Thank you for the smiles...

I don't see your name? Is it Eesha?

I don't think the world we are entering will look anything like the one we're leaving behind. I agree with you, there ARE solutions waiting to be brought down from the field. And there will soon be a forum (www.worldhealersforum.com) uniting lots and lots of consciousness-workers who will give energy to those searching for such solutions. They need another kind of energy, because the motivation of being a zillionaire is slowly but surely becoming irrelevant.

well... 'Fast and Furious' - We might soon have to retort by adapting into more economical ways of transportation. One simple short term (I mean short term) remedy would be to have comfortable mass transportation systems replacing personal vehicles. But then again what are we going to do with our dreams of Mercs, Jags and Daimlers (Not to forget Lamborginis, Ferraris and Astons)... May be it's time to DREAM GREEN !!! Or else it'd be "Too Fast Too Furious" :D

The solutions are already available.

It is because of politics that the solutions are not implemented, and this is a very shortsighted excuse for not implementing them.

For example, (and this is just one of many available technologies that have already been developed, installed on thousands of vehicles, and proven to work) a number of tinkerer/inventor people have developed kits that separate out the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water (hydrolysis) that then run your car on the hydrogen, and "waste" product is pure water vapor.

This is not the fabulously expensive hydrogen car of 20 years in the future Bush talks about, these are kits priced anywhere from $200 to $1500 that are installable by anyone with some median-level engineering ability, in their garage at home, ready now.

Here's a couple of examples:
Note: I am NOT endorsing these, I am just providing a link to show that people are developing and marketing these technologies already.

http://runyourcarwithwater.org/default.htm

And of course, there's

"Who Killed the Electric car?"
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

The wiki page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

The solution we seek is a political one. The technological breakthroughs already exist.

As long as big oil and big coal have a stranglehold on the political debate about energy, we are not going to see progress.

As the electric car movie shows, the public would have enthusiastically embraced alternatives even back in the 1990s or before.

I wonder which GM execs are secretly kicking themselves now when they realize that GM would now be the world's number one most profitable automobile corporation if they have not sent their fleet of electric cars to the trash compactor. Instead they have become a struggling corporation that has had to ask for federal corporate welfare to keep going.

The problem is wrestling the power to make energy policy decisions from the executives of Big Oil and Big Coal and the handful of powerful political lobbies they operate. The decisions they make now violate the demands of the marketplace, as well harm the planet and contribute to public economic hardship, as well as cause unnecessary wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die or are displaced. Yet they themselves are in a corporate-political culture which is locked down into making continuously disastrous decisions concerning our planet's energy future.

Even Exxon now has some PR campaign promoting alternative energies. I think they are lying through their teeth, but at least its a belated acknowledgement from the Company of Ultimate Denialism that things cannot go on forever as they are now.

Hopefully, the political climate will force a change. My fear is it will not be easy, and we will face more unnecessary wars, and continued progression of the planetary mass extinction event that we have already begun.

Check it out:
http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.html

This just came in. Actually this is where I was born, the place where 3 rivers meet.

Sailing Barges on the River Orwell, Suffolk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKbV6q-jm5Q

Click my name.

Wind power was also used to move cargo on the Great Lakes.

To start with, think about a Smart Car (a.k.a. Smartie) from M-B for your next auto purchase. My boss got one this past Sat, and he covered the 120 miles to work this morning on 1.25 gallons of gas. Yes, that is one and one-quarter gallons of gas -- 1.00 gallon + 0.25 gallon = 1.25 gallons -- for a one-hundred-twenty mile trip.

As long as you don't need a lot of room for passengers or ferrying various objects around, it's one hell of a cuuuute car, and sturdy and stylish. About 20K. Has a months-long waiting list, so get on the list now and check it out later, if this idea interests you. 70 MPG. Fantastic shifting system. The car purrs. The doors close with a good crisp, solid, well-engineered thunk. Lovely horn sound. A car racer-designed rollover cage. If you're a sports person, or if you just love change, you can swap the panels on the car to make it different colors -- 600 bucks for each set of panels. For example, if you like both the Giants and the Jets football teams, you could make the left half of the car one team's colors, and the right half the other team's. I want one!

a review of the Smart car from 2007, that makes the point that it's as safe as an E-class Mercedes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuJyJ7FjoSQ

(turn your volume down, this video is loud)

Yes, it's a gas-fueled car -- but it uses very very little gas and it's available now.

Yes, I think that's why all of this happening. It's a clue to assist us in solving a problem that we created and it's one that we can rise above. Like a gentle nudge from Spirit saying, it's time to clean up and be responsible or destroy the planet.

Love, Char