Kunstler: Speech at PetroCollapse in New York City

[phantom power]

This is an inspired bit of speechifying. Makes sense, too.

I have a suggestion. Let's start with one down-to-earth project that we can take on with confidence, something we have a reasonable shot at accomplishing, and fairly quickly, something that will address our energy problems directly and will make a difference for the better. Let's get started rebuilding the passenger railroad system in our country. Nothing else we might do would make such a substantial impact on our outlandish oil consumption.

(...)

Any person or any group who finds themselves in trouble has to begin somewhere. They have to take a step that will prove to themselves that they are not helpless, that they are capable of accomplishing something, and accomplishing that first thing will build the confidence to move on to the next step.

That's how people save themselves, how they reconnect with reality-based virtue.

We were once such a people. We were brave, resourceful, generous, and earnest. The last thing we believed was the idea that it was possible to get something for nothing. That we were entitled to a particular outcome in life, apart from the choices we made and how we acted. We can recover those forsaken elements of our collective character. We can be guided, as Abraham Lincoln said, by the better angels of our nature.

We lived in a beautiful country with vibrant towns and cities, and a gorgeous, productive rural landscape, and we were sufficiently rewarded by them so we didn't feel driven to seek refuge in make-believe all the livelong day. When we wanted to accomplish something we set out to do it, to make it happen, not merely to wish for it. We knew the difference between wishing and doing - which is probably the most important thing that adult human beings can know.

I hope we can get back to being that kind of people. This effort here today is a good start.

http://www.kunstler.com/spch_petrocollapse.html

[firefox]

1. Electric trolleys were everywhere before cars

The oil industry saw to it that they were pulled up en masse. The oil companies own Warshington and the Congress and WarCriminal.

I couldn't agree more with what is presented in the thread starter. All you have to do is look at Europe to know we are so twentieth century in this country. It may not be going backwards, but standing still while the rest of the world moves foward has the same appearance.

People have been saying the same thing for 20 years. Mecklenburg County, as in Charlotte, NC, added a half a penny sales tax like 5 years ago for what is called light rail. It is very disappointing though, but at least it is a beginning and it will be seen through.

[jpak]

2. If we only had the RR and trolley systems that existed here before WW2...

or the rural bus systems that existed in 1930's...

People could get just about anywhere they wanted (door-to-door in many cases, even rural parts of the US) cheaply, conveniently and in a reasonable amount of time.

It will cost trillions to rebuild them...

[BlueEyedSon]

3. kick

[umass1993]

4. Well, Phantom

It's good to see that you don't think of Kunstler as all bad.

Nobody as smart as him, is that simple. (And he is a smart guy,
"The Geography of Nowhere" should be read by every student in every
high school across the US.)

[phantom power]

5. I criticize because I care :-)

[GrumpyGreg]

6. There are many things I wish were the same as they were in the

good old days,but there was a lot of bad stuff ,also,in the "good" old days.

Sadly,or gladly,we can't go back.