Tinkerntom wrote:


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.


Interstate commerce is a Constitutional right. The federal highway
system is part and parcel to interstate commerce. Our right to utilize
roads comes in large part from our being taxed, through fuel and
vehicle taxes, to pay for highway construction and maintenance.

The US Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration
has an exhaustive history of highways; See:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/history.htm


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.


I'm extremely suspicious of "alternative" fuels, especially hydrogen.
Hydrogen burns clean, but the production of hydrogen from natural gas
and coal can generate considerable greenhouse carbon dioxide.
Interestingly, the largest US reserves of natural gas and coal are in
Texas and Wyoming.


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!


The real question must be asked by everyone of himself. How much of
the earth's resources does it take to make and run and stock each one
of our homes, and cars and places of work? Think of all the drilling
and mining and manufacturing and energy required to do all of that.
Then, look at all your neighbor has, and his neighbor... We have dug
ourselves into a karmic and spiritual and environmental debt that is
impossible to reconcile. But, the reconciliation begins with the
development of an environmental consciousness, and continues into an
expansion of that consciousness.





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

- From "Ballad of Serenity" by Joss Whedon