Last November, California voters passed a measure that would pour billions of dollars into a bond to fund a high-speed rail system connecting northern and southern California. This high-speed train will whisk people away to their destination at speeds of over 200 mph (imagine traveling to San Francisco to San Diego in about three hours), create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and stimulate the state economy (and Nevada’s too if a future leg to Las Vegas is created). This new train will also be environmentally friendly by reducing C02 emissions reducing our dependency on foreign oil.
The new high-speed rail system can be called a technological innovation for Californians. Friedman (2008) shares two ways to stimulate innovation: 1) advancing technology already available to us over time, or 2), a ‘Eureka!’ moment, a moment where a discovery is made through experimentation (p 187). McNeill (2000) states, “big ideas are the ones that somehow succeed in molding the behavior of millions” (p 326). Essentially, McNeill is talking about a paradigm shift. Over the past couple decades citizens from many countries have finally realized that humans are contributing to global climate change. Some could care less, others will do what it takes for change to occur.
For the most part, Friedman is correct on ways to stimulate innovation, but he could have added more to his first suggestion. Advancing technology is a driving force behind our economy. We’re always striving to make things sleeker, faster, smarter, smaller, more efficient, more reliable, sexier…the list goes on and on. What he doesn’t say about innovation is being backed into it. Let’s face it, as a country we really don’t have any choice but to come up with a new system of transportation. Oil is cheap now, but there will be a day when a gallon of gas goes past the 4- or 5-dollar gallon that we saw a few summers ago.
If the high-speed rail system is our response global warming, then we are way too late. For the most part, it is an environmentally friendly system (the building process might be a different story) but it will not be enough to slow down the global warming process, not by a long shot. Other countries will have to stimulate innovation to tackle the growing global warming problem. Some countries already have; Japan’s bullet train was introduced in the 80’s. This technology was available years ago. Who knows if this train will even be worth the money; will we even use the thing? We should have been on board with this idea when France and Japan were constructing theirs. Not the train, but their ideas. Oh well, better late than never.
McNeil, J.R., Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2000.
Friedman, T. L., Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need A Green Revolution--And How It Can Renew America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York, 2008.
California High-Speed Rail Authority.
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As the United States begins to consider some of these greener alternative modes of transportation, poisonous e-mails emerge from the Climate Change Movement. These e-mails will stifle the meetings in Copenhagen and create deep questions regarding the motives behind climatology and American scientists.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I think the common citizen may not be able to separate climate change and environmental degredation. Regardless of the carbon dioxide expelled by cars or the installation of this high speed train, air pollution water pollution and over consumption, and deforestation are altering the biophere. The alteration of the biosphere leads to the alteration of our lifestyle.
Listening to NPR on my way home, I heard that this train will not become a reality until 2020. To me this seemed absolutely absurd. IN addition, the lawmakers are now facing the NIMBY movement. People who once supported the bullet train are now thinking twice. The sound of the high speed train next to the already obnoxious Caltrain is pushing homeowners out of shape. Once again, this is a perfect example of our generation's inability to consider our actions now as sacrifices for our posterity later. I believe this is our weakness. We are unwilling to sacrifice our comfort, convenience, money or privacy for that of others. Our society has become one of individualistic self-importance.
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt this project will ever come to fruition. California’s interstate travel system has always been faced, and daunted by its far reaching boarders. The reality is and always will be that Californians will reject public transportation and this project will most likely fail. If the state cannot afford to pay teachers, public safety officers, nurses, doctors, even janitors are we, as Californians, justified in spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars on projects which may create a larger carbon footprint than the one it is intended to decrease? No. The environment is important. Yes. However, the state is loosing money like sand through the hands of a child as its citizens are out of work, not paying taxes but collecting the unemployment benefits that they have been paying into all their working lives. The state needs to better the lives of its citizens before it contemplates hiring a company, most likely from outside of California, to build a system that most people won’t need, let alone, be able to afford.
ReplyDeleteTrains were the preferred mode of long-range travel until the automobile. Thirty years ago railroad tracks were removed in California to make way for pedestrian/bike paths. Now, the State wants to replace long-range automobile travel with high-speed bullet trains. Do we have to destroy just to rebuild? Are we ever satisfied? Maybe we should wait another 50 years or so to see what old idea is new.jomamawindy
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