On Wednesday, April 14, the Antiplanner had the honor of debating James Kunstler, the famous author of Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency. The students at Brown University who set this up chose the topic, “Building America: Who Should Control Urban Growth–Planners or Markets?”
I’ve never met Kunstler before, and I was a bit nervous since he hasn’t exactly been friendly on his blog. But he turned out to be very warm and congenial. We share many recreation interests and I am sure we could be friends if we didn’t live on opposite sides of the country, which (despite our mobility) might be a bigger barrier than being on opposite sides of the political debate.
Kunstler and I were each asked to speak for 25 minutes, after which we were invited to ask each other one question. Then the floor was opened to questions from the audience, mostly (I was told) students in political science, environmental studies, urban planning, and economics.
Before we began, I mentioned to one of the students that we probably weren’t really going to debate the issues; instead, we would be presenting alternative approaches to the issues. Kunstler has a right-brained approach, based on intuition and emotion, while I have a left-brained approach, based on logic and numbers. This prediction turned out to be correct.
Kunstler’s presentation made a very simple argument: oil production is about to peak, after which prices will steeply rise. This will render automobiles too expensive to drive (because no other fuel will do) and make the suburbs obsolete. He didn’t provide any evidence for any of these assertions, instead relying on hyperbole and a PowerPoint show that consisted mostly of cartoonish illustrations of the apocalypse.
My presentation (PDF version; both versions are about 30 megabytes) tried to make four points: automobiles and low-density development produce far more benefits than costs; those costs have been greatly exaggerated by auto opponents; the “smart-growth” cure is worse than the disease of urban sprawl; and the real solution to the problems that do exist is to create systems that give people freedom to choose how they want to live and travel but make sure they pay the full costs of those choices.
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After my presentation, Kunstler asked me who I thought paid for highways: the government or the private sector. I responded that 80 percent of the cost of roads was covered by some form of user fee. That was a slight dodge, but I have long argued that funding government programs out of user fees and not taxes is a good way of minimizing government waste. Privatization might sometimes be better but is often less politically likely.
My question for him was why he thought the government action was needed to deal with peak oil instead of simply relying on the market. Many people in the audience appeared stunned by his rambling answer that seemed to indicate he was not arguing for any government action at all; he just wanted people to know “the reality of peak oil.” This made me wonder why, if he didn’t support government action, he accepted the invitation to the debate.
During the question period, a couple of students pressed Kunstler on this point. In an obvious reference to my presentation, he said tht people lie with statistics and that “econometricians are held in lower repute than any other profession today except for politicians and bankers.” I guess I should be flattered to be called an econometrician, as my analyses are nowhere near sophisticated enough to be considered econometrics (which makes heavy use of calculus and regression analysis), being based instead almost entirely on simple arithmetic. But it is possible that Kunstler doesn’t know what econometrics is.
After the debate, one of the right-brained members of the audience asked me for the source of my claim that Americans spend only about 22 cents per passenger mile driving cars when the “American Anthropological Association” (yes, that’s what she said) had calculated it to be 55 cents a mile. I explained that one difference was that my numbers were per passenger mile while the American Automobile Association numbers were per vehicle mile; and that the other difference is that the Triple-A numbers were hypothetical while mine were based on actual expenditures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis divided by actual passenger miles from the Federal Highway Administration.
Specifically, I added, the AAA numbers assumed that people would buy new cars, pay full finance charges, and then replace the car after 5 years, when in fact we drive our cars for an average of 18 years. “No we don’t,” she said, “We only drive our cars a few years, and then they trickle down to low-income people.” I didn’t bother telling her that I drive a car that I bought new (with cash, so no finance charges) in 1986. Instead, I tried to say that expenditures by low-income people had to be included in the averages. But she interrupted me, saying, “There isn’t any point in listening to you; I’m not going to be persuaded no matter what you say.”
Sometimes I secretly wish we had a law requiring people to be adept with simple arithmetic before they are allowed to participate in public policy debate. If you think people are going to lie to you with statistics, the appropriate recourse is to arm yourself with statistical tools so you can detect and correct their lies. But for some people it is just easier to ignore all data and fall back on their hunches and preconceived notions. That’s a dangerous attitude that makes you vulnerable to rhetoricians who will speak to your emotions rather than to reality.
But I suppose that’s just a left-brained view.
If I had to comment about statistics, not to mention statistics that you use in your debates; it’s difficult for the audience or even panel members to make counter arguments to them when they do not have time to thoroughly research or provide a counter statistic for a rebuttal. Usually they get slammed with a bunch of numbers, and can’t possibly make sense of what they’re being thrown.
I think debates benefit from either a left brain or right brain discussion. Most people don’t even know where to access data to make arguments that you are making. Not that that’s any of your fault, but I tend to agree that statistics can be viewed in very, very different lights, depending on how they’re presented.
Even for simple math.
The Antiplanner wrote:
> My question for him was why he thought the government action
> was needed to deal with peak oil instead of simply relying on
> the market.
What should we do about “peak oil?” Nothing.
Mobility may get more expensive because oil is more expensive (after adjusting for inflation), but that is likely to lead to alternative sources of energy to fuel mobility, not less mobility or government-imposed restrictions on mobility.
I have always been puzzled by the peak oil arguments. World wide populations and resource use is growing, so in combination they are growing exponentially, yet we don’t worry about peak steel, gold, silver, uranium, coal, concrete, etc. I am especially puzzled why learned academics use data such as “proven oil reserves” for anything other than investment advice — does anybody know what it really means, or at least notice that most oil companies and oil producing countries always have proven oil reserves of 5-7 years, decade after decade?
Does anybody remember the 1970s when we were all sure we would run out of oil in 10 years? Well, it is 30-40 years later and oil production is higher than the 1970s. It is no mystery why that happened, if you want to look at real facts. The economics of oil and limited natural resources are interesting and can tell you a lot, but the peak oil argument is a very amateurish attempt.
Governments have enough trouble dealing with problems that exist today. Governments have a terrible track record of anticipating problems, much less anticipating a problem and solving it. Can anyone name a future problem that government anticipated and did a good job of solving ahead of time?
Your young questioner will probably want to avoid reading “Vision of the Anointed”, “Knowledge and Decisions” or any other book by Thomas Sowell.
Your right-brained audience member is a great example of wasted higher education. She might be learning about anthropological techniques (I’m assuming her major based on her reading of who AAA is), but her mind is closed and she refuses to even consider the possible validity of opposing viewpoints. (Classically) liberal higher education is dying, and she’s helping to kill it.
Also, lol@peak oil arguments. It’s as though they think humanity has completely mapped all of the world’s reserves, and further exploration is a waste of time.
Peak oil? What if:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
Let us ignore the inconvenience that the IEA finally stopped fudging its numbers, and now there are no major (serious) organizations anywhere stating beloved oil will flow freely forevah, and ask:
but that is likely to lead to alternative sources of energy to fuel mobility
What is being developed now, how close are these to market, and what are their trajectories compared with projected oil decline? What incentives will be needed to speed these up, and should fossil fuel subsidies be shifted to alternatives to cross trajectories before the other oil-dependent sectors (e.g. food) are negatively impacted?
DS
Randal: this might be only minimally on-topic, but…
Having spent a good deal of time around Architecture students and their professors, I have seen this phenomenon firsthand, although arguably worse because the trade is only peripherally related to planning and property rights. This has produced a class of people who are (a) interested in similar fields and all of their statist cultural movements, and (b) simultaneously totally averse to exerting the effort necessary to have a solid empirical basis for their ideas.
I even know of two graduates who dedicated their Master’s Theses to “solving climate change.” Without ever designing a building or a real project, they generated a lot of buzz at the margins of their industry and were locally celebrated as experts at this new hybrid endeavor. When I picked their brains about climatology, it became clear they were grossly unequipped to produce anything other than emotionally arresting apocalypse scenarios (e.g., peak oil), which themselves ostensibly justified any remedies they could formulate. The methodology was embarrassing, with at least one using online calculators (which, in the fine print, copped to being “not a science”). Oh, and the “remedies” were sweeping legislative proposals for restricting other people’s behavior.
They’re not irredeemable people, but they’re naturally inclined to respond to emotional appeals and disinclined to the effort–and comparatively low payoff–required to anchor those appeals to an intellectual foundation. To anyone wondering why some people respond to one appeal and others don’t, I have found personality typing, though only a qualitative social science, to be immensely useful in understanding and dealing with these people. The difference does not represent a political divide. I would highly recommend David Keirsey’s “Please Understand Me II” book to anyone who is interested–nothing has been more helpful in teaching me, as a “(T)hinker,” how to deal with “(F)eelers,” a scenario Randal describes in his post. (P.S. I’ve got $50 on Randal being an INT of some sort.)
MBTI Test
Left-Brain Right-Brain differences should not be disparaged.
I LOVE the BEAUTY of both a good walkable urban environment (albiet – usually only the tourist part)and a good rural/suburban environment (granted – it only appears to be rural). Love of subjective things is a genuine motivator, people love trains and want one in their community – regardless of the cost.
I recommend balancing the message with both types of communication. Add in some narrative stories about the cost impacts of rail projects/government planning. Expand your audience from bean-counters and bureaucrats to artists and designers. I touch on left/right brain issues on my blog dichotomatic.wordpress.com.
You make a good point, chipdouglas. There is a grad school attraction to looking ahead in your field and projecting that the future will have too much or too little of something, constructing a disaster scenario about it, and wanting to bring all the power of mankind to fight it. Science fiction is full of such tales, as are many now discarded academic theories. For some reason, the more dramatic the claim, the less scrutiny the theory receives, when logic would suggest the opposite.
The dramatic doomsday claims have spawned a backlash of cynicism, such as what we see to climate change theories. I think climate change theories deserve a lot of skepticism considering their dramatic claims, but there is also a great deal of data on some of their points that I think should be respected.
CPZ:“Mobility may get more expensive because oil is more expensive (after adjusting for inflation), but that is likely to lead to alternative sources of energy to fuel mobility, not less mobility or government-imposed restrictions on mobility.”
ws:I’m skeptical. Alternative energy simply does not pencil out well for an economy that consumes 20+ million barrels a day. It certainly doesn’t pencil out for an 85+ million barrels/day global economy, with a rapid rise in China and India’s oil consumption. The replacement equivalent of that regarding alternatives is going to be mind boggling…and I for one do not want a million wind turbines dotting the landscape.
Oil is just an amazingly energy-dense fuel. A tank of gas will get someone 350+ miles!
Consumers should be ready to pay more for oil in the future. I think the first thing to change about our energy economy is our food source, and localism will certainly be important in the future.
Let’s face it, the world cannot sustain every country consuming like America does. Resource wise, it’s impossible.
Environmentally wise, we can’t afford it, either. It might be interesting to note the fall of many great world civilizations came from a rapidly changing and degrading environment.
ws wrote:
> I’m skeptical. Alternative energy simply does not pencil
> out well for an economy that consumes 20+ million barrels
> a day. It certainly doesn’t pencil out for an
> 85+ million barrels/day global economy, with a rapid
> rise in China and India’s oil consumption.
On the one hand you are saying that we cannot replace petroleum as a source of energy. On the other hand, you are saying that India and China are going to greatly increase their consumption of petroleum-based fuels.
> The replacement equivalent of that regarding alternatives is
> going to be mind boggling…and I for one do not want a million
> wind turbines dotting the landscape.
Who says we have to use windpower?
> Oil is just an amazingly energy-dense fuel. A tank of gas
> will get someone 350+ miles!
Diesel fuel is even more dense than gasoline.
Though the U.S. railroad industry overwhelmingly prefers to use Diesel fuel (and not electricity) to move its trains.
> Consumers should be ready to pay more for oil in the future.
Or maybe consume less of it?
> I think the first thing to change about our energy economy
> is our food source, and localism will certainly be important
> in the future.
Why?
> Let’s face it, the world cannot sustain every country
> consuming like America does. Resource wise, it’s
> impossible.
I am always skeptical when the word impossible is used.
> Environmentally wise, we can’t afford it, either.
Why?
> It might be interesting to note the fall of many great
> world civilizations came from a rapidly changing and
> degrading environment.
Which? The Soviet Union and its empire?
Alternative energy simply does not pencil out well
Right. We got where we are on cheap energy. When that goes away, what then? Silly denial or ignorant fantasizing about substitutes won’t move us forward. Lots of inertia about changing and adapting to a different future.
DS
Antiplanner,
It was a pleasure meeting you at the debate, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay for the entire time. Sadly, I had to leave before you finished your presentation, and I certainly didn’t get to hear the questions.
One of the parts of your presentation that I did hear held particular interest for me. You attributed much of the growth in home ownership to lower and middle classes, and that this increase in ownership could be attributed to owning automobiles. I’ve never seen home ownership attributed to lower/middle-income classes, only to middle/upper classes, and especially in the context of the growth of suburban development in the late 40s and 50s. Furthermore, I’ve often heard/read that this growth in ownership was aided/caused by federal government incentives–lower interest rates, tax credits for home ownership, etc.–which were seized upon by upper/middle classes.
Could you provide more detail about the lower/middle-class home ownership statistics?
And CPZ: you talk about alternative energy sources to fuel mobility. Could you expand more on what you envision for these sources?
Just about anything observed by the qualitative, holistic right brain can be quantified and dissected by left brain, but quality data is needed in order to do this. Without this data, the best the left brain can do is make do is make inferences from it. Randall, I suspect, falls into this camp. He is a victim blinded by the statistical “black box”.
For example, the Anti-planner likes to put everything into terms of PVMT. This seems fair on the surface, but presumes that all PVMT is equal. The crux of the Kunstler argument is that they are not. That, yes, motoring yields more & cheaper passenger miles, but what good are those extra passenger miles if they reach fewer destinations?
To bridge the comprehension gap between here, the “left brainer” might consider the number of destinations per PVMT. It might also help to consider all infrastructure costs need to get trip-takers from door-to-door. And it might also accept that all door-to-door trips are, essentially, multi-modal; so the ultimate issue here has less to with one mode’s superiority than what modal mix actually works best. And by “best” it is incumbent upon Mr. Lefty to develop user value models that weight price *and* quality factors. And it might also help to consider perceptions of modal choice.
But this is too much work, right? Yes it is. The workload might immobilize Mr. Lefty. And this partially explains why right brain observations have their place; they are succinct, honest observations, unencumbered by quantitative process, but requiring equal vigor to observe and describe existing patterns (and possibilities).
We only get to the truth when both Lefty and Righty are rigorous. With enough work, the two can begin to understand each other. I would suggest Kunstler has a decent understanding of the Anti-planner’s positions (qualitatively), but I don’t think Randall has done his part to better understand Kunstler.
Interesting discussion today. Oil is very cheap energy, which is why economies all want to use it. It will run out, but not all at once. Like everything else, it will get more expensive as it gets harder to get, so it will go to the most valued uses as it gets scarcer. But any decline in oil production will have to be slow and last decades. Free markets will easily adjust to that.
One big problem with trying to “plan” for oil scarcity is that if you are off by even 5-10 years, you turn a good idea into a bad idea. The economy will adjust to oil scarcity because a lot of people will profit from anticipating the right time to switch to other energy sources, not because an academic draws graphs and thinks he knows the right time to switch. Everyone in the 70s thought we had to switch away from petroleum in the 80s….and what would that mean now?
If you want to plan the future of energy, remember that nuclear and solar energy are potentially unlimited sources of energy, though at higher prices, but not vastly higher prices, under current technology.
I can’t see the world being vastly different because we transition to largely solar or nuclear power, and I think of a reason why the free market won’t handle the transition very well, and it will certainly be better than a computer model.
CPZ, you seem to be thinking with your right brain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_%28book%29 (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel).
The best example is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_island
Their island is a microcosm for our world in that our resources are often finite, and often non-renewable.
CPZ:“On the one hand you are saying that we cannot replace petroleum as a source of energy. On the other hand, you are saying that India and China are going to greatly increase their consumption of petroleum-based fuels.”
ws:We can’t — at this time and moment — replace our oil consumption with an equivalent alternative energy use at the same level as oil. No, not at all. India and China already are increasing their petroleum use, it’s not an “if” scenario, if I happened to word it that way…and they can afford to do so because they are rapidly industrializing their countries. Any increase in oil demand is going to increase costs. It’s rudimentary economics.
I would argue, given my visceral understanding Indian/Chinese cities and culture; that they can get more done with less energy than we can in the States. Geez, It’s takes a 1/4 of a tank of gas for soccer Moms to carpool their kid just to practice. What would a 1/4 tank of petrol do in India and China? Hopefully that elucidates my point.
CPZ:“Who says we have to use windpower?”
ws:Wind power will inevitably be apart of any alternative energy mix. Any slight increase in its use will still have an impact on the landscape. I’m not saying it’s bad, but there’s still some concerns on their placement.
CPZ:“Though the U.S. railroad industry overwhelmingly prefers to use Diesel fuel (and not electricity) to move its trains.”
ws:Otherwise it would have to snake miles of electricity transmission poles…But trains are so much more energy efficient than trucks regarding their diesel use, which should be a topic discussed more on this blog.
Borealis:“It will run out, but not all at once.”
ws:Not to be too corrective, but oil won’t run out due to our consumption, it will just cost too much to extract in order to be economically justifiable in that we hop in our huge SOV SUVs everytime we need to get a loaf of bread.
I’d imagine there’s plenty of oil, just not easy to extract oil in most places.
I think the best quote that gets thrown around about this is: “The stone age didn’t end because it ran out of stones.” And the oil age won’t end because of a lack of oil, either. The economics of it will end up holding true.
And this isn’t a peak-oil apocalypse theory. Gas costs are coming close $3.00 a gallon probably by summer, mind you in a global recession (more like a depression).
DS
ws said: “And this isn’t a peak-oil apocalypse theory. Gas costs are coming close $3.00 a gallon probably by summer, mind you in a global recession (more like a depression).”
Search Google News for oil + weak dollar and you’ll find the reason for the recent increase in crude oil (which also almost immediately equates to higher gasoline prices).
As oil is traded in dollars, and as the Federal Reserve continues its collusion with the federal government to debase the currency, expect long-term oil price trends to soar. Of course it’s entirely possible we’ll see decoupling and a new world reserve currency emerge. Either way, cheap oil for Americans is coming to an end, and it has nothing to do with supply.
What about the lack of an adequate road network when there are more affordable cars that don’t use gas?
I brought that up, plus Kunstler’s angle, when this was brought up on 4/8.
Here’s what I typed then, about addressing Kunstler:
Call him out on all his fallacies & lack of understanding on economics & business.
He cannot hide or avoid the refutations, like the lefty statists do here.
He will change the subject, like those who cannot back their points here, but keep him to the issue at hand.
Read up on oil stats. Didn’t he predict no more oil, a few years ago?
Ask him how people will deal the road shortage, when electric cars are much more common & affordable.
High density does little to save gas. There is no direct correlation between VMT & density, based upon many data sources that I’ve looked at, including TTI, FHA & Census. I have Excel files with that data. Any suggestions on where I can download it, for others to view? I’ve also put that data into SPSS; no strong connection with VMT & anything else. There are so many variables on why people drive.
As stated elsewhere* the level of foolishness is comedy. Randal has graciously done the work that shows increasing density decreases per capita VMT. That is: in denser areas, freedom-loving and choice-seeking individuals drive less. Anyone with the most rudimentary .xls skills can see that. Thank you Randal for that work.
Of course, one has to survive a few weeks of college stat to find out there are a minuscule # of things on this planet that have a direct correlation to anything. Except maybe certain commenters and % of their comments with utter foolishness. I continue my assumption that such utter foolishness is unsustainable and is likely a parody character by an artist or writer.
DS
* http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=2974&cpage=2#comment-99541
ws wrote:
> Their island is a microcosm for our world in that our resources
> are often finite, and often non-renewable.
Rev. Malthus made similar statements.
> I would argue, given my visceral understanding Indian/Chinese
> cities and culture; that they can get more done with less
> energy than we can in the States. Geez, It’s takes a 1/4 of
> a tank of gas for soccer Moms to carpool their kid just
> to practice.
What kind of a car would that be?
> What would a 1/4 tank of petrol do in India and China?
> Hopefully that elucidates my point.
If I understand you as saying that we can do more work with less motor fuel, then yes.
> Wind power will inevitably be apart of any alternative
> energy mix. Any slight increase in its use will still have
> an impact on the landscape. I’m not saying it’s bad, but
> there’s still some concerns on their placement.
Plenty of environmental groups appear to be opposed to windpower, or
at least to the turbines used to capture the wind.
> therwise it would have to snake miles of electricity
> transmission poles…But trains are so much more energy
> efficient than trucks regarding their diesel use, which
> should be a topic discussed more on this blog.
Catenary over the tracks, plus associated switching gear and new “pure” electric locomotives.
But because the railroads are large consumers of Diesel fuel, even though they are decently energy-efficient, it might be useful to consider anyway.
bbream wrote:
> you talk about alternative energy sources to fuel mobility.
> Could you expand more on what you envision for these sources?
Ethanol made from nonfood plant matter (not corn).
BioDiesel.
Synthetic crude made from coal.
Sources that we may not yet have considered.
Your next blog update should be about how the Eurostar high speed rail line could not handle the load of passengers trying to beat the volcanic ash that grounded flights. That’s what I would write about if I wanted to troll the rail nerds.
After 22 postings, Dan can’t help but turn back into a rude troll. It was the rudest comment of the day by far, but mild for Dan, so we will just respond to him substantively for the moment.
Dan is thrilled that the Antiplanner has data showing that vehicles miles traveled are lower in denser housing areas. You know what correlates even better to reduced vehicle miles traveled? Blindness, quadriplegics, mental incapacity, DUI arrests, poverty, living in a third world economy, living in a communist economy, incarceration, living in a traditional Islamic family as a female, not having auto insurance, etc.
On April 16th, 2010, ws said:
ws: Not to be too corrective, but oil won’t run out due to our consumption, it will just cost too much to extract in order to be economically justifiable
JK: Again you ignore the facts. I am getting really tired of correcting your stupid statements. Lets go over this once more:
1. Increasing price brings MORE supply and LESS demand, which is a self correcting system. Recent price rises have brought massive new supplies.
2. We can make oil from coal. It is being done today by Sasol on a commercial scale. The cost of that process and competition from others using that process sets an upper limit on oil prices.
3. We can make oil from natural gas. It is being done today by Sasol on a commercial scale. We have recently had massive now discoveries of natural gas.
4. We have vast oil reserves in the USA. Only politics keeps use from benefitting from them.
5. Tar sands are only just beginning to come on line. That supply is massive.
6. Technical progress is another thing you refuse to learn about. We are now bringing oil from 5 miles down, something that would have been economially prohibitive a few years ago.
7. Technical progress is producing another factor:
Originally man could extract minerals from the surface. Then we explored more of the world. Exploring more area provided a square law increase in available minerals. As we learned to go deeper we added a third dimension – a cubic law function. Add on efficiency improvements and you have a supply increase that is greater than a cubic law function. And all those rapidly advancing third world countries will add to the resources dedicated to exploration – both money and brain power! That is why we will see future LOWER, not higher, prices for commodities. (And why ws is wrong again.)
8. The world oil price is NOT SET BY ANY NATURAL SHORTAGES, but by a cartel.
ws: in that we hop in our huge SOV SUVs everytime we need to get a loaf of bread.
JK: Why do you keep wanting to dictate how other people live? Why should this matter to you? How would you feel if GWB had dictated that you go to his church ? For that is what you are doing – trying to force others to worship your (false) god.
ws: I’d imagine there’s plenty of oil, just not easy to extract oil in most places.
JK: Again you forgot everything I told you for months on end. See above for a recap.
ws: I think the best quote that gets thrown around about this is: “The stone age didn’t end because it ran out of stones.†And the oil age won’t end because of a lack of oil, either.
JK: Yep, something better and cheaper will come along and assuming that the government does not interfere. And we ignore the idiots who are trying to de-industerialize the world.
ws: And this isn’t a peak-oil apocalypse theory. Gas costs are coming close $3.00 a gallon probably by summer, mind you in a global recession (more like a depression).
JK: You ignore the most basic of facts: Oil price is set by a cartel. Don’t you ever learn anything?
Thanks
JK
Dan said: Randal has graciously done the work that shows increasing density decreases per capita VMT. …. Anyone with the most rudimentary .xls skills can see that.
JK: Can you explain a bit?
1. I don’t see a density or area to calculate density on that HM71.
2. Superficially, the densest UZA in the country, LA, shows 22.71 DVMT/person while
less dense New York shows only 16.8 DVMT/person.
Even little, low density, Bend Oregon drives less than our densest UZA, 17.72 DVMT/person
Did you write before you looked again?
Or did I make a mistake?
Thanks
JK
CPZ, you have not addressed how quickly these unnamed and named sources can replace current cheap energy.
Your argument depends on it. If you cannot show current R&D & subsidies are emplaced to cross the decline, then your argument doesn’t hold water. I’m especially interested how we are going to grow, say, enough Miscanthus on arable land that 9B people will need for food, esp when desertification is increasing, as are droughts and meat consumption.
That is: “your” plan ain’t gonna fly as is. Good thing many understand this and are working on a wide array of strategies to address the dwindling of cheap energy!
And T Caine brings up a built environment point I have brought up here several times, in the context of cheap energy. The disappearance of cheap energy in and of itself will help drive societal changes, not only in transport, but in buildings. We may have no choice but to have shared walls as a larger fraction of the total dwelling units available. The market will drive it and drive many out of the wasteful McSuburb.
DS
US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015
• Shortfall could reach 10m barrels a day, report says
• Cost of crude oil is predicted to top $100 a barrel
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 April 2010 18.47 BST
I’m sure the VMT/day will be just ducky for everyone in the far-flung McSuburb. No changes for anyone with $6 gas, no sirree.
How far along are those wondrous substitutes again?
DS
Dan:How far along are those wondrous substitutes again?
JK:
Sasol oil from coal: in production NOW
Sasol oil from natural gas: in production NOW
Canadian tar sands: in production NOW.
Do you need help reading any more of my statements?
Again, where is the proof of your claim of less driving in high density based on Randal’s reference? (or are you just making up things AGAIN?
Thanks
JK
Disclaimer from the Joint Operating Environment report:
“This document is speculative in nature and does not suppose to predict what will happen in the next twenty-five years.”
A government entity (the US murder-tary) is sewing seeds of fear. And its report relies heavily on secondary sources–some of them over 100 years old–to do so. Big surprise.
The DoD is the world’s largest fuel-burning entity (annually consuming almost as much energy as Ireland), with 75% of energy consumed by aircraft, ships, and vehicles. Instead of listening to the military and its propaganda, we ought to be disbanding the military, or at least begin bringing our 250,000 troops home and dismantling the 700+ military bases the US maintains in 135 countries.
Of course we know three things:
1. Almost every credible group/org/think-tank out there acknowledges the impending end of cheap oil.
2. Substitution with biofuels will starve many people, as arable land does not grow on trees and desertification and droughts grow apace. And groundwater overdrafts further darken arable land expansion.
3. There is a small minority of intransigents out there who refuse to admit 1 and 2. Likely as this would negate their worldview and ideology.
DS
T Caine: the paragraph you quoted was not me describing architects, generally; it was mainly to describe Thinkers vs. Feelers. I don’t mean for anything I said to suggest architects are by and large Feelers; I think the opposite is true. I do, however, think it is almost a professional necessity that they be Sensors. I can’t comment on your particular experience, but (a) Sensing is the most common of the 8 parameters (74% of US population), (b) my experience has been that (academic) architects are overwhelmingly Sensors, and ( c) Sensing is probably the most useful trait in the profession.
I think it is fair to make a distinction between the theoretical (academic) and practical (professional) aspects of architecture, as you did. As somebody who is well-acquainted with the MBTI and fairly successful at typing, it was my experience that architects and students in the academy were vastly more disposed to the Sensor quality than the iNtuitive one. While adept in the here and now, their attempts to explain abstract concepts, such as how their project would integrate into “society,” were delivered with Lebowski-like clumsiness suggestive of a Sensor who had heard iNtuitive speech before and was unsuccessfully trying to reproduce it.
[Soapbox] Elsewhere, I do not share your concern about the alleged havoc the suburbs are wreaking. Your sensibilities were exactly the same I heard among the academics: urban collectivism=good, suburban individualism=apocalypse. I give you credit for at least citing some numbers about energy use, although after having investigated the methodology on students’ theses, I am utterly cynical about how many of these figures are produced. The pertinent questions in the anti-suburban crusade are: (1) how much are we using now, (2) how much is too much, and (3) why? All I ever hear are (dubious) numbers saying we could save ‘x’ percent by switching over to New Method X (which often threatens to hamstring the economy). Out of context, as it is usually delivered, this is about as meaningful to me as saying we could save 20 minutes a day by forcibly rationing our bathroom visits. It’s not clear to me that the supposed 20 minutes we spend in the bathroom are dangerously excessive, and even less clear that catastrophic disruptions to our digestive systems is worth the tradeoff of 20 extra minutes.
Yet since some in the Green movement have tried to pass it off as an absolute moral code, I wonder why it enumerates so many of its precepts in relative terms, as this strips it of authority. I’ve pointed this out to two practicing architects now (as you guessed, I work closely to the industry), though I’m sure they were completely unfazed: if further development is generally undesirable, then to say that one man is righteous for building one way and another man is less righteous for building another is like saying it is righteous to steal $30 from an unattended cash till but less righteous to steal $40. In fact, neither is righteous; the only difference is that the sustainability movement has so convinced itself of its moral superiority that a cottage industry, trading in morality, has sprung up around it, making it the modern day equivalent of selling indulgences. No longer are you paying for development–you’re paying for virtuous development.
Despite its immense popularity, sustainability has no fixed meaning, which can probably explain why it won’t go away: it’s nominally attractive and you get to define it. What people like me object to is the enforcement of absolute rules based on moral relativism, and what I wonder about the Green utopians is (a) do they understand that they aim to deprive the people of their existing rights and grant them to the State, and (b) do they realize that this is exactly the same quest embarked on by every other despot in history? The problem is that the starting point for almost EVERY tyrant is the belief that there is a legitimate and pressing reason to deprive people of their property and their liberty. Modern tyrants delude themselves by thinking theirs has a unique and unprecedented moral basis, is more urgent than previous campaigns of expropriation and enslavement, will produce the greater good for the greatest number, and will certainly have happier outcomes than other nominal tyrants. They go tragically wrong in thinking these “unique” qualities are incompatible with despotism.
“There is a small minority of intransigents out there who refuse to admit 1 and 2. Likely as this would negate their worldview and ideology.”
Dan, this is at least the third time I’ve seen you use this tactic on AP.
As I remember it, the only part of this you struggle with is deciding whether the enemy camp is (a) a fringe “intransigent” minority which cannot let go of their faith-based opinions, in which case they have no credibility; or (b) unwashed sheeple who, unlike the technocrats to whom we ought to give power, do not specialize in the matter at hand and are therefore credulous and not to be trusted. Strangely enough, it seems like you always win at this false dilemma.
OT@chipdouglas
MTBI? Really? Are you into astrology, too? Jung’s and Keirsey’s letters are the new age equivalents of astrological signs. So many people fall for this pseudoscience junk. Anything the military rejects as being based on stereotypes is something truly rotten.
See:
Hunsley J, Lee C. M., Wood J. M. (2004). Controversial and questionable assessment techniques. Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology, Lilienfeld S. O., Lohr J. M., Lynn S. J. (eds.). Guilford, p. 65.
Pittenger, D. J. (1993). The utility of the Myers-Briggs type indicator. Review of Educational Research, 63 (4) , pp. 467-488.
Dan: 1. Almost every credible group/org/think-tank out there acknowledges the impending end of cheap oil.
JK: Wrong. It is the leftie and greenies that think that. It is because they are ignorant of economics, chemistry, and history.
Dan: 2. Substitution with biofuels will starve many people, as arable land does not grow on trees and desertification and droughts grow apace. And groundwater overdrafts further darken arable land expansion.
JK: The greeies have already killed people with their biofuels gatbage!
Dan: 3. There is a small minority of intransigents out there who refuse to admit 1 and 2. Likely as this would negate their worldview and ideology.
JK: As to #1, I simply refuse to join the ranks of the ignorant fools that deny reality.
#2 you are right for once!!!
#3 you are deluding yourself as ususal.
We are still waiting for your answer to #29 above – did you just make it all up?
BTW, do you have any comment of CRU head Phil Jones telling the BBC that the recent warming was at the same rates as past warming before most of man’s CO2 emissions. And that warming stopped in 1995 and the earth has been cooling since 2002. He also said that he does not consider the science settled. Since he is the ultimate authority, I presume you believe him and now realize that the whole AGW thing was about nothing. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Thanks
JK
JimKarlock posted:
> Wrong. It is the leftie and greenies that think that. It
> is because they are ignorant of economics, chemistry, and history.
Jim (and other readers), if “peak oil” were such a big issue, then why are the four big U.S. mainline railroads (including BNSF, recently purchased by Warren Buffett) which consume so much Diesel fuel to power their locomotive power, apparently not interested in electrification?
> The greeies have already killed people with their biofuels gatbage!
My problem with biofuels (as we have them today) is:
(1) Ethanol consumes corn, an agricultural product that has other uses;
(2) Ethanol consumes a large amount of taxpayer subsidy;
(3) Biogas (which can be produced at wastewater treatment plants) has not been much of a success in the Nordic nations, where it has been used to power mass transit buses.
Now I am not opposed to biofuels at all – I think they may have a bright future in powering highway vehicles.
Chipdouglas-
I appreciate the passion in your stance as it is only mirrored in reverse in my own. I would agree that the definition of sustainability in the minds of the collective public is a bit obscure but I think a lot of that is due to it’s relative youth and a lack of general education on the subject. “Green” is slapped on every box, product and sound-byte just because it can be, without any consideration to what it means or what it strives to accomplish. I think this will change over time. I also wouldn’t try to champion that suburbs are apocalyptic, merely flawed. I grew up in the suburbs and had a great experience, despite the fact they leak resources like a sieve.
On one hand, I think you’re right. Some aspects of sustainability include ideas of efficiency which really, as you touch on, are only a benchmark. It forces us to set a point for improvement as well as one for “excess.” These are subjective terms, there’s no denying that–and it involves attributing value to a degree of effort and success in limiting the amount of energy and resources you consume under the premise that its repercussions are infinitely connected to other people, practices, businesses, ideas, etc. I have heard many arguments about constraining freedoms and personal rights in response to trying to change people’s lifestyle towards more sustainable ends–challenging the appropriateness of subjective choices that can easily vary from one person to another.
I guess I do not see where we do not do that. Our entire lifestyle is based off of laws, regulations or common cultural norms that are a response of drawing a line somewhere. Sooner or later we make a judgment call to mark a point in the sand that we agree should not go beyond. We still argue about those things: what the drinking age should be, what guns should be legal, etc. The reason we do not litter and throw trash into the streets (at least most of us don’t) is because we culturally came to a decision that it is a careless act where the benefits of expending the effort to find a trash can outweigh the “freedom” of being able to cast our waste wherever we want. As a result, would it be considered less righteous to take bags of your trash and toss them into the Hudson River? In my opinion, it would. Sustainability is the same way. Do I think that everyone should install a composting toilet in their house? Not really. I wouldn’t use one. But could everyone use a dual-flush toilet and a low flow showerhead? Sure.
On the other hand, I think that suburban culture has very real, non-subjective results that are harmful and excessive in a non-subjective fashion. I mentioned energy. 65% of our country’s impervious surfaces are roads, highways, parking lots and driveways. This accounts for the majority of our stormwater runoff which takes all kinds of great stuff into our water supply and harms the natural environment (if one cares about that sort of thing.) Sewage disposal via septic tank has to be one of the most archaic technologies we use–basically the same as walking out back and pouring bleach onto the ground. We know the effects of polluted groundwater and soil.
Lastly, I am not really a huge proponent of waves of legislation, but rather one of educating people about the options and their repercussions–confident that people will eventually make a good decision when it’s an informed one. I agree that controlling forces always believe their ends to be correct and that making people walk instead of drive is not the way to go.
if “peak oil†were such a big issue, then why are the four big U.S. mainline railroads (including BNSF, recently purchased by Warren Buffett) which consume so much Diesel fuel to power their locomotive power, apparently not interested in electrification?
Locomotive power for freight is already very efficient, which is a big chunk of why he bought it. And electrification 1. is a huge capital expense that would need to be undertaken by private companies (unless Congress grants another subsidy to railroads on the order of every other section) and 2. at the moment would require coal power, and soon polluters will be paying for their C emissions, Hg deposition, etc. As we’ve already seen by CPZ’s inability to show us the R&D curves wrt peak oil curves, alternatives aren’t yet scaled up to replace, and this is a sector that already IS efficient. Many more sectors are INefficient, e.g. personal transport, buildings, agriculture, etc.
All basic stuff that is already on the radar and being worked on. Many folks understand this already. Sadly, there is resistance from the dinosaur industries for some of these advancements, which is why you see so much blatant disinformation and outright lies* coughKochindustrescough in civil discourse about alternatives and why we need them.
DS
* http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6959247.html
Dan, the Excel file showed nothing, just columns of data.
That data is not new to me, I’ve collected similar files.
Upon further examination, there is no significant correlation.
Please state how you think so.
Mainly, one data piece is missing. There is VMT/capita. What is needed is VMT/driver.
The high density areas have more public transit, thus fewer drivers.
In order to show the premise of drivers driving less with more neighbors, their (those who have cars) driving needs to go down.
It’s clear that you have not examined the data very well.
Here are lowest miles driven per person, among UAs over 1,000,000:
Density VMT/capita
2,152 14.0 San Juan, PR
3,118 15.0 New Orleans
4,057 16.8 New York-Newark
4,166 19.0 Sacramento
2,480 19.3 Chicago
3,355 19.5 Portland
1,762 19.8 Buffalo
2,344 20.3 Philadelphia
4,824 22.0 San Jose
3,000 22.0 San Francisco-Oakland
2,566 22.0 Riverside-San Bernardino
1,436 22.0 Pittsburgh
The 2 lowest are due to low incomes.
The 3rd lowest, NYC UA, is obviously due to the 1/3 transit use. How is VMT when applied to the 2/3 who drive? A: 25, above avg.
The median VMT/capita is 23.5, so the 7th lowest, 22.0, is not much difference.
To reiterate, the amount of VMT attributed to each person has a difference with that for each driver.
I hate to select a particular UA, but look at Chicago; it’s half as dense as the LA UA, yet has lower VMT (~20% less)–opposite of premise. It’s unclear if that is just because of higher transit ridership in Chicago.
Atlanta is often cherry-picked for low density & driving.
There are some major reasons for that driving: Leapfrog development, & mostly, the high concentration of jobs in the CBD. In fact, Atlanta has the 2nd highest % of urban pop commuting to the core city (based upon Census daytime pop figs).
Atlanta also has fallen short in building highways, but that explains congestion, not miles driven. However, it does disprove induced driving.
Still unaddressed, by anyone: How is driving going to be with this road shortage, when gasoline is not an issue?
CPZ:“Jim (and other readers), if “peak oil†were such a big issue, then why are the four big U.S. mainline railroads (including BNSF, recently purchased by Warren Buffett) which consume so much Diesel fuel to power their locomotive power, apparently not interested in electrification? “
ws:You’re not exactly paying attention about this issue. Oil’s not going to run out, it’s going to cost more. How much more is yet to be determined. Railroads are already damn efficient with it’s diesel engines as is. I believe vast electrification has not occurred because it’s obviously cost prohibitive right now and the economics don’t pan out.
I’m not sure how you’re using this as “evidence” that peak oil theory, to whatever degree, does not exist because railroads aren’t searching out electrification methods of their diesel consuming rail cars.
I can’t speak of certainty, but supplying railroads with reliable energy across their entire network is probably not an easy task.
JK:
I will reply to your above assertions with a question:
“How come oil prices at the pump have not dropped in price (except for our current recession)? “
If anything, the current recession shows that oil demand and available supply is the largest indicator of price. Of course speculators and cartels help influence price, I don’t deny that either.
The alternative methods for getting oil of the ground are often resource intensive. Tar sands takes a lot of energy just to get the energy. I’ll remain skeptical that these sources alone could supply all of our demand for a sustained time period. I can’t say that they won’t help supplement our world’s supply, but as I’ve stated before, there’s plenty of burgeoning countries trying to be the next America consumption wise.
Any new oil methods or supply are just going to be eaten up by more consumption of oil for new economic powers.
Relevant editorial in the Washington Post today:
Unplugged
T. Caine said…
>“But could everyone use a dual-flush toilet and a low flow showerhead? Sure.”
First of all, for much of the world, this would be a laughable discussion. Those who don’t have running water in their neighborhoods would wonder at our sanity. Such concerns aren’t even specks on the horizon for them.
For those of us who can easily afford to argue such trivialities, let me say this:
I hope you are not suggesting that everyone should be forced to install these water saving devices.
In much of the US water is abundant, and conserving such small amounts make no sense, as there is more than enough available whether people reduce usage or not, and no one elsewhere can benefit from their conservation.
Where water is scarce, and/or must be be piped in from elsewhere, the cost of water should allow people to decide whether these devices make sense for them as a way of saving money on their water bill.
C. P. Zilliacus said:
>“Relevant editorial in the Washington Post today:”
“Unplugged”
For those without enough time to read the whole editorial at the link “Unplugged”, which discusses electric plug-in vehicles, I can summarize it as follows:
>“In short, we’re talking about the general public subsidizing a minority of upscale motorists.”
ws said: I will reply to your above assertions with a question:
“How come oil prices at the pump have not dropped in price (except for our current recession)? “
JK: Please pay attention this time:
OPEC
It is a cartel that fixes oil prices independent of supply. How many times does some one have to hit you in the face with simple, provable, facts before they sink in to you thick head?
Thanks
JK
Ron H, you bring up the key issue with that Op-Ed, and I expect CPZ to link to it as refutation when Randal uses his ‘personal electric vehicle argument’ again.
But I will say that the solar folks are more optimistic about the prospects of plug-in hybrids than the corporate mouthpiece WaPo, with a polluter-pays bill coming up soon. So perhaps just more lobbying for the status quo to shield dinosaur industries against this bill.
DS