Change won't happen unless the money works out. That is part of capitalism, which is much maligned, but not inherently evil. Greed may, indeed, be to the greater good.
The most innovative feat will be the shift to solar powered batteries that can power homes and cars. There is free energy available and the reason it has not been served to the general public is that there is not an obvious revenue stream attached. Also, that a lack of creativity has ham-strung the economic systems that keep us locked into existing work ecologies that are in great need of major overhauls.
Manufacturers assume that once you own solar technology, you will no longer need as much energy from the existing power grid and from gas. While this is true, servicing the equipment and making the transition equipment and outfitting new systems will fill part of that revenue stream void. Also, new needs will emerge from the use of the new technology. No one had a clue that cars would completely revolutionize American culture and economics. The shift to solar/battery energy sources will have the same this time intended consequence.
One of these would be a shift in driving patterns that would make people rely on their own battery powered cars for local and commuting needs and on other means of transportation for longer trips. This could mean a huge number of people who do not rent now suddenly choosing to rent larger vehicles for such trips. Car makers would still make cars, but they would no longer be tied to gas economies. The new rentable luxury travel vehicles would be funded and maintained by short-term leases and designed for recycling after a certain period of use. Overhauling and maintaining the communal fleet would keep many jobs in the system while keeping a lot of rusting, outdated metal out of landfills. This would also open up a new but currently marginally tapped revenue stream.
Another would be building on the existing national rail system to make it more available between smaller communities and within communities. Before people all had their own multiple cars, people travelled by train. It was exciting and affordable. They would find it exciting and affordable again if train stations were re-opened or built and train cars were comfortable and managed as a luxury service that could accommodate families safely and conveniently. Travelling to large cities with my husband and son in a private car, even if it were small, would be magically different and exciting over the standard rugged individual road trip. Currently that means the extra expense and inconvenience of hotels, moving all of your things every two days, the child cramped in the back seat in a harness, bored and hating it. He could instead be looking out the window or possibly being babysat in a day-care car, with bonded, professional and monitored paid attendants and other children to play with on a three hour trip, an internal revenue stream which would also again include food services (McDonald's Rail Car!). I would certainly love that over flying, which is just a harnessed child in the air. And trains also can be run on alternative fuels. Trains have possibilities that cars do not, including a new possible revenue stream.
Car companies could convert and move to new transportation venues. They can make the new loco-vore equivalent cars. And they could manage, maintain, and innovate the rail system between and inside cities. A renewal of interest and building on our culture with a new eye to keeping us connected instead of isolated in little boxes, whether that means track housing or personal automobiles, would revitalize the idea of community by having us all using the same materials to have a better life, each only taking as they need rather than hoarding for when they want.
But solar innovation has another hidden advantage that would be the most crucial in social innovation. Solar is nothing for countries to kill each other's children over. We all get our share every 12 hours or so. This would be the biggest innovation of all.
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fingerlakeswanderer
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Greer McVay
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Brent Troth
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That said, I'll have plug-in private vehicles. You'll pry the steering wheel from my cold, dead, driving glove-clad hand. ;)
I love to drive, and would love it more if it was a car that I short-leased so that I could drive a variety of cars. But I get the idea of wanting to customize and own your own. I own five kilns instead of making pots in a communal kiln...so I get it.
And hey, Lexus asked!
And a "fast, food car" is sheer genius, if i say so myself.
I also am a huge fan of solar power and the reality is there's nothing stopping us from using it but ourselves.
solar panels in a prominent spot as you drive into town.
Go Solar Go Solar Go Solar!
Money is here to stay. It just has to become meaningful again. it has to be attached to real goods and actual wealth instead of mystery paper.
That's the problem with capitalism, that pesky ol' First Commandment. But that's all a big joke, I know, we grown ups know better. Being responsible to money doesn't make you responsible, just the opposite - but I know that is our true religion and we each must come to terms with it in our own time.
Also, please don't put words in my mouth. I don't believe in any system except for thinking and caring. Domo arigato.
The alternative to a money economy would logiclay fall to a barter economy, so unless we are backing our dollars with goods and services instead of the monetary market, we're still using money. The last doctor I paid used imagination backed paper for payment. The offer of a pig was declined. Also, the gas station and the grocery store didn't need me to sweep up, it was only cash they wanted. So I assume that you meant "we're already on the barter system" figuratively.
And Dakini, "Sun, baby sun!" It's right there for the takin.
You can use money as a trading tool but you can't let it decide who lives and who dies, which child eats and which one starves and whether or not we do the things necessary to fix our environment - all things we do now. We are a savage, backwards and barbaric planet. Until we decide to take responsibility for it everything else is moot.
Now, light rail tracks are going up as fast as they can manage and people are finding out it's a great way to go downtown without fighting traffic.
My dad used to say that his '51 Nash Rambler had overdrive, got 30 miles per gallon and hauled 6 comfortably. He couldn't figure out why they could do it then and not now.
I guess we really are going back to the future.
Yes, old cars were often more fuel efficient than the recent ones. One reason is that with new cars there are so many new unnecessary appliances that they are heavier. Then another reason is that catalyzers in the exhaust and other clean technologies are using some power of the engine.
With all electric vehicles the big problem is the battery technology. Electric cars existed already in 1920'ies, but still we cannot make cheap, light and efficient batteries for such things.
Maybe with these things as well an old technology is better. Nowadays cheap batteries are lead acid batteries, which don't last long and are heavy. Old nickel-iron batteries can last even 80 years, but they are nowadays being manufactured only in China....
Sunlight converted into energy that makes a strong enough battery that it can power virtually any home based system, including cars.
And batteries that you just set out appropriately, like your recycling. Everybody responsible for gleaning their own power grid each day. It would necessitate a clean air program. There is a lot of good fallout.
Yes, you can charge batteries by (photovoltaic) solar cells. Solar cells are still quite costly and during last ten years the price has not gone down at all.
One real problem is the battery, the storage system. Lead acid battery, (basically the same thing, which you have got in your car), is still the one, which is mainly used. They are rather cheap, but heavy and not durable. Lead inside them is poisonous, so recycling is as well problematic. Other kinds of batteries exist for example with your mobile phone, but they cost a lot of money.
Electric trains and trams are very common all over the world.
You can of course make electricity for trains by solar cells, but it is the costliest method. Other kind of solar power stations exist, too. The world's biggest such experimental solar power stations utilizing solar heat, thermal energy, are in California. 'Google' for 'solar one' and 'solar two'.
Some clever engineer types need to make a better solar charded battery for home use.
Get as many of us off the grid as possible to account for city folk who don't own any sunlit real estate.
We can all "be the grid".