Frederick Burroughs wrote:
riverman wrote:

"Tinkerntom" wrote:

I suspect that some of these companies would love to develope ANWR,
and
maybe Watts would have allowed it, and now Bush and Norton
contemplates
it. I also suspect that if they go up there, though they will
probably
not be able to leave no trace, they will be required to leave as
small
a footprint as possible. The cost of a highly advanced industrial
civilization.

If there is an alternative, I would love to hear it, and see it in
"black and white," not just platitudes and pie in the sky, and talk
about the noble savage. It is easy to whine, show me a plan that
works,
and I would be more than glad to promote it to all my
fundementalist
friends in high places.



OK. How about "CONSERVE"? And how about "its about time...."


Now there's a word you don't hear much anymore. I wonder how many
times it appears in Cheney's secret energy task force
recommendations?
It has been made public that atomic energy (to use the old term)
needs
to be revitalized, and will not result in production of greenhouse
gases. Which, the Bush administration has said with forked tongue,
has
not been scientifically proven to be a cause of global warming.

Very recently, there have been public meetings for comment on a
proposal by the Virginia Department of Transportation to widen
Interstate 81 from four lanes to eight. A couple years ago these
plans
were all but terminated in light of budget deficits. Negotiations are

now taking place between VDOT and STARS, a company owned by Cheney's
Halliburton.

I have a personal suspicion, unsupported by any collaborative
evidence, that the doubling of the width of I-81, with segregated
lanes for tractor-trailer traffic, is in preparation for
transportation of radioactive waste via interstate routes west to
Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Another suspicion is that Halliburton may be planning to use state
and
federal highway funds to subsidize the laying of pipelines parallel

to highway construction.






--
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

- From "Ballad of Serenity" by Joss Whedon

Since you mention the Interstate Highway system, They were originally
established as federal defense corridors during the cold war. They are
designed such that the feds could close them down and block them off,
and be used solely for federal purposes. I don't know if they could get
away with that now that a lot of us have got use to using them, but
that was the original plan, as confirmed by a retired federal emergency
preparedness planner.

So I am sure that to use them as you suggest, is certainly in the
sights of someone. But then the right of driving our car on the
interstate is not assured in the Constitution. Matter of fact I don't
recall Connie saying anything about cars or driving at all. Must have
been an oversight.

Of course that gets me to rivermans big word of "conserve". Maybe the
best way to conserve would be to just confiscate all the
"unconstitutional" cars and let us walk again. That would probably
solve the whole oil crisis, and at the same time solve the "fat nation"
problem. I think you could be on to something riverman, unless that is
not exactly what you had in mind. I suspect the latter!

Conserve is good. Alternative fuel sourse is good. Again do you have
any practical "black and white" suggestions. To do all this while we
have reserves to carry us through transition is wise, But who says we
are wise. Usually we wait until the situation is critical, and then
think that if we throw enough money at it we can fix anything. Maybe
when the price of oil gets high enough, we will be able to develope oil
shale, or coal.

So the real question comes down to how much are you willing to pay for
a gallon of gas, in order to keep driving. Maybe the feds won't have to
close the highway, they will be the only ones that can afford the gas
to drive their nuke waste trucks on the highway that runs through
Sherwood Forest! But then conservation and the environment will not be
the hot issue, but how we have enough fire wood to cook our beans and
stay warm, without cutting down the whole forest! TnT