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The real problem is that the Oil and Auto industry conspired to destroy public transport. They bought up and drove into bankruptcy trolly lines, making car ownership absolutely necessary in the burgeoning suburban world.

This is the story from the early '50's, and no, the argument hasn't crumbled because that was when the damage was done.

Regarding the demise of light rail and government intervention: http://culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm

Actually, in addition to nuclear waste the world may be running out of uranium: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/08/nuclear-react-1.html And not only that, but uranium mining is a very polluting affair http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=493&Itemid=66 http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/

(Of course, the World Nuclear Association downplays these issues: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html )

Ironically you need to burn fossil fuels in order to mine uranium; mining vechicles use diesel while the mining industry runs mainly on coal -- or have you heard of any solar-powered nuclear enrichment plants?

This is ironic, considering I recently watched a PBS documentary that showed how GM conspired with a number of other companies and successfully dismantled reliably working trolley systems in various cities back in the 1930's to force people to use buses or cars.

More information can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Streetcar_Scandal
http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm
http://www.culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm

They do? Citation please

Daily Green : Gore calls for 90% CO2 Reduction

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/3083

Oooh, I see, so the government is out to impoverish everyone.

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=33

And is not only environmental web site saying this. Most hard core enviros are in fact looking for policies that would impoverish humans to help bolster, gasp, the eco-system.

Umm... what? Correlation is a *necessary condition* to prove causation.

Correlation is only good if you think you have all the variables involved. If you are missing one, you could be completely screwed. Work with me on this thought experiment..

a -> b + 1
b -> when odd a then d
b -> when even a then c
c -> 4 or 5 randomly
d -> 4 or 5 randomly

If you have a system where you know about a, don't know about c, and are looking to infer b's behavior from a, you could conclude that they aren't correlated at all.

The case I came up with here might actually be not good, but I should think that for any given correlation detection algorithm, a case can be constructed that allows a genuinely causal relationship to escape it. The same sort of information laws that say that there can't ever be a universal virus checker also means that there can't ever be a universal cause detector.

I guess lead will have to get in line behind the other agents of change.

>SUVs do not cause mass extinction or turn large geographical areas into wastelands in a few hundred years or less. We aren't squandering resources.

A non sequitur big as the sahara desert here, you see it?

Anyway In another comment I asked what are the SUVs in those cultures. But I was wrong indeed. Resources squandered for individual greed can probably be found. But our civilization went deeper as it promotes squandering for collective misery. So I ask the revised one: where is the equivalent of an auto maker embracing and extinguishing public transport?

As for oil being waste, that doesn't grant rights to fill people's lungs with more waste crap than necessary does it?

As for we being inventive, other species have ample prior art on recycling waste.

I'm always skeptical of these third world countries scientific claims of some miracle cure usinging some natrual substance (...) I'm sure they lack the level of technical abilities and testing proceedure to make a truly scientific claim.

• the interests in pushing something proprietary and patented are usually much higher.
• nature synthesizes complex stuff which has been around for longer while the interactions of artificial substances with man and environment are analyzed for too little time, for sheer impracticality and again commercial interests.
• there are documented precedents of interests pushing the under-performing candidate. Cotton against hemp. Private cars against public transport (see). Windows against a real OS...

Well, some people have their own hydrogen-generating machines. Of course, these run on electricity; see, the generation of hydrogen costs more energy than the hydrogen contains - that is, it has an EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) less than one. Whatever you're processing to make hydrogen, you have to use up energy to get the reaction happening. Even if you wanted to do this, every home in the industrialised world would need a hydrogen-generating machine that ran on electricity - the manufacturing of which would cost enormous amounts of energy and materials, even if it worked at generating energy.

In some places, hydrogen is generated in big power plants and delivered "on tap" to your home or office. This might sound dangerous, but then again, people had gas stoves once, until natural gas production peaked and the price tripled overnight. Again, you'd need to retro-fit an enormous amount of infrastructure in which to deliver the hydrogen - the laying of which would cost enormous amounts of energy and materials, even if it worked at generating energy.

In any case, we need to do something. I mean, we've got all these gadgets - the manufacturing of which cost us enormous amounts of energy and materials - and they're all powered by billions of hydrogen fuel cells - the manufacturing of which cost us enormous amounts of energy and materials. Even though the average electronic device consumes ten times its weight in fossil fuels during its manufacture, and even though the generation of hydrogen costs twice as much energy as the resulting hydrogen contains, people still bought into this sham in droves, believing that it's better for the environment.

In reality, it's made the problem more widespread because we demand more energy than ever before, and it hasn't solved anything because we haven't really found a new source of energy with which to replace fossil fuels. Made me think twice about buying that hybrid car, too.

You try telling people this was a bad idea, though. They'll look up from their plates of raw vegetables and mugs of rain water, and tell you to keep your big mouth shut.

Rail transit is so feeble because it's been undercut by huge government spending on roads. Public transit systems were deliberately hobbled because they posed an obstable for the then-growing US automotive industry.

Wrong. Rail transit (especially intra-city rail transit) is so feeble because automakers (especially GM) conspired to make it so.