Green Drinks

So, Tuesday evening, I did end up heading to the alternative transportation show with eco-social. The whole thing was a little, uh, fluffy? But I wrote a master’s thesis on this topic. It was comprehensive, and while there was selective information, sometimes to the point of deceptiveness (electric cars are zero emissions, nevermind where the electricity comes from, or, for that matter, what happens to the batteries when they’re no good anymore). Okay, okay, there was a brief comment to the effect of “well, okay, so the grid isn’t entirely co2 neutral, but it could be.” But that ignores the tradeoffs in expanding our generation capacity (do we want unreliable wind, polluting coal, expensive and [less] polluting diesel/natural gas, or radioactive nuclear?) It’s a complex issue, and they can’t put the whole thing on a single placard. And while they did have the electric cars, hybrids, electric scooters, electric trike with shell for two (the twike), they did not have any highly fuel efficient car, or any of the more readily accessible things that are out there today. (though I realize the CRX isn’t in production at present either)

At dinner there was a speaker panel of a bike coalition rep, a planning advocacy rep, and a transit agency rep. They were there to talk about planning for transit. And they did a bit. I wanted a more complete and coherent picture, but I already have one. The facilitator put in occasional humorous asides that were pretty off the wall, but then he’d also put in things that focused it back to the point. There were of course the audience questions from people with an axe to grind. Most prominently there was someone who wanted to know why one particular line hadn’t been extended out to what was, I suspect, her neighborhood, despite long range plans that have been around for decades. When the transit guy was talking about all the long range plans, she interrupted and said she was only interested in the one line. Ugh. Not that conferences are any better on that score, but still, ugh.