Green Conservatives and Air France Rail

The seeming contradictions are piling up as fast as the stock market is falling. The world is changing rapidly around us yet we seem to be standing still, afraid to really do much of anything except watch the world pass us by.

Here in Canada, after suffering through the Election to Nowhere, we are stuck with a Conservative Party with really nothing left to conserve of the neo-conservatism that has grown rather old. Like it or not, there is no status quo any more.

The free market seems to have blown itself apart quite effectively. Seems like we have reached peak greed even before we hit peak oil. Making Hot Wheels is way more profitable than making full size automobiles. Yet here we stand clinging our McMansions, cars and big screen TV’s.

Over the pond, people, businesses and political parties are realizing and taking advantage of the new realities.

Air France, realizing the poor economics of air travel, will be operating high-speed rail by 2010.

The Conservatives in the UK, the party of Margaret Thatcher, actually seem to be committed to conservation and fighting climate change. Their logo is a big tree. They are aggressively opposing the third runway at Heathrow for environmental reasons. Instead, they are proposing a massive high-speed rail network throughout the country. Their plans are not being received that well by some members of the business community. This, of course, is to be expected, as entrenched interests always seem to fight change in spite of the potential upsides for the economy and the environment.

In an uncertain world, doing nothing is far riskier than change.