Hi Ian,

Thanks for responding. If I may continue, with your permission...?

re: "People with political agendas out of this debate. Then real work can be done."

Okay. Here I am. I do not have a political agenda. (I am wondering if politics can be useful, and I think, perhaps, yes, although I do not want to side-track my comment.)

I am here. Perhaps others are as well. I have no political agenda.

My Q: What *is* "...the real work that can be done?"

Can you please describe it?

Or give me a hint? Honestly, 100% sincere. We're here.

Q#2: So, even fixing up Amtrak is not a good thing to do? (Amtrak being what passes for passenger rail, here.)

Q#3: How far does your sphere of influence extend? And what are the things you are doing within this sphere?

After reading what Ian has written, and the responses up to this point, and after, I feel as if Ian's point is not being understood.

Bear with me as what I write may be repetitive.

What I take him as saying is this: your 'lifestyle' is going to have to contract.

Part of this contraction includes not traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles every year ... by train, or by any other means.

If, as Kunstler and others have written, as the cost of oil increases in the face of decreasing supply and increasing demand, with consequent contractions in many aspects of world, national, and local economies, our lives will converge to points closer to where we live. This is likely to mean traveling great distances less frequently, or not at all. If the economy isn't there to support or require traveling long distances, it won't happen. The need for any kind of expanded long-distance modes of travel will dwindle. And long-distance travel will likely become very expensive, esp. air travel.

So I see Ian as talking about reducing demand, reducing demand for energy-intensive activities. The contracting economy is liable to mean more people out of work, or having work which doesn't pay as much as before. This is liable to mean less travel, and probably less of many other things as well.

I see Ian as saying, stop trying to perpetuate a 'lifestyle' that doesn't make sense on a global scale. Six and a half billion people living at the consumption level of Americans, Australians, and citizens of other countries with highly industrialized economies, is impossible. So start thinking about contraction, reducing your consumption, and then reducing your consumption some more. It's tough; we don't want to do it; we don't even want to think about it.

So we think about the supply sides instead.