I'm too lazy and forgetful to find the links, but maybe some others aren't: apparently the US is putting a lot of pressure on the EU to make air travel to here a lot more burdensome and intrusive, including supplying information on friends and family members who accompany flyers to the gates. It's much worse than just that, but I forget the details and only remember my disgust.

isn't electrified rail bad? I thought the power was going out? and france gets it's electricity from nuclear. how are they going to mine all that uranium during peak oil?

Alan - you are preaching to the choir on France doing it right - hell, even their anti-GM crop stance, protectionism against imported foods, widely dispersed regional agriculture looks like it will pay off very well down this road

I would LOVE to see a well-managed crash program of pv in the Mojave, wind in Dakota, pumped storage where appropriate and all to feed expanded and electrified rail, light rail etc. throughout the US

unfortunately I see Amtrak cuts despite growth in ridership

umm, I couldn't remember which Texas city myself - but you were irate about it what, two weeks ago? long threads about it.....I'm blanking

"the next president will be better"

why are you so confident of this? I very much doubt if McCain would be any improvement with endless war on Jihad (redundant as that is I know) his main campaign promise (hard to help pay for Amtrak when you are paying for all those "smart" bombs and depleted uranium bullets)

and I am not confident that either Obama or Clinton would be much better - certainly their support for ethanol etc. does not give me a lot of hope...status quo candidates will give us more of the same...and don't forget, Congress gets to decide where the $ goes, and they seems to really really like autos and the like...

"biggest jump since the late 70s"

and DESPITE that big jump, Bush is trying to cut Amtrak's budget - wouldn't want Americans to get out of their cars after all....

It lit a lot of lamps until jets came along. In 1860 the population of the world was about equal to the current pop of China. That was about the time that coal oil replaced whale oil and later was replaced with kerosene.

This summer may be the first summer that folks start occasionally finding the house dark and the AC off due to elect shortages. A few country wide 100 degree days will test the grid. After that you and many others will have a more firm grasp of reality, and start thinking about heating your homes with $5 fuel oil next winter, followed in a few years by an insufficient winter NG grid or low stock build in storage.

Whale oil? Your best example is whale oil?! Better listen to DipChip.

Speaking of arctic open waters, I read an article today with information about arctic ice cover. In 1989 80% of the arctic ice cover was 10 years or older. Now, only 3% is 10 years or older. The atmosphere is thinest at the poles, and consequently the north pole is warming much faster than lower lattitudes. In the Summer, with ice cover, 95% of the sunlight is reflected back out of the atmosphere, but without ice cover 90% of the energy is absorbed into the water, and that added heat reduces ice cover even more, acting as a positive feedback.

I postulate four tipping points to global warming. The first is the loss of arctic ice, as evidenced by the unprecedented melt in the Summer of 07. The second will be the wholesale loss of methane from peat bogs such as Siberia in the latitude just below the arctic. Third will be the partial collapse of Greenland and West Antarctica, together raising sea levels about 10 feet. Fourth will be the warming of oceans enough to release methane caldrates, and that will be our final undoing. That is unless we find a way to stop the climatic momentum we have initiated over the past 130 years.

I am not making a dividing line but I think this is the way it is going to be. Unless, of course, the American people suddenly really care about the welfare of the rest of the world. China, to name just one country, isn't frantically going around the world making deals on energy with the rest of the world's welfare in mind. While one may argue that if the rest of the world sinks, we do too, that will not be how this plays out. Right now we are just playing chicken with global warming, for example. We won't move unless China does too.

Would a President Obama change this? I don't know how committed he is. Until recently, hew was driving around in a gas guzzler and a year ago he was pushing CTL. People who get religion during a nominating contest don't give me a great deal of confidence as to their willingness to follow through.

Maybe if access to oil continues to be market driven, we can hog much of the oil for awhile while the poorer countries sink further into oblivion. But then we are an empire in decline and might lash out when push comes to shove.