< We Just Need Some Re-Training / >

With ridership at an all-time high, Amtrak has finally gotten the attention of Congress. And for the first time in decades, it's actually positive attention rather than the yearly "Let's shut this money pit down" discussion from a group of people who've never been on a train, much less had to live near the railroad tracks.

Some of the routes seeing increased use, like the City of New Orleans run from Chicago to the Big Easy, are legendary and even musical (Good morning, America, how are you? Don't you know me? I'm your native son....) Some, like the San Francisco to Sacramento and Boston to D.C. commuter lines, are so full that passengers stand in the accordion connectors between compartments. The trains could be even longer and fuller, except that Amtrak already has all 632 of its usable cars on the rails, and there are no more to add.

But while the U.S. government is finally coming to realize what the Am in Amtrak stands for, and is turning its attitude from hostility to support, imagine what kinds of shortage problems the railroad would be encountering if more Americans were to actually use a service that, according to the New York Times, would constitute the eighth largest domestic airline if it had wings.

Why don't we? A lot has to do with misconceptions that are grounded in fact.

For example, factual misconception #1: The train cars are dirty and noisy. True — sort of. The cars themselves are surprisingly quiet, well-insulated, and comfortable, given that most of them are at least thirty years old, and we're talking about steel riding on steel. And when you board a train that's been freshly prepped and gone over, it's clean, too. (The narrow stairway up to the car is a bit grimy, but remember that those steps are exposed to the elements at all times.)

It's not the passenger cars that are the problem; it's the passengers who are dirty and noisy. In a car of fifty seats, nearly everyone eats and drinks and reads on board, but maybe three people will bother to walk to the front of the car and put their wrappers and bottles and magazines into the clearly marked, conveniently placed trash bins. The rest of the trash is jammed into the netting on seatbacks or kicked under seats. Why not, the maintenance guys will pick it up later.

Problem is, Amtrak is already running a skeleton crew due to underfunding, so the "guys" are usually just one guy waiting at the final station, and if you're riding a ten-stop train and unboard after the third stop, your trash is waiting for the people who board after you leave. Guess what they'll think about the condition of the train? But Amtrak has nothing to do with it.

As for noise: three words — cell phones, children. When half the adults on board think they need to call home at every stop and report their location at maximum volume — while ignoring the fact that their grade-schoolers are spinning around in circles in the aisle or playing marco/polo from opposite ends of the compartment — then sure, it can be noisy as hell. But Amtrak isn't in charge of common courtesy, common sense, or basic parenting. It runs a train. Passengers run their mouths.

Factual misconception #2: The trains derail. Yes, once in a great while they do. But the number of derailments for trains overall, not just passenger trains, has been steadily decreasing over the past four years as rail use has gone up. Second, Amtrak owns only about three percent of the steel rail that it travels on. All the rest belongs to freight lines, and there isn't enough inspection of that track by the companies or by a Federal government that proudly records the day that the last spike was driven into the railbed connecting east coast to west, but that also abandoned train culture after the last of its soldiers whistle-stopped home after World War II.

Even in that state of neglect, rail travel is a safe bet: 710 trains have derailed so far in 2008, 14 of them Amtraks, with zero passengers killed. And 14 isn't the significant number it appears to be; there are 2,200 Amtrak trains per year whistling through my neighborhood alone. Multiply that times everywhere else and then do the long division.

Meanwhile, on the highway, roughly 39,500 people will die this year in car crashes. Makes the "all aboard" call sound more attractive, doesn't it?
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< Paris 1, Old Guy 0 / >

John McCain has dug into the slime bucket of Repuglicant campaign tactics and compared "celebrity" Barack Obama with Paris Hilton, but while he was busy planning his eighth consecutive missed Senate vote for approving a renewable energy policy, Paris has come back with an ad — and an energy plan — of her own:

< Leadership looks like this / >

Al Gore's 'Ten Year Challenge' Speech, July 17, 2008

I've never been a fan of the "If we can put a man on the moon" fallacy, given its typical usage in comparing apples with elephants. You know: "If we can put a man on the moon, we can find a way to provide housing for all of the world's homeless." Technology compared with an enormously complex problem made of social, political, economic, and psychological factors. A does not compare with B or C or D or E. So, the phrase has rung hollow whenever I've heard it, and I've always avoided it in my own writing and speaking.

But now comes exactly the opportunity for it to make sense. When the late John F. Kennedy called on scientists to create a space program and transport human beings to the moon, he had little to go on but faith in the science community to make it happen. They rose to the challenge. A great deal of the needed technology hadn't been discovered yet, but a "yes, we can" attitude and a charismatic leader provided the incentive.

The United States wasn't nearly as polarized politically, and there hadn't been eight years of punk "bring it on" sneering from the Oval Office to foster a culture of animosity between admirers of Rachel Carson and those of Curtis LeMay. Nor had the U.S. become a "sole superpower" and happy to let the world know it. Forty-plus years later, not only is there a lot of fence-mending needed between Washington and... everywhere else, but also between red states and blue, neocons and libs, treehuggers and scorched-earth adherents to wealth by any means necessary.

Al Gore surely isn't free of political enemies — a quick scan of the comments following these videos for WE, the WeCanSolveIt project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, shows plenty of outright hatred for the man. And of course, in an age where the ad hominem attack replaces the carefully considered argument, not a lot of thought goes into hating by those who despise him personally. But their arguments are empty, repetitious, and unsupported by moral grounding. "Ignore him," they say, but they don't explain the benefits of that (in)action. They only explain why he, the man, should be ignored.

Perhaps they are waiting for a different messiah. It would be interesting to see what kind of response the haters might have if Dick Cheney — or, better yet, Rush Limbaugh — suddenly had a "prepare to meet my maker" conversion and began preaching the gospel of conservation, not conservatism. Even more interesting would be their chorus if they one day realized that they have absolutely no stake in the oil, coal, and other Big Denier industries, all of which would gladly terminate their jobs, foreclose their homes, and destroy their families at the first sign of a two-cent dividend increase.

While the haters and deniers wait, Al Gore has issued a call for the science community to make something happen on a scale even greater than the moon landing. To complicate it, the government holding the purse strings needed to fund such a huge research and development project is a government completely uninterested in, and actively hostile to, that project.

But only for five more months. And in only three, we'll know who will be taking over when the cowboy gets kicked back to Texas. It's pretty clear that we'll see a radical change of direction even if the new leader is John McCain, who says of Gore's challenge: "If the vice president says it's doable, I believe it's doable.... I emphasize my respect for the former vice president's leadership on this issue and his continuous leadership." 

When Apollo 13 blew out an oxygen tank and the astronauts had to survive in the moon lander attached to the capsule, NASA engineers had roughly 24 hours to solve the classic dilemma: how to fit a square peg into a round hole. Carbon dioxide levels were increasing dangerously, and the square air filters from the command module were needed in the lunar lander — which had round holes. Plastic bags, cardboard, tape, and the collective determination to keep the astronauts alive were all the ingredients necessary to solve an age-old puzzle. CO2 levels decreased, breathing became easier, and lives were saved.

Apollo 13 is a perfect analogy to what Gore and the WE project are hoping to accomplish now. It's going to take a lot more than plastic bags and cardboard this time, since the former requires diminishing petroleum reserves and the latter destroys carbon sinks, but if WE can create a collective determination — not just in the U.S., but worldwide — then the year 2018 could have the world glued to its TV sets again to watch another switch being thrown: the last coal-powered plant switching off and a new, clean energy era switching on.

If we can put a man on the moon, we can make this happen, too.

....................The New WE Television Ad