Hasbeen 'if you actually succeeded in taking the trucks off the road, how long do you think you would live?'

Not long as I live in town that is totally relying on trucks to bring everything in, but it did have a railway line.

It would also reduce deaths and injuries if all trucks were taken off major intercity highways - like the Hume when there is a railway line that could be used.

And with peak oil and increasing costs for transport then we should be looking at alternatives.

Great article and right on the money. The sooner this Carbon Dioxide scare is put to bed the better.

Bluey, just what does the Franklin have to do with some hair brained idea of removing trucks from the road, in an urbanised society, where food has to travel often hundreds of Km to the shop.

But while you mention it, how stupid the greenie, who wants to stop generating power with coal, but also wants to stop dams for hydro power. Schizophrenia prevails.

But it gets worse doesn't it. You want to use mass cement to build almost useless wind mills, then dig huge holes to get the copper, to run your Micky Mouse power hundreds of Km to those awful cities you want to live in.

Then you want people to ride a bike to work, despite mum working 15Km north, dad 15 south, & the kids going 5 Km each, east & west to school, or child care. God help us.

Hang about, you want tax payer funded public transport to do it, don't you, despite the fact that it uses more fuel per passenger mile than the private car. No mate, I don't dislike greenies, just their stupidity.

I also get frustrated when they add 2+2 together, & get 15, not because it makes any kind of sense, but because that's the answer they wanted to get, & nothing sensible, like the rules of arithmetic, is going to get in the way of them getting that answer.

Great stuff Peter, I'll get the lady at centrelink to put you down for a job pushing the handcart from the railway to the supermarket. Just remember it might be 10Km in many places. Oh, & don't forget, peak oil, no trains, unless we go back to coal. I always did like steam. & will it still be OK to use a truck from the farm to the railway, & then there's the tractor, it all gets too hard.

Bluey, bad farming practices, how unkind. What do you take me for, an idiot or something?

I was never stupid enough to farm. Doing something useful, like producing food is a recipe for bankruptcy. Those greenies want their public transport for nothing, & expect their food for the same damn price.

No mate, I decided to go with them, & exploit their tree hugging practices. I grew advanced shrubs & trees, so they could have nice instant leafy green suburbs, in their new subdivisions.

Nothing like exploiting someones weakness, to make you a good quid.

I also bread a few horses, just so we would have something to pull the cart, when they came & took our truck. Of course around here the kids went show jumping, so the horses rode in the truck, not pulled it.

I'm afraid I was a bit hopeful there. The stallion is 20 years old now, so peak oil will have to hurry, or I will miss the boat.

We have build a world that depends on the mobility of the average citizen. Our cities can only function if we have that mobility. If the checkout chick can't get to work, the whole edifice comes tumbling down.

Be careful what you wish for, the collapse may be closer than you think, & may be much worse than you anticipate.

Carbon markets or trading, will work like this.

Most of us will be paying through the nose for carbon, a few will get extremely rich, so basically it is taxation that goes straight into the pockets of a privileged few.

Some Spanish entrepreneurs had the right idea: buy some huge floodlights and run them on normal-priced electricity. Shine them on subsidised solar panels and generate super-duper 'green' electricity that they could then sell back to the grid for several times what it cost them to run the lights. That's initiative for you! What a nation-building exercise!

Pity they got caught. I guess they shouldn't have tried to do it at night...