WWII would obviously require extension of some former rail footprint, and there's the rub, and here's why- At some near time, it will be necessary to formally inventory all extant & previous rail corridor and ancillary feeder/yard trackage for the purpose of a sort of triage scenario- that being, what present day residences (subdivisions/communities) and commercial real estate can/should be sustained as the energy units per capita decline year by year?

The movement to back (and front!) yard agriculture is part of an independent approach to sustainability that sinks or floats on one big thing- can the effort be part of a sustainable & secure COMMUNITY of like minded individuals, or does it merely just set one's family up for eventual pillage by the less prepared neighbors in the immediate locale? This author's conclusion is difficult to implement, but without ado, here goes:

No effort to achieve individual sustainability or food or energy independence is practicable unless you consider location to commercial scale and secure transportation. Victuals, tools, supplies, all the the things that you want to hoard- can be taken away from you when the organic material hits the propeller. The conclusion gets back to the "Post Road" doctrine of the July 10, 1838 Act of Congress- mandating ALL RAILROADS to be FEDERALLY SECURED ways of common carriage, GUARANTORS OF SOCIETAL & COMMERCIAL COHESION. Transport corridor= law & order in the vicinty...

If you think life (as in staying alive) is possible in some sort of -be prepared and nobody will bother me- community village scenario, you still don't understand the need for a memorandum of understanding of mutual security. -Which we have now; it's called Local/State/Federal government. Problem is, the organized government at all levels has sort of stayed in the Oil goes on forever paradigm and as followers of Peaking Oil know, it's a different world!

The one thing that can draw us together across this chasm in front of us, is the connectivity factor. Not limited to telephony or satellite transmission, but the actual physical ability to travel and ship & receive goods and food and raw materials. This is where the concept "Post Roads" really means something- like money with gold or silver backing, the transport system too became backed by the power and might of the ability of the US Government to secure the land and citizenry wherever the "Post Roads" -Railways- were running. Good or evil that we associated with railroads, this one thing is for sure- the collective strength is greater than the sum of the parts in the case of the USA.

A reader may pick this apart on details, but no one for the last 30 years or so that the organic lifestyle has been discussed, has seemed to get a grip on the need for the railway as intrinsic & requisite for energy independence or sustainability or village/localization. This must take a quantum shift, and quickly, or the entire effort to transition to the Post-Carbon life & culture will disintegrate when anarchy becomes the theme of the day. We will self destruct unless there is an orderly and secure FEDERAL transportation net -railways- in being, in construction as events unfold, and orderly planning on the table for extensions as deemed necessary community by community.

People like Julian Darley & Richard Heinberg & Jan Lundberg, Jim Kunstler, the lifeafterthoilcrash webpage, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Mike Ruppert, many others are heroes of this era. But I say to you all as this eventually gets to your attention- You Must Get Your Respective Readership to awareness of the need for rehab and refocus on the railway network as an important unifier and tool for cohesion as we make this Oil Interregnum Transition. This is not meant to eclipse the well meaning (and well funded) striving to preserve the private motorcar; we all have a little of Mr. Toad (of Toad Hall) in us- but we have overlooked the rails, good people. We must try as we can to keep cars and bicycles and the legs & feet going. But some among us large & small must undertake the renaissance of Parallel Bar Therapy.

As in all things, study the territory. Individuals, ASPO USA groups, locale by locale, get familiar with the rail corridor operable, that which can be rehabbed, talk to Chambers of Commerce, Find out who are the short line rail operators in your region, and get connected with rail officials who are either savvy or are open to discussion- on Peaking Oil and the need to re-orient priority corridor transport to rail.

Talk to the renewable energy boosters and get thinking along the line of matching large-scale renewables infrastructure to railway rehab and extensions. Get acquainted with the Boardmembers of the big rail operators like Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, as well as the shortline people, they need to know about Peaking Oil and the fact that deliberate shrinkage of rail plant is passe' and in fact downright deadly to US survival as a cohesive nation as we pass into the Oil Interregnum! Use Amtrak, wobbly as it may be- don't let Jan Lundberg have all the fun.

Talk to legislators about re-establishing railway operating & maintenance battalions in each state's National Guard. This is part of disaster recovery capability, as well as positioning every state for the rail eaxpansion we must undertake as we power down. Saying it is too late, too big, too this or that is crappy defeatism. Rail rehab is already underway in America; sad thing is, the very people who should be leading this effort, the leaders & readers of these Peaking Oil pages, are not the ones doing it. Shame on you. Shame on anyone named above who says "we must focus on small-scale individual effort" to the exclusion of a coherent overarching vision of ways and means of tying this Post Carbon Society all together... Like, deliberately ignoring the vision of Benjamin Franklin's "Post Roads- & Abraham Lincoln when he signed the Pacific Railroad Bill...

You will know it is time, you late bloomers, when the Feds order gas rationing & diesel fuel allocation for long-haul trucking. See you down the line-