Why does almost no one talk about new urbanism when talking about the cost of oil and alternative fuels?

Question

How about better public transportion? What if the miracle replacement for oil doesn't show up? Do you think it makes sense to have a backup plan?

Answer 1

That is a great idea to make public transportation more efficient and more desirable. But the fact of the matter is we are running out of oil and if some sort of replacement isn't used such as bio fuels or hydrogen cells, we will be in the dark ages real soon. Just worrying about public transportation and making it better is good but just a band aide that prolongs the problem.

Answer 2

Because humans have no vision.

If we did we would all group together and do something like all stop work for week . Lets call it environmental repair week or month. Then we would all go to large areas and get up on stage and put foreward our ideas and act upon them immediately.

But we are all to stupid to put aside work and bills and all our self absorbed rubbish to actually realy talk face to face about our planets serious state of affairs. As in early times many hands make lite work. Lets have a mass campout where we can all get away from our every day lives and take a good hard look back at all the mistakes we have made for the little short lived comforts we have. It doesn't take a scientist or an idiot trying to get some government grant to write up a thesis or some rubbish on why the world is the way it is. We can repair it the government just has to stop running as a business and actually realy listen to me. I have all the answers to make our world better.

Answer 3

backup plans are good, when they're needed.

that's not the case yet.

better public transportation would be nice.

but we're not willing to pay for it.

keep in mind, this country voted for tax cuts, paid for by deficits, which is stealing from our own children.

what makes you, or anyone, think that we'll do the right thing, unless (A) it costs nothing, and (B) there's an immediate benefit in it for us.

Answer 4

My wife  works 5 miles from home. If we could make that the furthest anyone had to go to get to work, it'd solve a lot of problems. But that'd mean changing the zoning laws.

Answer 5

It bothers them too much that the fuel prices are too high

Answer 6

I agree with Cowboy except to say that bio fuels and hydrogen cells are not going to be the answer. Bio fuels are already coming under fire because they use up too much land that could and should have been used to grow food (the whole issue is being debated in the U.K. and Europe right now) and hydrogen technology is proving too challenging and expensive to roll out on a nationwide, let alone a global basis.

New urbanism could have provided an answer if it had been taken seriously in, say, the 1950s and 60s, but it is far too late to overhaul the planning systems now. Paradoxically, we will be forced into a sort of new urbanism by the current problems - we will simply not be able to commute long distances in the future and our food will be grown locally whether we like it or not. Unless some miraculous technological development occurs, many poor and middle-income people could end up living in a medieval society.

Answer 7

There is a single,efficient,non polluting,unending,well proved,source of energy already in use in some Countries for the past few decades,it is called geothermal energy but the decision makers pretend not to know about it because will strip the oil kings of their huge profits .Not only this kind of energy is very cheap to obtain but has the added benefit to desalinize waters and could solve all of our problems.If you don't believe in "Global Warming" at least you cannot reject the prospect of breathing clean air.

P.S. - It will make efficient public transport more feasible as the electricity produced by this process would be of extreme low cost.