quote:"[The National Capital Commission] said they were very sorry but they said one of their major sponsors had indicated there was a conflict between the message that we were promoting and their company's interests," he said.
Because Corn Cob Bob is a threat to the survival of Shell Corp.
quote:A Shell spokesperson said the company's arrangement with organizers meant it had exclusive rights when it came to fuel products.
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If NCC agreed to give shell exclusive rights WRT fuel products, then they were out of line to offer the booth. They should have negotiated better before they took the money (assuming the arrangement actually says what shell says it does).
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Oh, sure. All the evil in the universe can be traced to the publicly-owned companies that allow you to drive your car.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Besides, it's not all that unrealistic or radical an idea. We have already declared war on drugs (which is not working) and on tobacco (which is working rather well.) It won't be the first time that our governments attempt to gradually eradicate a multi-billion dollar slice of the economic pie. It would be better for the environment, and even potentially better for the economy since all the money that currently goes to oil would have to be massively invested in industries that would replace everything that is done with oil.
On a purely selfish note, with fewer cars on the road, cities could be re-designed to be primarily pedestrian- and bicyle-oriented, rather than automobile-oriented. Since I don't drive and don't bike either because good bike paths are not available everywhere, this would be alot of fun for me.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: On a purely selfish note, with fewer cars on the road, cities could be re-designed to be primarily pedestrian- and bicyle-oriented, rather than automobile-oriented. Since I don't drive and don't bike either because good bike paths are not available everywhere, this would be alot of fun for me.
I hate to say this, but that train has long since left the station. On a related note, the best you can hope for in this country is a massive investment in Mass Transit.
The American (and some others of course) city design pendulum is gradually swinging back in the direction of pedestrian-oriented cities, but zoning has done a horrendous amount of damage that, barring a major disaster, I do not foresee being overcome in our lifetime. It simply isn't possible anymore to ensure that enough people in this country have a majority of their basic needs located within a 1/4 - 1/2 mile radius of their residence. This will have to happen before any city can begin to design with some mode of transportation other than automobile at the top of their priorities. Look carefully at cities that pride themselves on being pedestrian-oriented, and you'll likely find that there was much more thought put into how to keep automobiles out of sight than there was in how the city was to be experienced on foot.
Feyd Baron, DoC
*Note: Dealing with city ordinances and zoning have made me (even more) bitter and cynical in record time. So this entire post could probably be ignored.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Until oil is replaced as our main energy source for our cars, or else until we no longer use our cars, the oil companies are like any other company - subject to the laws of the land, generally publicly owned, and no more evil than any other kind of industry. The evils they can do - monopoly, jack up prices, racketeering - are evil when done by companies in any industry.
Food is cheap because they get transported in those lovely trucks run by gas. If you eat, then you patronize an oil company. Saying oil companies are inherently evil shows a startling lack of understanding of how our society works.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: The evils they can do - monopoly, jack up prices, racketeering - are evil when done by companies in any industry.
Uh... yeah, but I was mainly thinking about air/water/land pollution, plus the fact that we use oil for umpteen billion other things besides burning it in big smelly SUVs, and it would really be nice to save the stuff that we DO burn for those uses.
quote:Until oil is replaced as our main energy source for our cars
I addressed that (sorta) in my previous post. I would love nothing better than to see oil replaced as our primary source of energy. All the money we currently spend on burning oil can be reinvested in developing alternate technologies. Mind you, we don't have to develop these things first, we just need to do it at the same time.
quote: Food is cheap because they get transported in those lovely trucks run by gas.
It would be just as cheap if those lovely trucks were run by hydrogen, or electric batteries.
quote:Saying oil companies are inherently evil shows a startling lack of understanding of how our society works.
I don't recall every saying anything even remotely approaching this.
*checks*
Nope. Never did.
It's not that the companies are evil, it's that burning oil in such large quantities is inherently harmful to the environment and to human health, and there is literally no good reason why we cannot aggressively pursue alternative means of doing everything that we now do with oil.
Saying anything different shows a startling lack of understanding of how our society could work. Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I know how it could, but you won't get society to that point by villifying the oil companies and comparing them to tobacco. What was the point of that?
You'd be better of starting a company that did provide those semis running off of hydrogen that you alluded to.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: I know how it could, but you won't get society to that point by villifying the oil companies and comparing them to tobacco. What was the point of that?
What are you, the CEO of World Oil Inc.? I never compared oil companies to tobacco, I simply pointed out tobacco companies were a good example of how governments could ostracize and do away with a mult-billion dollar industry. Stop being so defensive, I'm not threatening to burn your house down.
quote:Currently, our primary sources of electricity and hydrogen all derive from-- wait for it -- you guessed it, oil.
Well gee, if we start looking at alternative technologies, they wouldn't have to be, now would they?
I find it rather odd that the only response to a suggestion for change is that it can't possibly work because that's not the way it works now. That's why we call it "change". It means not doing things the same way as we're doing them now.
There are alot of ways of producing hydrogen and electricity that don't involve oil at all. They just need to be developed more and given preferential treatment.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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So, develop it. Start a business and develop it. Make the change in society happen instead of vilifying those that allow society to happen now.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Sure, let me just withdraw five billion dollars from that infinite bank account of mine, and let me just rummage through my papers to find those three chemical engineering doctorates I have stashed away somewhere, and we're set to go.
quote:Currently, our primary sources of electricity and hydrogen all derive from-- wait for it -- you guessed it, oil.
Well gee, if we start looking at alternative technologies, they wouldn't have to be, now would they?
I find it rather odd that the only response to a suggestion for change is that it can't possibly work because that's not the way it works now. That's why we call it "change". It means not doing things the same way as we're doing them now.
There are a lot of ways of producing hydrogen and electricity that don't involve oil at all. They just need to be developed more and given preferential treatment.
Really? A lot of ways, you say?
Name three. Also, describe how one might design a system to safely distribute hydrogen.
Mind, I am absolutely in favor of fuel cells and other alternatives to fossil fuels. We're just not there yet, and declaring a war on oil won't magically get us there.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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*shrug* People start businesses all the time. Change in industries often comes from the small businesses, because the bigger ones have a harder time quickly changing course. You don't need a billion dollars to start one, anymore than Henry Ford needed a billion dollars to start his.
If you feel strongly enough about it to want to declare war on public companies and trumpet the virtues of your imagined society, surely it's worth a little effort to bring it to pass.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:I hate to say this, but that train has long since left the station. On a related note, the best you can hope for in this country is a massive investment in Mass Transit.
Would that be so hard? What if people put their car money, or half their car money (buy a smaller car, that uses less fuel (bonus!)), into transit?
Everyone could own a smallish car for personal journeys. People, except for farmers and the like, do not need SUVs. Families need vans but does that second car have to be a huge one? Does it even have to exist?
It's very expensive to drive in downtown London, England. Result: The transit system is fairly efficient, the roads are not jammed and people use the Tube and the buses to get to work. The streets are not parking lots- they are full of people.
Result: less use of fuel/oil, reduced emissions. More jobs in transit-related areas- driving, engineering, controlling, ticket-selling, conducting, announcing.
You don't have to take giant leaps, you can take little steps.
(I am waiting for the day when the huge parking lots at hideous mall near my house (40 mins walk, I do it often) are built with more shops!)
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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"Change in industries often comes from the small businesses, because the bigger ones have a harder time quickly changing course."
I'm not sure this is true for industrial infrastructures, though, Katie, which is what we're talking about here.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Many politicians at least pay lip service to "reducing our dependance on foreign oil." Though for many its just lip service and for others it means increasing our drilling of domestic oil. It's an issue that sounds good, though not as black-and-white as a War on Oil.
"Remember when we declared War on Drugs and now you can't buy drugs anymore? It'll be just like that!" --www.mnftiu.com
Tax credits for more fuel efficient cars would be a good place to start. Isn't there some sort of tax credit for gas/electric hybrids? On the mass transit note, here in MN there's been talk of increasing the gasoline tax and using that money to fund mass transit options. Not bad, since then people who can't afford the gas increase have more other ways to get where they're going.
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Before cars there were horses and carriages. This caused terrible dust (or mud) in city streets, an awful lot of animal abuse, (think of all the times people kick their cars, or run them until they drop dead in their tracks, and imagine this scenario with living, feeling creatures instead), terrible pollution in the form of horse manure everywhere, and many other such evils. If we do away with cars altogether, should we go back to using horses again?
I think the best solution is for everyone to telecommute as much as possible. Then there's no need to congregate quite so much into urban areas. The technology to do this is getting better all the time, and the bandwidth is ramping up as well, to allow for videoconferencing and other online interaction that will make face to face meetings obsolete. I just read an article about fiber optics going the last mile into the home. That seems to be the best solution to me. Then the roads will be free for the UPS trucks to deliver all our web purchases, and the skies will be clear and unpolluted. And everyone will save the hour or more a day they waste commuting, as a bonus. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:It's very expensive to drive in downtown London, England. Result: The transit system is fairly efficient, the roads are not jammed and people use the Tube and the buses to get to work. The streets are not parking lots- they are full of people.
This is not the way the things evolved, IMHO.
In truth, London was blessed with some folks who saw the benefit of a mass transit (tube & bus) system and, over the 100 or so years since it was first started, the city has kept it despite periods of waning demand, skyrocketing costs, and deferred maintenance. Why? Because it is better than adding all those trips to the surface streets that are already so crowded with people who would rather drive that the end result would be complete gridlock from pre-dawn to far into the night.
The mayor of London pushed through a congestion pricing scheme precisely because so many people would still prefer to drive themselves around/through London than park outside and take the mass transit to whereever they need to go.
Last I heard, there isn't a mass transit system in the world that isn't heavily subsidized by the government. It's because they cost huge amounts to run and no-one would take them if they charged the amount per trip that it actually costs. At least most of the traditional riders would abandon them because they'd just not be able to afford it.
The thing is, it's still worth it. Mass transit in an urban environment (especially a densely-packed one) makes a lot of sense. It moves people, stops you from having to just widen roads and build expressway loops everywhere at huge cost, or build tunnels and elevated roadways (which are maintenance nightmares for future generations). It cuts down on pollution (usually) so that the city can more readily comply with national clean air standards. It's just a good deal all around, and worth it for everyone to subsidize it. If it weren't for that, it'd be even MORE expensive to drive in the city, so even for people who drive around, it's worth funding mass transit to keep the roads more clear than they would be otherwise.
Anyway. I love mass transit. I can't believe we have urbanized environments with buses as the only option for mass transit. It's ridiculous. More subways! Lots more subways!
By the way...the best transit bargain in the world is the Staten Island Ferry. After the terminal burned down on the Manhattan side, they stopped charging altogether (the fee was 25 cents round trip). It's free! Great views too! And it's a longer ride than the Governor's Island Ferry next door (which is also free, I think).
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