Jane Jacobs Quotes
I basically don't think that the way we do things is that dependent on one resource, such as oil. There can be different kinds of engines for cars. I think that solar heating, wind heating can substitute for a lot of uses for oil. I'd like to see those things happen because they are more sustainable in any case. But I do not think that running out of oil is not going to bother us that much. I think we have got to be rescued by something or we really are going down a slippery slope.
Steigerwald, Bill. "City Views." Reason, June 2001.
Lott, like many other reasonably intelligent people who understood little about technology, did not realize that all the early efforts with a technology are relatively primitive and even the best ideas have to be engineered to scale and cost efficiency. A decade later, solar energy had become a significant industry in the work and the United States, which had invented many of the early technologies had lost the international lead in Solar Energy to Germany and China. The ultimate value of any technology cannot be judged by the initial technological efforts.
The American public did not accept the need for conservation during Carter’s administration. Carter and many people then thought the major problem was that we were running out of fossil fuels. With shale gas and other techniques there was much more fuel that was suspected. However, the real problem was clean fuel and carbon causing global warming. So wind, solar and other “clean” energy sources have become very inporantant.
See {635006} for a slightly earlier French solar engine. Much of the most effective uses of Solar power uses the concentrated heat of the sun to heat water or some other substance like this device. The vast majority of the hot water heaters in Israel function on this principle—no electricity or any other fossil fuel. The only reason that the solar engines of the time were more costly where fuel was available is that no one realized the huge environmental consequence of the fossil fuels. Today we do realize that but do not charge the oil and gas companies and consumers to cover the costs of fixing what we know about and are able to remedy. Solar powered equipment is not a modern invention however and has been with us for well over a century. Paul Collins wrote “He calculated that solar power cost about ten times as much as coal, so that until coal began to run out, solar power would not be economically feasible. But this, to him, was not a sign of failure—there was no question that fossil fuels would indeed run out someday. The great engineer maintained an unshakeable belief in the future of solar power to his last breath; he had set up a large engine in his backyard and was still perfecting it when he collapsed in early 1889. Though his doctor made him rest, Ericsson could not sleep at night: he complained that he could not stop thinking about his work yet to be done.” The only reason that the solar engines of the time were more costly where fuel was available is that no one realized the huge environmental consequence of the fossil fuels. Today we do realize that, but do not charge the oil and gas companies and therefore consumers cover the costs of fixing what we know about and are able to remedy. Solar powered equipment is not a modern invention however and has been with us for well over a century.
He was speaking from retirement. When he was Prime Minister--2001-2005, and active politically, he was in favor of nuclear power for Japan. But after the meltdown of the reactors at Fukishima, he saw happening exactly what the corporation executives running the nuclear power told him could never happen. He aslo supported the claims of American Sailor who had provided much help in the nuclear emergency that they were suffering from deseases brought on by teh excessibe radiation that they encountered.
Jane Jacobs OC OOnt was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), argued that "urban renewal" and "slum clearance" did not respect the needs of city-dwellers.
