Risky Roads et al

I just discovered a great website to find out where risky roads reside. Living in CT, the condition and danger of probably the worst roads in the country, are well known but having RiskyRoads.org in tow is a good resource to have in hand.

Speaking about roads brings up the obvious fact the US addiction to the car reigns supreme, where bicycles are viewed a nuisance for people "on the move" using SUVs and other brobdingian vehicles to covey themselves to wherever, a situation needing to be changed as we move further into the era of past peak oil and contracted economies. When looking at the desperate moves to sustain the unsustainable via fracking, coal burning, deep water drilling and nuclear, one comes away with the fact, solar's (wind, wave & fuel cell as adjuncts) the only viable way to go, combined with a move toward intelligent mass transit, localized food production, broadband communications, fabbing and artificial photosynthesis, to enable transitioning to a life style able to be maintained by realistic means as we move toward the future. (Military misadventures, financial corruption, governmental malfeasance/incompetence and healthcare, among named disruptive forces, will be part of a longer article titled What If - Days of Future Past, a questimate on the near future that may or may not happen if change is not made to alter the disastrous course we find ourselves in.)

Under the fuel through artificial photosynthesis scenario, nanotubes embedded within a membrane would act like green leaves, using incident solar radiation (H³) to split water molecules (H2O), freeing up electrons and oxygen (O2) that then react with carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce a fuel, shown here as methanol (CH3OH). The result is a renewable green energy source that also helps scrub the atmosphere of excessive carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. (Credit: Illustration by Flavio Robles, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs)

As precursor, here's the Moody Blues classic, Days of Future Passed, an overblown but interesting sonic exploration using cutting age tech of the late 60's along with accompaniment provided by the London Festival Orchestra.