A proposed plan to save the USA
OK, we have been writing about how bad things have gone under Bush. But what to do?
First of all, drought. If we do not move fast, we will lose the American states of Alabama, Georgia, and both North and South Carolina to desertification. The problem is that the Atlanta heat island has pushed rainfall from this region, causing the drought, and also is contributing to the now yearly massive flooding in the Mississippi valley.
The solution is that we have to make the city of Atlanta disappear. At least the heat signature, and this can be done. Roof gardens can greatly reduce heating and cooling costs of buildings. Chicago is already using them, why not Atlanta? Think of all those black tar shopping mall roofs!
I saw on Japanese TV the other day that Japan has invented a new form of asphalt that absorbs and retains water. It lowers temperature of the surface 14 degrees Centigrade. Think all those shopping mall parking lots.
If we do not act soon, the forests of the Southeast will burn, and they will not grow back. The region will turn to desert. Do not think I am exaggerating? Last year the Okeefenokee swamp caught fire.
The American Southwest is going to have to get along with extreme water rationing. But those in the Southeast have no system for moving water from one location to another, they will be hit hard and fast.
Peak Oil will take us out in few years. We must build high speed trains between cities, and develop systems of trains to enable the people to travel. Building them on freeways would be a good idea. All these trains should be electric, so they can be run off nuclear power.
We have to face it, we will no longer have cars or planes much longer. Or trucks. The only way to move food, people, or manufactured goods will be by rail.
This will buy us some time, allow us to preserve our civilization, and allow us to develop a reasonable way of living on this planet. Otherwise it is chaos and death.
Posted: June 30th, 2008 under Best of the Blogs.
Comments: 7
Comments
Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:09 am
There is a chicken little tone here that is hard for me to believe. I like your reminder about green roofs and what cities can do, but the last man on earth will be driving a car at high speed. There is no Second Amendment for car ownership, but there may as well be. Three years from now, most car leases will be up, just about the time when fuel efficiency inches up and everyone will sigh a sigh of relief and not much else will change.
Comment from Max
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:33 am
Josh,
I think we are about to be weaned from cars whether we want to or not. In Leftcoast’s post “Real Issues Part 2″, he has a link to Peak Oil. It is extensive, and in one section, and expert predicts an oil price of $300 within a couple of years. I fully agree. The end of the automobile is upon us. Whether we want it or not. The only question is whether we can develop alternative transportation. Really, we are out of time. So now we will have to as much as we can as fast as possible.
Comment from Sasha
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:58 am
Max, all that $300 oil will do is speed the disappearance of the middle class. Them that gots will have gazoline and them that don’t won’t have jobs or heat or food.
Comment from Max
Time: June 30, 2008, 9:16 am
Sasha,
Can a wealthy minority of rich people really maintain the present life style among so many angry hungry poor people? I doubt it.
Comment from timr
Time: June 30, 2008, 9:50 am
Max, the end of the auto is on us. Blanket apocalyptic statement. Forget China which is building hundreds of thousands of new cars, and where they expect to see 2 million new drivers on the road every month. INSERT> Ted Koppel is, on July 9 thru 12, having a special on China on the Discovery channel. 1 hour a nite, for 4 nites.< Then let us go to India, where they recently opened a new auto factory. Then how about Russia with all of its newly minted upper class, more cars on the road as income filters down to the middle class. No, I foresee millions of more cars in newly wealthy countries, gas may rise to $5,8, or even 15 a gal, yet people in the US will continue to drive. Well, maybe the RV market might collapse, but cars and trucks. No. An alternative fuel source will be available as gas gets more expensive. Still is a whole bunch of oil left in Canada-the #1 place that the US gets oil-most of it is tied up in oil sand, but the price per barrel has the Canadian oil sand pit mines operating at 110% capacity. Just sayin. Frozen natural gas has been found off of an Island off South Korea-found this out by watching KBS South Korea-the Island in fact that Japan tried to annex a couple of years ago. Frozen natural gas(frozen methane gas) which South Korea is already mining and is developing engines to run off of it. Last est is that there is about a 500 year supply. US, coal to gasoline. The Germans did it in WWII so the technology is there, the current price for oil is high enough to exploit. So still one more fuel source. Ethanol-big mistake, we are not Brazil, and we don’t grow enough sugar cane to make this work. Corn is food, not fuel. I give this experiment by gwb no more than 1 or 2 more years. Deep water drilling. Huge oil deposit found off the coast of Brazil in 2006. There are oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico that the oil companies are not currently drilling for, because they want the price to remain high, same reason no new refineries. Valero oil company which owns many refineries in the US and is HQ in San Antonio, gave an interview a while back on our early Sunday morning-7am-local news program and he talked about this very subject. Currently US refineries are running near 100%, but no plans by any company to build more. Dilute profits that way. Car leases expire all the time, but in the 2008 and 2009 model years you will find many more models that are like the Prius hybrid, Ford GM and Lexus are just 3 of the companies that are building them. The US will never be like Europe, cities in the US are built differently, suburbs will continue, and cities will continue to have indifferent mass transit. More people here are using the Bus, and more are biking.
Water. The massive Ogallala Aquifer is the one most in danger. The dust bowl came about because of farmers plowing up the vast prairies of the high plains that should never have been plowed. They have a very thin layer of topsoil over rock and people are starting to understand that the high plains are best for grazing animinals rather than grain crops-unless one does no till farming of course. Water is not yet a world ending crisis, and may never be, as desalinization of salt water becomes cheaper. Atlanta could run a pipeline from the Gulf, as could Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Several cities in the southwest do need to conserve, Lake Mead’s water level has dropped by half over the last 20 years, but the cities will figure out a way to survive. All of the cities in Ca. could get all their water from the Ocean. Hawaii does get a large portion of its water this way. There are several Aquifers underlying the southwest-massive ones-that will be tapped in the future, the sole reason they are not being used now is because they are all salt water. So, no I don’t think we will run out of oil or water any time soon. The current form of govt in the US, and in fact the very structure of the US I don’t see lasting much longer. Ca. has, by itself, the 7th largest economy in the world. I can see Ca, Or, Wa, BC Canada and Alaska combining to make a country. Most trade is now in the Pacific Rim, the Atlantic trade is less than half that of the Pacific ports. Texas could, once more become its own country, and bring NM and AZ along with it. Either a breakup of the US, or else I foresee a theocratic fascist dictatorship in less than 100 years, as the authoritarians continue their rise to power and their continued collaboration with the multinational corps. Breakup, or dictatorship, that is the future I see. With the dictatorship the sheeple will become a third world workforce, unable to do more than manual labor due to religious forces interfering with state education.In 50 years we will have a scientifically illiterate work force ruled by superstition and religious hacks. Max, my version of the future is just as bleak as yours, but I believe that it will be because of social upheaval rather than lack of resources. Chaos rules!
Comment from Leftcoast
Time: June 30, 2008, 10:36 am
Not chicken little. Even the global investment banks are prepping for an economic, energy, environmental trifecta that is going to reorder how we live. That’s reality, not some sort of arm waving paranoia.
Comment from timr
Time: July 1, 2008, 9:36 am
LC, saying that the global investment banks are prepping for a meltdown is not, in my mind, a good example. Their out and out greed in snapping up sub prime mortgages as a great investment makes me doubt anything they say.
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