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Someone tell the Town of Atherton that electric trains don't pollute. I think they're now up to 3 lawsuits against California high speed rail, at least two of w
by chiph 2y ago
Someone tell the Town of Atherton that electric trains don't pollute. I think they're now up to 3 lawsuits against California high speed rail, at least two of which are on environmental reasons.
- NikkiA 2y ago*Building the line* has a massive environmental impact, so they're not wrong as such. The risk of course is doing what has been done with HS2 in the UK, all the environmental damage before killing most of the project and thus no end benefit*. * Unless you count enriching your tory donors by selling them the cancelled land secretly within hours of cancelling the project.
- bluGill 2y agoAll the reasonable alternatives pollute more long term. Nobody will accept the idea that they should become a subsistence farmer that never goes farther from home than he can walk (sexism intended).
- shiroiushi 2y agoThis is how environmental political activism works: file lawsuits against some new thing because it isn't absolutely perfectly non-polluting and eco-friendly, and force everyone to keep using some old system that's highly polluting and an ecological disaster. For another great example, see nuclear power.
- melling 2y agoMake the highways wider and use tens of millions of cars over decades. Then again, jet fuel will get you there faster. Flying 400 miles is more relaxing than driving. How do electric trains compare? I’m having a little problem with common sense today.
- jeffbee 2y agoCan we just tell the town of Atherton to not exist? Atherton is a "general law" city of California and the legislature can dissolve it with a simple majority vote. The purpose of a city in California is to advance and further state policy, so I never understood why the state stands around acting powerless while reactionaries thwart broadly supported state initiatives.
- krasin 2y agoThe problem would also be solved by building affordable housing under the new state initiatives, which prohibit the cities to block construction. New residents will very quickly dominate the voter base, problem solved.
- zactato 2y agoDissolving Atherton and replacing it all with dense housing would be so satisfying. I suspect there's enough political influence in that town to prevent it from happening
- solardev 2y agoWhile we're at it, if we just built more train-trailer-homes and moved all the Californians into them, we could solve the entire state's housing problems AND get everybody to take transit every day AND improve air pollution. Census counts would become a lot easier too. Homeowners don't want to move? No problem, just eminent domain them or invent some new CEQA provision by a simple majority vote. It's about time the state learned to use its powers!
- Animats 2y agoBut Atherton has the best polo field of the three in Silicon Valley!
- GCA10 2y agoAtherton residents include the NBA's Stephen Curry, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Bill Gurley, Doug Leone etc. A fuller list is toward the end of this Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atherton,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atherton,_California There might be some brave souls willing to pick a fight with Atherton's leading citizens. But no one like that is serving in the state legislature.