Confessions of a recovering engineer
BY CHARLES MAROHN
22 NOV 2010 5:26 PM
Cross-posted from Strong Towns.
After graduating from college with a civil engineering degree, I found myself working in my home town for a local engineering firm doing mostly municipal engineering (roads, sewer pipe, water pipe, stormwater). A fair percentage of my time was spent convincing people that, when it came to their road, I knew more than they did.
And of course I should know more. First, I had a technical degree from a top university. Second, I was in a path towards getting a state license (at the time I was an engineer in training, the four-year "apprenticeship" required to become a fully licensed professional engineer), which required me to pass a pretty tough test just to get started and another, more difficult, exam to conclude. Third, I was in a profession that is one of the oldest and most respected in human history, responsible for some of the greatest achievements of mankind. Fourth -- and most important -- I had books and books of standards to follow.
A book of standards to an engineer is better than a bible to a priest. All you have to do is to rely on the standards. Back in college I was told a story about how, in WWII, some Jewish engineers in hiding had run thousands of tedious tests on asphalt, just to produce these graphs that we still use today. Some of our craft descends from Roman engineers who did all of this a couple of millennia ago. How could I be wrong with literally thousands of years of professional practice on my side?
And, more to the point, what business would I -- let alone a property owner on a project I was working on -- have in questioning the way things were done? Of course the people who wrote the standards knew better than we did. That is why they wrote the standard.
When people would tell me that they did not want a wider street, I would tell them that they had to have it for safety reasons.
When they answered that a wider street would make people drive faster and that would be seem to be less safe, especially in front of their house where their kids were playing, I would confidently tell them that the wider road was more safe, especially when combined with the other safety enhancements the standards called for.
When people objected to those other "enhancements", like removing all of the trees near the road, I told them that for safety reasons we needed to improve the sight distances and ensure that the recovery zone was free of obstacles.
When they pointed out that the "recovery zone" was also their "yard" and that their kids played kickball and hopscotch there, I recommended that they put up a fence, so long as the fence was outside of the right-of-way.
When they objected to the cost of the wider, faster, treeless road that would turn their peaceful front yard into the viewing area for a drag strip unless they built a concrete barricade along their front property line, I informed them that progress was sometimes expensive, but these standards have been shown to work across the state, the country, and the world, and I could not compromise with their safety.
In retrospect I understand that this was utter insanity. Wider, faster, treeless roads not only ruin our public places, they kill people. Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets, and even county roads, costs us thousands of lives every year. There is no earthly reason why an engineer would ever design a 14-foot lane for a city block, yet we do it continually. Why?
The answer is utterly shameful: Because that is the standard.
In the engineering profession's version of defensive medicine, we can't recommend standards that are not in the manual. We can't use logic to vary from a standard that gives us 60 mph design speeds on roads with intersections every 200 feet. We can't question why two cars would need to travel at high speed in opposite directions on a city block, let alone why we would want them to. We can yield to public pressure and post a speed limit -- itself a hazard -- but we can't recommend a road section that is not in the highway manual.
When the public and politicians tell engineers that their top priorities are safety and then cost, the engineer's brain hears something completely different. The engineer hears, "Once you set a design speed and handle the projected volume of traffic, safety is the top priority. Do what it takes to make the road safe, but do it as cheaply as you can." This is why engineers return projects with asinine "safety" features, like pedestrian bridges and tunnels that nobody will ever use, and costs that are astronomical.
An engineer designing a street or road prioritizes the world in this way, no matter how they are instructed:
1. Traffic speed
2. Traffic volume
3. Safety
4. Cost
The rest of the world generally would prioritize things differently, as follows:
1. Safety
2. Cost
3. Traffic volume
4. Traffic speed
In other words, the engineer first assumes that all traffic must travel at speed. Given that speed, all roads and streets are then designed to handle a projected volume. Once those parameters are set, only then does an engineer look at mitigating for safety and, finally, how to reduce the overall cost (which at that point is nearly always ridiculously expensive).
In America, it is this thinking that has designed most of our built environment, and it is nonsensical. In many ways, it is professional malpractice. If we delivered what society asked us for, we would build our local roads and streets to be safe above all else. Only then would we consider what could be done, given our budget, to handle a higher volume of cars at greater speeds.
We go to enormous expense to save ourselves small increments of driving time. This would be delusional in and of itself if it were not also making our roads and streets much less safe. I'll again reference a 2005 article from the APA Journal showing how narrower, slower streets dramatically reduce accidents, especially fatalities.
And it is that simple observation that all of those supposedly "ignorant" property owners were trying to explain to me, the engineer with all the standards, so many years ago. When you can't let your kids play in the yard, let alone ride their bike to the store, because you know the street is dangerous, then the engineering profession is not providing society any real value. It's time to stand up and demand a change.
It's time we demand that engineers build us Strong Towns.
Showing posts with label BAU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BAU. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Life in Louisiana, and on Earth, Struggles to Survive
Published on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 by New. Clear. Vision.
Life in Louisiana, and on Earth, Struggles to Survive
by John Clark
On this anniversary of the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, attention here in south Louisiana is focused on the consequences of that traumatic event. As the Deepwater Horizon disaster begins to recede into history, we have heard wildly divergent views of what its effects have been for our region.
On the one hand, we hear optimistic statements about the almost complete recovery of the Gulf. On the other, we hear troubling reports of what still lies beneath the surface, and of possible long-term ecological damage that can only be assessed after much careful scientific study. Meanwhile, tourist agencies and public officials urge us to relax, take a swim, and eat some seafood.
I suggest that in assessing the real costs of oil, we take a larger view of the matter. What are its costs over the long term for this region, for humanity, and for the whole planet?
My family came to New Orleans almost three hundred years ago. Over the centuries that we have been here, we have lived in a culture that has been shaped by the bodies of water that surround us: by the Gulf, the lakes, the bayous, the wetlands, and by the great river that created our landscape, the very ground on which we stand.
We might reflect for a moment on our local and regional history over that period, and on a much larger history of which we are a part. If we go back a century and a half, we find a Louisiana that was rich and powerful. Its power came from an economy based on cotton, sugar cane and slavery. This economy brought poverty and oppression to many, but wealth and prosperity to the rulers and the more privileged. It was also an economy that was doomed to extinction.
On the eve of the Civil War, the great geographer Reclus could observe that according to the conventional wisdom of the American South, this system of production “was not only a necessary and inexorable institution, but also a moral and humane one, producing the greatest political and social advantages.” Just as the economic system based on cotton, sugar cane, and slavery was about to collapse, and the entire old society with it, there was an almost universal outcry among those who could speak and be heard that that system was inevitable and eternal, that our society depended on it, and that without it there would be catastrophe. But this system was itself the catastrophe.
Since the recent dawn of the Petroleum Age, Louisiana has produced nearly twenty billion barrels of oil, generating enormous wealth for the national and global economies. Once again, the conventional wisdom has seen the prevailing economic order as both absolutely necessary and highly advantageous. But what, in reality, have the dominant extractive and petrochemical industries, and especially oil, brought to Louisiana? We are one of the poorest states. We are one of the least educated states. We are one of the unhealthiest states. We are one of the states in which government is most abjectly subservient to industry. We are one of the states most scarred by rampant corruption. We are one of the most environmentally devastated states. And now, the oil industry has damaged coastal wetlands and Gulf ecosystems, quite possibly for a considerable period into the future, in the worst marine oil disaster in history.
But these are far from the greatest evils that have been inflicted on us by petro-tyranny. Thanks largely to the operations of the oil industry, two thousand square miles of our coastal wetlands have disappeared. Communities whose lives have been dependent on these wetlands and on the Gulf for hundreds or, in the case of indigenous people, even thousands of years, are disappearing. Finally, and most disastrously, global climate change caused by a carbon-based, and above all, a petroleum-based economy, will soon submerge coastal Louisiana entirely. Our home, our native land, will disappear forever.
We are not unique victims of such petro-terrorism. We might also ask what the oil industry has brought to humanity as a whole, and to the planet. Oil has fueled a powerful system of production, which, while creating massive amounts of material goods, has also been essential to creating the Sixth Great Mass Extinction in the three-billion-year history of life on earth. This is the great catastrophe of our age. It is, indeed, the single most important fact about life on earth at the present moment, and the single most traumatic one, which is why it is almost never mentioned in electoral campaigns, news reports, or textbooks.
Oil has also brought us global climate change that threatens to inundate not only our region, but lands where hundreds of millions of people live. It threatens to create a disaster for global agriculture, thus contributing to the possibility of a catastrophic population crash. It threatens to aggravate species and ecosystem destruction, and thus accelerate the existing biodiversity crisis. This massive climate disruption is the second greatest catastrophe of our age, one which is now much discussed, but almost never faced as if it were a real, impending reality.
If we take an only slightly larger view of history than is customary, we will realize an obvious truth. Oil will end, and it will end very soon. The petroleum economy will decline, and it will do so in this century. The Petroleum Age will have existed for only a brief moment in human history, no more than a fleeting nanosecond in earth’s history. The great question is how much social and ecological havoc it will wreak before it disappears.
The tragic irony is that we have the technological means to create abundance for all without the massive ecological devastation caused by fossil fuels (and other destructive technologies). A large part of our challenge today, on the one-year anniversary of the worst marine oil disaster in history, is to learn to assess both the costs and benefits of oil in relation to something much greater: the value of the healthy flourishing of life on earth.
New. Clear. Vision. © 2010 - 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/20-7
Life in Louisiana, and on Earth, Struggles to Survive
by John Clark
On this anniversary of the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, attention here in south Louisiana is focused on the consequences of that traumatic event. As the Deepwater Horizon disaster begins to recede into history, we have heard wildly divergent views of what its effects have been for our region.
On the one hand, we hear optimistic statements about the almost complete recovery of the Gulf. On the other, we hear troubling reports of what still lies beneath the surface, and of possible long-term ecological damage that can only be assessed after much careful scientific study. Meanwhile, tourist agencies and public officials urge us to relax, take a swim, and eat some seafood.
I suggest that in assessing the real costs of oil, we take a larger view of the matter. What are its costs over the long term for this region, for humanity, and for the whole planet?
My family came to New Orleans almost three hundred years ago. Over the centuries that we have been here, we have lived in a culture that has been shaped by the bodies of water that surround us: by the Gulf, the lakes, the bayous, the wetlands, and by the great river that created our landscape, the very ground on which we stand.
We might reflect for a moment on our local and regional history over that period, and on a much larger history of which we are a part. If we go back a century and a half, we find a Louisiana that was rich and powerful. Its power came from an economy based on cotton, sugar cane and slavery. This economy brought poverty and oppression to many, but wealth and prosperity to the rulers and the more privileged. It was also an economy that was doomed to extinction.
On the eve of the Civil War, the great geographer Reclus could observe that according to the conventional wisdom of the American South, this system of production “was not only a necessary and inexorable institution, but also a moral and humane one, producing the greatest political and social advantages.” Just as the economic system based on cotton, sugar cane, and slavery was about to collapse, and the entire old society with it, there was an almost universal outcry among those who could speak and be heard that that system was inevitable and eternal, that our society depended on it, and that without it there would be catastrophe. But this system was itself the catastrophe.
Since the recent dawn of the Petroleum Age, Louisiana has produced nearly twenty billion barrels of oil, generating enormous wealth for the national and global economies. Once again, the conventional wisdom has seen the prevailing economic order as both absolutely necessary and highly advantageous. But what, in reality, have the dominant extractive and petrochemical industries, and especially oil, brought to Louisiana? We are one of the poorest states. We are one of the least educated states. We are one of the unhealthiest states. We are one of the states in which government is most abjectly subservient to industry. We are one of the states most scarred by rampant corruption. We are one of the most environmentally devastated states. And now, the oil industry has damaged coastal wetlands and Gulf ecosystems, quite possibly for a considerable period into the future, in the worst marine oil disaster in history.
But these are far from the greatest evils that have been inflicted on us by petro-tyranny. Thanks largely to the operations of the oil industry, two thousand square miles of our coastal wetlands have disappeared. Communities whose lives have been dependent on these wetlands and on the Gulf for hundreds or, in the case of indigenous people, even thousands of years, are disappearing. Finally, and most disastrously, global climate change caused by a carbon-based, and above all, a petroleum-based economy, will soon submerge coastal Louisiana entirely. Our home, our native land, will disappear forever.
We are not unique victims of such petro-terrorism. We might also ask what the oil industry has brought to humanity as a whole, and to the planet. Oil has fueled a powerful system of production, which, while creating massive amounts of material goods, has also been essential to creating the Sixth Great Mass Extinction in the three-billion-year history of life on earth. This is the great catastrophe of our age. It is, indeed, the single most important fact about life on earth at the present moment, and the single most traumatic one, which is why it is almost never mentioned in electoral campaigns, news reports, or textbooks.
Oil has also brought us global climate change that threatens to inundate not only our region, but lands where hundreds of millions of people live. It threatens to create a disaster for global agriculture, thus contributing to the possibility of a catastrophic population crash. It threatens to aggravate species and ecosystem destruction, and thus accelerate the existing biodiversity crisis. This massive climate disruption is the second greatest catastrophe of our age, one which is now much discussed, but almost never faced as if it were a real, impending reality.
If we take an only slightly larger view of history than is customary, we will realize an obvious truth. Oil will end, and it will end very soon. The petroleum economy will decline, and it will do so in this century. The Petroleum Age will have existed for only a brief moment in human history, no more than a fleeting nanosecond in earth’s history. The great question is how much social and ecological havoc it will wreak before it disappears.
The tragic irony is that we have the technological means to create abundance for all without the massive ecological devastation caused by fossil fuels (and other destructive technologies). A large part of our challenge today, on the one-year anniversary of the worst marine oil disaster in history, is to learn to assess both the costs and benefits of oil in relation to something much greater: the value of the healthy flourishing of life on earth.
New. Clear. Vision. © 2010 - 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/20-7
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Out to Sea
All interconnects,
Each touches every other.
I'm thinking that out here on the left end of Terminal City it's World Water Day, another self-appointed day of reckoning for an issue more pressing than one in three sixty five can possibly accommodate. Somewhat obligingly, water leaks from the sky.
Water surrounds us on all sides here on the western peninsula, but I suppose the same can be said for everyone everywhere, if you only stretch your horizons far enough. Turtle Island, my enlightened friends say.
Water runs through our cities and towns, grand rivers are synonymous with their grand cities--we know them by name: the Seine, the Thames, the Mississippi and the muddy Fraser. Perhaps the first lesson of civilisation is 'Build near water', but not too close.
Without water, there is barren landscape and few signs of intelligent life. Yet life perseveres. Air -conditioned golf course houses to air-conditioned SUVs to air-conditioned workspaces, these creatures of comfort that inhabit this wasteland, these A/C'd hayseeds require huge inputs of energy and water, the extraction and wanton usage of one ruining the purity of the other.
I'm thinking of the hydrological cycle we all learned about in grade school. I can still picture the textbook illustration--the "happy clouds" gathered over the ocean, swept inland to drop in the shadow of the mountains. I'm considering the general westward push of the weather on this big ol' ball of water and mud, and how, far to the east, a new sun may be blooming.
I'm still thinking of the images of black oil boiling out into the bottom of the Ocean for days, weeks on end, of executive lies and government blinds and cures that may prove to be more terrible than the disease. I'm learning new terms generated from the regime of capital meeting the consequences of disaster, phrases like: "run to failure" and "meltdown chain" and hearing the unspoken behind every corp-o-rat spokesman: "protect the investment, defend the brand".
In the Gulf last year and at Fukushima today, the talking heads attempt to reassure the public as the situation rapidly deteriorates. No matter which side of the big lie they lie, the professional punditry seems to offer as a source of comfort that the latest man-made defilement was "drifting out to sea". Out of sight, out of mind.
I'm thinking "out to sea" really means the Ocean. Our Ocean. The Ocean that more than two-thirds of the world's population is connected. It is no comfort at all when the unholy gods of energy and industry still consider the Ocean to be an open sewer, a Hoover-matic that never needs its bag to be emptied.
The sky no longer sheds its purple tears and the sound of a hose running draws me from my reveries. Peering out I see our neighbour performing his ritual obligations. He proclaims it to be a great day, before commencing to slop suds upon his spotless car, his chariot of smoke and fire well watered beyond the limits of Hur's team. He soaps and rinses, waxes and vains while the dishevelled wife glares from the kitchen window. Ah, the suburban dream continues...
Each touches every other.
I'm thinking that out here on the left end of Terminal City it's World Water Day, another self-appointed day of reckoning for an issue more pressing than one in three sixty five can possibly accommodate. Somewhat obligingly, water leaks from the sky.
Water surrounds us on all sides here on the western peninsula, but I suppose the same can be said for everyone everywhere, if you only stretch your horizons far enough. Turtle Island, my enlightened friends say.
Water runs through our cities and towns, grand rivers are synonymous with their grand cities--we know them by name: the Seine, the Thames, the Mississippi and the muddy Fraser. Perhaps the first lesson of civilisation is 'Build near water', but not too close.
Without water, there is barren landscape and few signs of intelligent life. Yet life perseveres. Air -conditioned golf course houses to air-conditioned SUVs to air-conditioned workspaces, these creatures of comfort that inhabit this wasteland, these A/C'd hayseeds require huge inputs of energy and water, the extraction and wanton usage of one ruining the purity of the other.
I'm thinking of the hydrological cycle we all learned about in grade school. I can still picture the textbook illustration--the "happy clouds" gathered over the ocean, swept inland to drop in the shadow of the mountains. I'm considering the general westward push of the weather on this big ol' ball of water and mud, and how, far to the east, a new sun may be blooming.
I'm still thinking of the images of black oil boiling out into the bottom of the Ocean for days, weeks on end, of executive lies and government blinds and cures that may prove to be more terrible than the disease. I'm learning new terms generated from the regime of capital meeting the consequences of disaster, phrases like: "run to failure" and "meltdown chain" and hearing the unspoken behind every corp-o-rat spokesman: "protect the investment, defend the brand".
In the Gulf last year and at Fukushima today, the talking heads attempt to reassure the public as the situation rapidly deteriorates. No matter which side of the big lie they lie, the professional punditry seems to offer as a source of comfort that the latest man-made defilement was "drifting out to sea". Out of sight, out of mind.
I'm thinking "out to sea" really means the Ocean. Our Ocean. The Ocean that more than two-thirds of the world's population is connected. It is no comfort at all when the unholy gods of energy and industry still consider the Ocean to be an open sewer, a Hoover-matic that never needs its bag to be emptied.
The sky no longer sheds its purple tears and the sound of a hose running draws me from my reveries. Peering out I see our neighbour performing his ritual obligations. He proclaims it to be a great day, before commencing to slop suds upon his spotless car, his chariot of smoke and fire well watered beyond the limits of Hur's team. He soaps and rinses, waxes and vains while the dishevelled wife glares from the kitchen window. Ah, the suburban dream continues...
Friday, March 11, 2011
All so you can have cheap gas
Word Games and Atrocities
via counterpunch.org
By DAVE LINDORFF
The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting "Death to America."
Americans are still blissfully unaware that their "heroes" in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ovine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the "mistake" to "NATO" helicopters.
The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not "NATO" helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack "suspected Taliban forces."
So why can't the Pentagon say that? And if they won't say that, why won't American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?
There is a second issue too. Most publications appear to have followed the lead of the highly compromised New York Times, and are going with the Pentagon line that the boys who were killed were aged 9-15. That's bad enough. It's hard to see how helicopter pilots with their high-resolution imaging equipment, cannot tell a 9-year-old boy when they see one, from a bearded Taliban fighter. But at least one news organization, the McClachy chain, is reporting that the ages of the boys who were murdered from the air were 7-13. If that latter range of ages is correct, then it is all the more outrageous that they were picked off one by one by helicopter gunners. No way could they have mistaken a 7-year-old for an adult.
No wonder the even the famously corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to accept an apology proffered for this killing by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus.
Calls by this reporter to the Pentagon for an accurate report on whose troops were flying those two helicopters, and on an accurate accounting of the ages of the nine victims, have thus far gone unanswered. This, I have discovered, is fairly standard for the Defense Department. If it's a story about some big victory, or a new eco-friendly plan for a military base's heating system, you have to beat the Pentagon PR guys off with a stick, but if you call them about something embarrassing or negative, you get passed from Major Perrine to Lt. Col. Robbins to Commander Whozits, and nobody give you an answer. Finally you're given someone to email a question to, and that message goes into the Pentagon internet ether and never gets returned.
So let's give an honest report here. Two US helicopter gunships, allegedly responding to a report of "insurgent" activity on a hillside in Kunar Province, came upon the scene of 10 young Afghan boys who were collecting brush for fuel for their families. The gunships, according to the account of a lone 11-year-old surviver who was hidden by a tree, systematically hunted down the other nine boys, hitting them with machine gun and rocket fire and killing them all--their bodies so badly damaged that their families had to hunt for the pieces in order to bury them.
This atrocity is being described as a "mistake," but it was no mistake, clearly. The crews of the helicopters were shooting at fleeing human beings who made no attempt to return fire (obviously, because all the boys had were sticks, which they surely dropped when the first shots were fired).
They almost certainly saw that they were dealing with kids, because it would be hard to mistake even a nine year old for an adult, particularly in a country where young kids go around with their heads uncovered, and don't have beards, while adult males generally wear head coverings, and have full beards. But killing kids is part of the deal in America's war in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, 12 year olds were being classified by the US military (in contravention of the Geneva Conventions) as being "combat age," for example in the assault on the city of Fallujah.
Let's also be clear that this slaughter of nine Afghan children is the ugly reality behind Gen. Petraeus's supposed policy of "protecting civilians." Here's a number that tells the true story about that policy: since Gen. Petraeus assumed command after the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US airstrikes in Afghanistan have gone up by 172%. That's not counting attacks by remote-controlled, missile-firing drone aircraft, which are also up by a huge amount. Those airstrikes and drone attacks are notoriously deadly for civilians--far more so than ground attacks, but of course they have the advantage for our "heroes" in uniform of reducing the number of US casualties in this hugely one-sided conflict.
There are so many aspects to this story that are disturbing, it's hard to know what's worse. Clearly we are deliberately murdering kids in Afghanistan, and this particular incident is just an example we know about. The men who did this will hopefully pay for their crimes by living with their guilt, but hopefully there will be an honest investigation and proper punishment too by military authorities (I'm not holding my breath). Petraeus and his boss, Commander in Chief Obama, should also be called to account and punished for implementing a war plan that calls for this kind of brutal slaughter of civilians.
But the US media are also guilty here. How can Americans reach proper conclusions about this obscene war against one of the poorest peoples in the World if our supposedly "fair and balanced" media simply performs the role of Pentagon propagandist, running Defense Department press releases as if they were news reports?
The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms.
DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, collectively-owned, journalist-run, reader-supported online alternative newspaper.
via counterpunch.org
By DAVE LINDORFF
The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting "Death to America."
Americans are still blissfully unaware that their "heroes" in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ovine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the "mistake" to "NATO" helicopters.
The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not "NATO" helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack "suspected Taliban forces."
So why can't the Pentagon say that? And if they won't say that, why won't American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?
There is a second issue too. Most publications appear to have followed the lead of the highly compromised New York Times, and are going with the Pentagon line that the boys who were killed were aged 9-15. That's bad enough. It's hard to see how helicopter pilots with their high-resolution imaging equipment, cannot tell a 9-year-old boy when they see one, from a bearded Taliban fighter. But at least one news organization, the McClachy chain, is reporting that the ages of the boys who were murdered from the air were 7-13. If that latter range of ages is correct, then it is all the more outrageous that they were picked off one by one by helicopter gunners. No way could they have mistaken a 7-year-old for an adult.
No wonder the even the famously corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to accept an apology proffered for this killing by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus.
Calls by this reporter to the Pentagon for an accurate report on whose troops were flying those two helicopters, and on an accurate accounting of the ages of the nine victims, have thus far gone unanswered. This, I have discovered, is fairly standard for the Defense Department. If it's a story about some big victory, or a new eco-friendly plan for a military base's heating system, you have to beat the Pentagon PR guys off with a stick, but if you call them about something embarrassing or negative, you get passed from Major Perrine to Lt. Col. Robbins to Commander Whozits, and nobody give you an answer. Finally you're given someone to email a question to, and that message goes into the Pentagon internet ether and never gets returned.
So let's give an honest report here. Two US helicopter gunships, allegedly responding to a report of "insurgent" activity on a hillside in Kunar Province, came upon the scene of 10 young Afghan boys who were collecting brush for fuel for their families. The gunships, according to the account of a lone 11-year-old surviver who was hidden by a tree, systematically hunted down the other nine boys, hitting them with machine gun and rocket fire and killing them all--their bodies so badly damaged that their families had to hunt for the pieces in order to bury them.
This atrocity is being described as a "mistake," but it was no mistake, clearly. The crews of the helicopters were shooting at fleeing human beings who made no attempt to return fire (obviously, because all the boys had were sticks, which they surely dropped when the first shots were fired).
They almost certainly saw that they were dealing with kids, because it would be hard to mistake even a nine year old for an adult, particularly in a country where young kids go around with their heads uncovered, and don't have beards, while adult males generally wear head coverings, and have full beards. But killing kids is part of the deal in America's war in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, 12 year olds were being classified by the US military (in contravention of the Geneva Conventions) as being "combat age," for example in the assault on the city of Fallujah.
Let's also be clear that this slaughter of nine Afghan children is the ugly reality behind Gen. Petraeus's supposed policy of "protecting civilians." Here's a number that tells the true story about that policy: since Gen. Petraeus assumed command after the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US airstrikes in Afghanistan have gone up by 172%. That's not counting attacks by remote-controlled, missile-firing drone aircraft, which are also up by a huge amount. Those airstrikes and drone attacks are notoriously deadly for civilians--far more so than ground attacks, but of course they have the advantage for our "heroes" in uniform of reducing the number of US casualties in this hugely one-sided conflict.
There are so many aspects to this story that are disturbing, it's hard to know what's worse. Clearly we are deliberately murdering kids in Afghanistan, and this particular incident is just an example we know about. The men who did this will hopefully pay for their crimes by living with their guilt, but hopefully there will be an honest investigation and proper punishment too by military authorities (I'm not holding my breath). Petraeus and his boss, Commander in Chief Obama, should also be called to account and punished for implementing a war plan that calls for this kind of brutal slaughter of civilians.
But the US media are also guilty here. How can Americans reach proper conclusions about this obscene war against one of the poorest peoples in the World if our supposedly "fair and balanced" media simply performs the role of Pentagon propagandist, running Defense Department press releases as if they were news reports?
The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms.
DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, collectively-owned, journalist-run, reader-supported online alternative newspaper.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Nature of the Beast
Thursday evening, SFU downtown Vancouver, BC.
Book Launch: Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect On Our Lives. by anthropologist Catherine Lutz and former marketer/investment banker turned high school teacher Anne Lutz Fernandez.
As book tours usually consist of a series of flights and taxis, it was refreshing to hear the authors of Carjacked state that their tour is being conducted through train and transit.
A captivating talk was enjoyed by a receptive audience, followed by a short question and answer session. They began with a few telling statistics which indicates that car culture is still flourishing in America, and by extension, in Canada. 150,000 new cars are sold everyday in America, and those cars are generally bigger, heavier, more expensive and carry a higher percentage of financing than ever before.
Through targeted marketing assaults and illusion-filled lifestyle advertising, North American society, and much of the developed and developing world has been thoroughly seduced by car culture. In most places, it has become so prevalent and ubiquitous as to go unquestioned and to be unassailable. The fish does not question the water, the motorist does not question his ‘right’ to drive.
After quickly identifying the broad canvas of the car “system” (basically: industry, government, infrastructure-investment, habit, and consumerism-culture) the authors explain that their work focuses on the last of these, upon the consumerist and social history and implications of the automobile as centrepiece of our current culture.
Within this social context, the authors point to some of the prevailing myths about automobile ownership. They further identify these commonly held assumptions, generated by car companies’ advertising/marketing machine, as points of attack to challenge the car culture monolith.
They identify the love-hate relationship many have with their cars--but it would seem the hate only occurs when the actual life fails to live up to the promises and illusions of the lifestyle advertising.
Of particular interest was the auto industry’s notions on safety, or at least those notions they are trying to sell you, the customer. Of course the thrust of safety engineering, since Ralph Nader demanded seat belts, has been to improve the integrity and cushion of the interior cabin, effectively cocooning the occupants from outside harm, yet often from vital outside input as well. Through it all, the car companies insist that they are producing “safe” cars, while driving remains an inherently dangerous activity.
But now attached to this idea of safety in the event of a collision, comes the idea of your car protecting you from all the apparent dangers of a hostile world. These dangers will be depicted either as the forces of nature, or else from more insidious, unnamed evils. With the culture of fear being racheted up beyond belief in the last ten years, this is an easy sell for the car companies.
Curiously, in many aspects of the car advertising game, the car is sold as a solution to the problems of the car. The monotony of the commute is solved with in-car distractions, the traffic jam is solved by a more comfortable seat, the pollution problem is solved by better air filters, pollution concerns are solved by electric cars, hottest summer on record, turn up the A/C, problem solved!...the madness goes on and on.
Car culture has insinuated itself into every stage of our lives, from childhood indoctrination (Disney movies, hot wheels toys...), through the coming-of-age ritual of your first driver’s license, into group identification and notions of individualism and status, and onto the reluctance and even rebellion of seniors who need to relinquish their driver’s licenses. Many feel it is an indispensable part of their daily routine, and have trouble and anxiety even considering a change of lifestyle. Obviously there is a great reluctance among motorists to abandon their cars in favour of more sensible transportation, even among those who recognize the problems.
For those who desire a better collective future, one that is not centered around the cult of the automobile, one not based upon keeping our cars happy at all costs, the talk by the authors of Carjacked was a reminder of the nature of the beast we must fight against, and shed some light of the size and complexity of that beast.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
in reply
When one drives through the Southern and Western United States, it is immediately clear that in the last 10 years there has been no reversal of America’s commitment to a total automotive, sprawl culture. NONE WHATSOEVER. This is true in spite of the Economic Depression of the last 2 years with no end in sight, and the reality of Peak Oil undeniably upon us.
Not only is the lifestyle unchanged, its premises are totally unchallenged. The car is a basic right as well as a necessity – it is part of one’s personhood, especially one’s manhood.... It’s an extension of your physical body. To be separated from the vehicle is profound trauma, loss, the end of freedom.
Scott Schneider
Hi Scott,
Car culture indoctrination begins in early childhood and there are virtually no alternatives offered. Hot wheels and similar toys are seen as benign, cutsey car movies portray inanimate metal to be huggable and friendly little killing machines. Last year our local refinery had an open house including a giveaway to the kiddies of a car and oil-themed colouring book complete with the cutesy smiling cars. Of course, none of the oil executives I talked to saw anything wrong with distributing propaganda to children. No executive shill I spoke with would even acknowledge peak oil. It all left me feeling so dis-spirited.
Even in this relatively progressive city, the everyday, ‘business as normal’ people I talk to all seem eager to make positive changes, as long as it doesn’t affect them in any way. GWB said “The ‘Murikan way of life is non-negotiable.” Include Canada in that.
The range of excuses people offer for the reasons they “need” to drive are numerous and often laughable (“How else am I gonna get to my gym!” is a favorite) By and large, they are awaiting techno-fixes.
Changing the attitudes of kids has to be a start. Raising the driving age to 18 would also be a good start. Congestion pricing and penalties for driving with three empty seats should be mandatory in all cities. Removing the driver’s license as the de facto right-of-passage to adulthood is a step in the right direction. Sunsetting licenses, and proof of necessity measures would also begin to address our societal desires to make cars the happiest things on the planet. of course people regard me as loony if i drop any of these ideas into a conversation.
Sorry to have to quote the smirking chimp, so I’ll leave you with a better one.
“To say it is ‘too late’ is to make it so. –David Suzuki
keep up the fight.
D
Friday, February 12, 2010
Olympics Open
Well here it is, finally. The countdown clock rapidly approaches zero, many cheques have been cashed, the DTES has been sanitized, somewhat. We’re up to our elbows in debt and near civic bankruptcy but all that doesn’t matter now, cuz its time to party!
The buzz has been palpable the last week or so, or is it just the amount of carbon monoxide doubling as downtown routes become gridlocked. You can’t go a block without seeing a Olympig branded SUV rolling down the street, inevitably with a single driver and three empty seats. These are all sponsor provided oversize 4WD, as if this event was going to actually have snow! I happened to see them all parked beneath the Cambie Bridge, a rolling promotional fleet of destruction. The city has pleaded for a 30% reduction in regular traffic to help accommodate the games, but it seems to have only gone up by thirty per cent or more.
I thought it is a horrible glimpse of the future if we carry on with ‘bidnes as usual’.
The Olympic Games juggernaut is business as usual on hyper steroids. As we have been under the heel of the Olympic Corporation for nearly six years now, a lot of people have been ground under that heel, trampled without heed or remorse. Property taxes have increased cross the entire province as a result, and a reduction and failure of public services will be the legacy. As with any public debt, it will weigh most heavily upon the poor.
I’m sure a few people made A LOT OF MONEY off these games, the builders and contractors, the hotels, bars and restaurants. Peter Kieweit comes to mind, for one. Oh, and the prostitutes too, apparently, will cash in. The VANOC people thought they did such a good job that they gave themselves yet another raise in the midst of the most crippling depression the western capitalist world has ever known.
And then there is the security. Planned in the paranoid frenzy of the post 9-11, moron in the whitehouse world, A BILLION DOLLARS hs been thrown down the “security” sewer hole. A billion fucking dollars, that’s nine zeros behind that one, kids.
Meanwhile public spaces that haven’t been taken over by the Olympig corporation--anyone attempt to go public skating this year? futile.--have been defunded and closed. Bye bye Bloedel Conservatory. Those eight hundred teachers the government has promised to lay off, where do you think the money for those jobs went, hmmm?
All told, I’m told the price tag is going to be SIX BILLION DOLLARS! No wonder people are pissed off that they have to work like a dog all week to bring home $350. If they are lucky enough to have a job...But of course, bidnes as usual rolls on, people think they’re rich, Olympig souvenirs are flying off the shelves. Get yer red mittens. Made in China.
The buzz has been palpable the last week or so, or is it just the amount of carbon monoxide doubling as downtown routes become gridlocked. You can’t go a block without seeing a Olympig branded SUV rolling down the street, inevitably with a single driver and three empty seats. These are all sponsor provided oversize 4WD, as if this event was going to actually have snow! I happened to see them all parked beneath the Cambie Bridge, a rolling promotional fleet of destruction. The city has pleaded for a 30% reduction in regular traffic to help accommodate the games, but it seems to have only gone up by thirty per cent or more.
I thought it is a horrible glimpse of the future if we carry on with ‘bidnes as usual’.
The Olympic Games juggernaut is business as usual on hyper steroids. As we have been under the heel of the Olympic Corporation for nearly six years now, a lot of people have been ground under that heel, trampled without heed or remorse. Property taxes have increased cross the entire province as a result, and a reduction and failure of public services will be the legacy. As with any public debt, it will weigh most heavily upon the poor.
I’m sure a few people made A LOT OF MONEY off these games, the builders and contractors, the hotels, bars and restaurants. Peter Kieweit comes to mind, for one. Oh, and the prostitutes too, apparently, will cash in. The VANOC people thought they did such a good job that they gave themselves yet another raise in the midst of the most crippling depression the western capitalist world has ever known.
And then there is the security. Planned in the paranoid frenzy of the post 9-11, moron in the whitehouse world, A BILLION DOLLARS hs been thrown down the “security” sewer hole. A billion fucking dollars, that’s nine zeros behind that one, kids.
Meanwhile public spaces that haven’t been taken over by the Olympig corporation--anyone attempt to go public skating this year? futile.--have been defunded and closed. Bye bye Bloedel Conservatory. Those eight hundred teachers the government has promised to lay off, where do you think the money for those jobs went, hmmm?
All told, I’m told the price tag is going to be SIX BILLION DOLLARS! No wonder people are pissed off that they have to work like a dog all week to bring home $350. If they are lucky enough to have a job...But of course, bidnes as usual rolls on, people think they’re rich, Olympig souvenirs are flying off the shelves. Get yer red mittens. Made in China.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Blackest Day in Canadian History
Officer in charge, RCMP War Crimes Section 110 Place d'Orléans, Room 2200 Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0R2
Attention Officer in Charge of RCMP War Crimes Section;
George W. Bush is reported to be planning to visit Calgary Alberta on or before March 17, 2009 as a guest of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
We are writing to report that:
• George W. Bush, former President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, is inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), section 35(1)(a) because of overwhelming evidence that he has 'committed, outside Canada, torture and other offences referred to in sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWC); and,
• the George W. Bush Administration has engaged in "systematic or gross human rights violations, or a war crime or a crime against humanity within the meaning of subsections 6(3) to (5) of the CAHWC.
We request that the RCMP War Crimes Section immediately take the following steps:
• begin an investigation of George W. Bush for aiding, abetting and counseling torture between November 13, 2001 and November 2008 at Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram prison in Afghanistan and other places; and,
• advise the Prime Minister, Attorney General of Canada and Ministers of Immigration and Public Safety that the George W. Bush administration is a "government that has engaged in torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity and therefore G.W. Bush, as former President, is also inadmissible under section 35(1)(b) of the IRPA.
Overwhelming evidence of these allegations against both G.W. Bush and the Bush Administration is widely available. These allegations have triggered Canada's duty to act to use all legal means to ensure the appropriate investigations, remedies and responses. Canada's international legal duties specifically prohibit treating these acts as legal, as ignoring the IRPA and allowing Bush into Canada would do.
Under sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, "crimes against humanity" include murder, enforced disappearance, deportation, imprisonment, torture and imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, committed against any civilian population or any identifiable group. War crimes include willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement and willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of fair trial rights.
If there are reasonable grounds to believe a person has been complicit in any of these crimes, entry to Canada must be denied. Reasonable grounds, according to the Supreme Court of Canada are "something more than suspicion but less than...proof on the balance of probabilities."
Many have concluded that the available evidence establishes conclusively that Bush and the Bush Administration committed torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity and that Canada and other states now have a duty to condemn, investigate, prosecute and punish those crimes.
U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, on March 4, 2009 concluded, "The [Bush Administration] aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations,"
U. N. Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin, in February 2009 concluded, "...the United States has created a comprehensive system of extraordinary renditions, prolonged and secret detention, and practices that violate the prohibition against torture and other forms of ill-treatment....States must not aid or assist in the commission of acts of torture, or recognize such practices as lawful, ...Under international human rights law, States are under a positive obligation to conduct independent investigations into alleged violations of the right to life, freedom from torture or other inhuman treatment, enforced disappearances or arbitrary detention, to bring to justice those responsible for such acts, and to provide reparations where they have participated in such violations."
The RCMP has a duty to investigate and prevent such crimes at common law and also under the War Crimes Program. This program, as you know, was established specifically to meet the challenge of investigating crimes committed outside Canadian territory. The mandate of the War Crimes Program to, "...ensure that the Government of Canada has properly addressed all allegations of war crimes..." is achieved by, "...the RCMP, with the support of DOJ [Department of Justice], investigating allegations involving reprehensible acts that could lead to a possible criminal prosecution."
Lawyers Against the War is ready, on request, to provide references to evidence of torture. We are confident that other organizations such as the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, National Lawyers Guild, American Civil Liberties Association and the Center for Constitutional Rights would also be ready to assist by providing references to evidence.
We request a reply before March 17, 2009
Respectfully,
Gail Davidson, Lawyers Against the War
Copied to: Prime Minster Stephen Harper; Attorney General Rob Nicholson; Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety; Jason Kenney, Minister of Immigration; Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Jack Layton-Leader of NDP; Joe Comartin, NDP Justice Critic; Paul Dewar, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic; NDP Don Davies, Critic on Immigration; Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff; Bob Rae, Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic; Dominic Leblanc, Liberal Justic Critic; Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal Immigration Critic; Leader of the Bloc Quebecois Gilles Duceppe; Real Menard, BQ Justice critic; Serge Menard, BQ Public Security critic; Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc Immigration critic ; Paul Crete, Bloc Foreign Affairs critic.
Friday, February 27, 2009
From the Wire
Yesterday during a presentation at the state capitol related to a bill to reduce carbon emissions and the number of miles vehicles in Minnesota are driven, Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, grew incredulous and asked, "Mr. Chair, are we still in America? ... I find that to be very offensive, an insult to every person who drives a car. I guess it insults me because I drove to the Capitol alone today. I find that very insulting."
Ortman was referring to an image from the cover of a 2002 book by the comedian Bill Maher, which was titled, "When You Ride Alone, You Ride with bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism."
Oh boy, this pushes all my buttons.
Prof Marshall raises a salient and important point of debate, one that is almost never talked about, but he fails miserably to demonstrate any strength in his conviction, and turns into such an obsequious little toady at the feet of a fat-ass Pol. The way he caves to her mock outrage is embarrassing and probably served to defeat his argument before he even got started.
Should we be surprised at Senator Fat-Ass's hissy fit? No, not at all. It seems nothing has changed from Bushie's 'Murika: " Tell us what we want to hear, not what the research shows, or your considered professional opinion." It would seem also that Senator Fatt-Ass is sticking to the playbook of keeping people as much in the dark as possible concerning the fact that the country is prosecuting wars of Imperial design. killing thousands, displacing millions, burning billions of gallons of oil and spending trillions of dollars in the process.
But is anyone asking what kind of carbon footprint the big green killing machine leaves behind?
This mock outrage is no great surprise, and in line with a significant and telling moment when the new Great Imperial Leader in his first speech said, "We will not apologize for our way of life." So as long as we 'Murikans can continue to consume and waste the majority of the world's resources and human capital, as long as the world continues to subsidize our cheap gas and our "non-negotiable way of life", then all is right with the world.
Why is it so offensive to suggest that it is unsustainable and the height of selfishness to drag around three empty seats and a ton and a half of metal on your daily travels through "Errandsville"?
So why is it so offensive to be even beyond rational discussion in a Senate hearing, that, god forbid, people might have to share a commute? People seem ready to embrace change, so long as it doesn't affect them personally.
+++
Whenever I have to stand and wait at a bus stop, or even waiting at red lights, I tend to count cars. Excluding all commercial vehicles, trucks and transit, I count only private autos, to see whether or not there is a passenger.
Typically, here is what I see.
On weekends it averages about 1:1, 50% of cars are single occupant. Midweek, midday, its about 3:1, 75%. Rushhour ramps up to 4:1 or more, typically 80-90% of cars carry one fat ass and three empty seats.
This is what is truly offensive.
Ortman was referring to an image from the cover of a 2002 book by the comedian Bill Maher, which was titled, "When You Ride Alone, You Ride with bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism."
Oh boy, this pushes all my buttons.
Prof Marshall raises a salient and important point of debate, one that is almost never talked about, but he fails miserably to demonstrate any strength in his conviction, and turns into such an obsequious little toady at the feet of a fat-ass Pol. The way he caves to her mock outrage is embarrassing and probably served to defeat his argument before he even got started.
Should we be surprised at Senator Fat-Ass's hissy fit? No, not at all. It seems nothing has changed from Bushie's 'Murika: " Tell us what we want to hear, not what the research shows, or your considered professional opinion." It would seem also that Senator Fatt-Ass is sticking to the playbook of keeping people as much in the dark as possible concerning the fact that the country is prosecuting wars of Imperial design. killing thousands, displacing millions, burning billions of gallons of oil and spending trillions of dollars in the process.
But is anyone asking what kind of carbon footprint the big green killing machine leaves behind?
This mock outrage is no great surprise, and in line with a significant and telling moment when the new Great Imperial Leader in his first speech said, "We will not apologize for our way of life." So as long as we 'Murikans can continue to consume and waste the majority of the world's resources and human capital, as long as the world continues to subsidize our cheap gas and our "non-negotiable way of life", then all is right with the world.
Why is it so offensive to suggest that it is unsustainable and the height of selfishness to drag around three empty seats and a ton and a half of metal on your daily travels through "Errandsville"?
So why is it so offensive to be even beyond rational discussion in a Senate hearing, that, god forbid, people might have to share a commute? People seem ready to embrace change, so long as it doesn't affect them personally.
+++
Whenever I have to stand and wait at a bus stop, or even waiting at red lights, I tend to count cars. Excluding all commercial vehicles, trucks and transit, I count only private autos, to see whether or not there is a passenger.
Typically, here is what I see.
On weekends it averages about 1:1, 50% of cars are single occupant. Midweek, midday, its about 3:1, 75%. Rushhour ramps up to 4:1 or more, typically 80-90% of cars carry one fat ass and three empty seats.
This is what is truly offensive.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Read me
Rep. Earl BlumenauerCongressman from Oregon
Posted February 6, 2009 | 06:44 PM (EST)
No, Seriously: Republicans Don't Get It
With this latest attempt to strip bike funding from the recovery bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated how out of touch they are with their pathologically short-sighted attacks on bicycles. To their detriment, they are continuing their trend from last Congress of using the most economical, energy-efficient, and healthy forms of transportation as their whipping post. Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for the future; it is exactly the kind of investment the American people want.
Moreover, bicycle and pedestrian paths are precisely the kind of infrastructure projects our country needs. These projects tend to the most "shovel-ready" and are more labor-intensive than other projects-- therefore putting more people to work per dollar spent.
We might have understood these attacks a decade ago, but today they ignore the explosion of bicycling in this country in recent years that has been nothing short of phenomenal. There are tens of millions of American cyclists and even more who want their children to be able to bike and walk to school safely and therefore support bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure projects.
American families have indicated time and again in the passage of bond measures across the country that they favor spending on alternative transportation, such as bicycles and mass transit, over spending on mere highway capacity. Americans want real solutions to the economic crisis, not just a band-aid fix. These investments will stimulate our economy now - when it counts and point our nation toward the economic and environmental realities of the future.
Recent transportation surveys indicate that 52% of Americans want to bike more than they do now - but don't, because of the lack of safe and connected bicycle facilities.
Think about it: More than 50% of working Americans live less than 5 miles from work, an easy bicycle commute. Already more than 490,000 Americans bike to work; in Portland, 8% of downtown workers are bicycle commuters. Individually, they are saving $1,825 in auto-related costs, reducing their carbon emissions by 128 pounds per year, saving 145 gallons of gasoline, avoiding 50 hours of being stuck in traffic, burning 9,000 calories, reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, and enjoying 14% fewer claims on their health insurance.
Nationally, if we doubled the current 1% of all trips by bike to 2%, we would collectively save more 693 million gallons of gasoline - that's more than $5 billion dollars - each year. From 2007 - 2008, bicyclists reduced the amount Americans drive by 100 million miles.
Bicycling also has immediate and direct benefits for communities that invest in bicycle paths, bike lanes, trails, and secure bicycle parking. For each $1 million invested in an FHWA-approved paved bicycle or multi-use trail, the local economy gains 65 jobs and between $50 and $100 million in local economic benefits. Some communities are already showing the results of these investments. After investing less than 1% of their total transportation budget in bicycle facilities in the past eight years, the City of Portland has seen a 144% increase in bicycle use - and the growth of a $90 million bicycle industry that has added nearly 50 new businesses in just the past two years.
I can think of no other transportation investment that provides more benefits to American communities who so desperately need: more jobs, reduced transportation costs, increased personal health, a cleaner environment, reduced carbon footprint, and greater community livability. It's time the Republicans got the point about what Americans want. Investments in bike and pedestrian infrastructure will help us create jobs and build healthier more livable communities for the future - these projects are the gifts that keep on giving.
Posted February 6, 2009 | 06:44 PM (EST)
No, Seriously: Republicans Don't Get It
With this latest attempt to strip bike funding from the recovery bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated how out of touch they are with their pathologically short-sighted attacks on bicycles. To their detriment, they are continuing their trend from last Congress of using the most economical, energy-efficient, and healthy forms of transportation as their whipping post. Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for the future; it is exactly the kind of investment the American people want.
Moreover, bicycle and pedestrian paths are precisely the kind of infrastructure projects our country needs. These projects tend to the most "shovel-ready" and are more labor-intensive than other projects-- therefore putting more people to work per dollar spent.
We might have understood these attacks a decade ago, but today they ignore the explosion of bicycling in this country in recent years that has been nothing short of phenomenal. There are tens of millions of American cyclists and even more who want their children to be able to bike and walk to school safely and therefore support bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure projects.
American families have indicated time and again in the passage of bond measures across the country that they favor spending on alternative transportation, such as bicycles and mass transit, over spending on mere highway capacity. Americans want real solutions to the economic crisis, not just a band-aid fix. These investments will stimulate our economy now - when it counts and point our nation toward the economic and environmental realities of the future.
Recent transportation surveys indicate that 52% of Americans want to bike more than they do now - but don't, because of the lack of safe and connected bicycle facilities.
Think about it: More than 50% of working Americans live less than 5 miles from work, an easy bicycle commute. Already more than 490,000 Americans bike to work; in Portland, 8% of downtown workers are bicycle commuters. Individually, they are saving $1,825 in auto-related costs, reducing their carbon emissions by 128 pounds per year, saving 145 gallons of gasoline, avoiding 50 hours of being stuck in traffic, burning 9,000 calories, reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, and enjoying 14% fewer claims on their health insurance.
Nationally, if we doubled the current 1% of all trips by bike to 2%, we would collectively save more 693 million gallons of gasoline - that's more than $5 billion dollars - each year. From 2007 - 2008, bicyclists reduced the amount Americans drive by 100 million miles.
Bicycling also has immediate and direct benefits for communities that invest in bicycle paths, bike lanes, trails, and secure bicycle parking. For each $1 million invested in an FHWA-approved paved bicycle or multi-use trail, the local economy gains 65 jobs and between $50 and $100 million in local economic benefits. Some communities are already showing the results of these investments. After investing less than 1% of their total transportation budget in bicycle facilities in the past eight years, the City of Portland has seen a 144% increase in bicycle use - and the growth of a $90 million bicycle industry that has added nearly 50 new businesses in just the past two years.
I can think of no other transportation investment that provides more benefits to American communities who so desperately need: more jobs, reduced transportation costs, increased personal health, a cleaner environment, reduced carbon footprint, and greater community livability. It's time the Republicans got the point about what Americans want. Investments in bike and pedestrian infrastructure will help us create jobs and build healthier more livable communities for the future - these projects are the gifts that keep on giving.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Same Old
Ray LaHood and Changing Our Thinking About Transportation
by ALEX STEFFEN
JANUARY 12, 2009
On Wednesday the 21st, the U.S. Senate will hold a confirmation hearing on the president-elect's choice of Ray LaHood for Secretary of Transportation. No one expects that hearing to be anything but easy for LaHood. That's too bad, because it shows that when it comes to greening the stimulus, we're not only missing the forest for the trees, we're not even seeing the trees right.
In case you haven't been following the news, LaHood is a conservative Illinois Republican with little transportation expertise and almost no administrative experience, who has earned a LCV lifetime voting score on critical environmental issues of 27 percent, and who maintains deep financial connections to the very industries he's now supposed to regulate. He may be no worse than most of those who've lead the Department of Transportation, but his appointment is a profoundly uninspiring vote for business as usual at a time when we need change, and an strong indication that the administration doesn't get that energy policy, technological innovation, urban planning, environmental sustainability and transportation are all bound up together, and no solution to our problems can be had without tackling them all together.
LaHood's appointment is so disappointing to transportation advocates who've been waiting eight years for change, that they're boiling with indignant disbelief, branding him "an unbelievably disastrous pick," "Status quo we can believe in" and "same.gov" (a dig at the Obama transition site, change.gov). As one insider summed it up: "It's a real read-it-and-weep moment."
read it all
by ALEX STEFFEN
JANUARY 12, 2009
On Wednesday the 21st, the U.S. Senate will hold a confirmation hearing on the president-elect's choice of Ray LaHood for Secretary of Transportation. No one expects that hearing to be anything but easy for LaHood. That's too bad, because it shows that when it comes to greening the stimulus, we're not only missing the forest for the trees, we're not even seeing the trees right.
In case you haven't been following the news, LaHood is a conservative Illinois Republican with little transportation expertise and almost no administrative experience, who has earned a LCV lifetime voting score on critical environmental issues of 27 percent, and who maintains deep financial connections to the very industries he's now supposed to regulate. He may be no worse than most of those who've lead the Department of Transportation, but his appointment is a profoundly uninspiring vote for business as usual at a time when we need change, and an strong indication that the administration doesn't get that energy policy, technological innovation, urban planning, environmental sustainability and transportation are all bound up together, and no solution to our problems can be had without tackling them all together.
LaHood's appointment is so disappointing to transportation advocates who've been waiting eight years for change, that they're boiling with indignant disbelief, branding him "an unbelievably disastrous pick," "Status quo we can believe in" and "same.gov" (a dig at the Obama transition site, change.gov). As one insider summed it up: "It's a real read-it-and-weep moment."
read it all
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Your Choice
“Climate change” has placed all humankind before a great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
--Evo Morales
Please read the full article.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Rescuing Dinosaurs
Senate Hearing On US Auto Bailout Signals New Attacks On Workers
By Jerry White
19 November, 2008
WSWS.org
Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing on a $25 billion government bailout of the US auto industry underscored the reactionary framework of the official debate on the crisis of the Big Three auto companies. At the center of the dispute between those senators who support an emergency loan and those who oppose it is how best to impose the burden of the crisis on the backs of auto workers and the working class as a whole.
more
By Jerry White
19 November, 2008
WSWS.org
Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing on a $25 billion government bailout of the US auto industry underscored the reactionary framework of the official debate on the crisis of the Big Three auto companies. At the center of the dispute between those senators who support an emergency loan and those who oppose it is how best to impose the burden of the crisis on the backs of auto workers and the working class as a whole.
more
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Party's Over
The automobile is one of the most energy intensive modes of transportation ever invented. This is true not just because of its direct use of fuel, but for the energy embodied in the construction [and maintenance] of so many individual units that require replacement every few years. The rate of car ownership in the US is now 775 per thousand people [2005] --nearly the highest in the world -- and many less-consuming nations, such as China, are foolishly seeking to emulate the American love affair with the [mostly single use (aka three empty seats), personal] automobile. Because increased car ownership results in changed patterns of urban development and resource distribution, it creates [a false and market manipulated] social dependency. Wherever this dependency has taken hold, it will have ruinous consequences in the coming century.
--Richard Heinberg. The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. New Society Publishers, 2005. p.191 [with ed. additions]
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