Obviously, you know way more about all this than I do – certainly from the movement perspective.

I don’t mean to suggest that you should or can teach us what we (or I!) don’t know, but are you saying that there are groups that are competing for…authority or something on this issue?

I’m definitely looking at these suggestions as a consumer, and confess to being more or less detached from the battles that might be brewing or waged behind the suggestions – maybe that’s not something I should be admitting or proud of (not that I am), but what exactly are you concerned about?

Are you suggesting that the AAM has hijacked something that was poo-poo’ed before and that’s what should get in our craw? I think I could understand that – I just don’t know the history as it seems you do (and I did visit the site you left as your link – thank you).

Hope you’ll come back and say more.

A couple of months ago, AAA blasted the grassroots movement and the term they used to describe their driving (coined by Wayne Gerdes) which was hypermiling. It was painted as an evil, dangerous thing. But now the sanitized term “ecodriving” which essentially is the beginner’s version of hypermiling is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Yes, I too am practicing gas conserving driving methods and recommend them to my mailing list and blog readers. No, I don’t recommend bashing something just so you can reclaim it as your own invention. And no, I won’t call it ecodriving because that would be endorsing the smear campaign of Gerdes and his followers that was used to “claim the market space by claiming the name.”

We have these people that seem to think that using CNG or electric cars is a solution, look what ethanol did to the price of corn and then to the price of beef and milk….

Then these alternatives will be what 50K-60K each, the price of living is going up…bend? We will demand higher pay and be way more ruthless about keeping the competition at bay, work 60 hours a week before we will hire a person that would do the job for less and maybe even better?

I see a woman making 75K complaining about the man making 100K the poor African America does not admire them but they do model after them they want a Lexus also….many do not want to live in your neighborhood because the schools are so much better funded, it is because they know it pisses you off.

The sub prime is there it is around you, its all about keeping up with the Jones and that’s societal the fact that we created financial vehicles to allow them to fake it up is systemic.

If I was to take inner city kids on a field trip, it would not be to wealthy suburbia it would be to visit the Amish… seriously. I would say look they make there own cloths and grow their own food. Now lets ask these people if they own a pair of dolce and gabbanna sunglasses?

Maybe we need to rethink what is an admirable role model?

The government jumps in when they fall apart, the commodities will never fall apart they are going to keep inflating, did anyone use the home equity loan to make the home more energy efficient. The obligations go beyond a mortgage and insurance and taxes, it also get into the costs of the commodities to sustain it. The alternatives will raise the bar and still deplete the resources. That has little to do with public opinion more to do with physics. It does not matter what you think it is what it is.

What screws up a market economy, greed and ignorance, half the country wakes up thinking of way to f*** the other half.

But no – it’s not so simple. You are right.

What’s really odd about people is that they will not take the initiative unless the neighbor makes them feel guilty for not, then that can have a counter affect. I think that’s the “you are not the boss of me” complex.

I want to live close to trains and I do, but it is tough to find employment that way. That being I want to use the train to get to work, but that’s not a search criteria, does that make sense? I am not getting email alerts telling me that we found a job that you could take the train to get to.

I do not expect everyone to take the train, but really think that the transit authority is not as great as they think they are…or as they could be.

I like the gentleman that is seeking RD capital, the what was it a tube train? But if we look at rail in Cuyahoga county, that being if you could see what I see, you might realize that land on the rails or more accurately around the stations is not developed optimally.

That is a systemic problem, it’s because funding for transportation is done with excise taxes on petroleum and relegated to roads. The funding for public transportation is funded through sales taxes in the county. Logic would say tax the fuel and build the alternative at least for those interested, that would reduce consumption of the fuel because as people changed to driving less the supply would go up and the price would fall. There is other factors as well like wear and tear on roads, lightening up the vehicle or getting as many heavy truck off as many roads as possible, that saves on the costs of resurfacing.

The problem is systemic because of different agencies with different funding and then all the special interests that come along for the ride. It is or should be obvious that excise taxes should be raking in capital as of late…considering that we could have had an excise tax that was fifty cents a gallon ten years ago and put the money into public transportation with less of a price per gallon than we have today…we will wait until what?

There are limits and they are on the horizon, I care little about public opinion people are challenged, the education is not there. You say look this is what they know and it is alarmingly little and then look this is what they think and it dictates the outcomes of events?

Do not fall for the panacea, what is systemic and what is societal and behavioral. When it is systemic it’s the process and that is consistent, when it can be or may be happening it’s behavioral when it is monkey see monkey do it becomes societal.