Running on Empty: The Future of the Automobile in an Oil-Short World, by Lester R. Brown, Christopher Flavin and Colin Norman, 1979, 116 pp., $7.95 from: W.W Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10036 When Ivan Illich wrote his classic essay Energy & Equity a few years back he argued that Western nations, the U.S. in particular, shouldn't want ever-increasing forms and speeds of transportation, especially automobiles, because of the global and domestic inequity their production and use both requires and perpetuates. Now these researchers from the Worldwatch • Institute inform us that, whether we want to or not, we are going to have to make some pretty serious changes regarding automobiles and our use of them. A critical factor in this analysis, o{ course, is the escalating cost of gasoline resulting from diminished oil supplies. "In the United States, it now costs about $20 to fill the tank of a standard American car; five years ago it cost less than $10, and five years hence it could cost $50." For a variety of technical and economic reasons, alternative fuels and electric cars will not have a significant impact in the next few decades. Rather, the'key to the automobile's immediate future is the development of vehicles with greater fuel efficiency-60 to 80 miles per gallon is within the range of modern technology. "Billions of dollars have been lavished on highways, parking facilities, and other developments to encourage the use of automobiles; support for alternatives such as buses, trains, mopeds and bicycles has been minimal by comparison. In an oil-short world, these alternatives to the automobile will be essential to preserve, and in some cases increase, personal mobility." If you want to buy this book and save yourself some gas money at the same time, you can get the 64-page report the book is based on directly from the Worldwatch Institute (1776 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., ;~·· ·'.:·~· ".·. i, ; . ~-,.r. Washington, DC 20036) for $2.00. Also, if you're in the market for a used car, I just happen to be unloading one . . . - MR Why Trade It In?, George and Suzanne Fremon, 1976, $5.95 from: Liberty Publishing Co. 50 Scott Adam Rd. Cockeysville, MD 21030 This is the kind of guidebook we need more of! It doesn't tell you a thing about repairing your car, but it does something equally important. It lays out the economics, based on considerable experience, of maintaining your present car indefinitely rather than replacing it (with a cost savings of up to $1000 per year). It goes on into the ' savings to our economy ($21 billion per year of human effort that could go to other things). But most importantly, it tells you how to keep your car going reliably for years and years-explaining how long various parts usually last, which ones cause unexpected breakdowns and should be replaced preventively, and which ones give a warning as they wear out and can be kept in use until then. It explains simply how rusted bodies can be repaired and repainted, and at what cost; that seat covers last up to six times as long as the original seats; why not to buy a rebuilt carburetor, etc. One thing it doesn't do is warn you about one of the biggest scams in the repair business-"book prices.".If you go into a car dealer's service department, they will quote you (or bill you) from a book that supposedly gives the average time needed to do the repair, not the actual time spent The rub is that the time figures are inflated so much that almost any mechanic can do the job in one-half the listed time. The last time I had to ha_ve a specialized repair done at a dealer, they started to bill me from the book for 2½ hours, then in the nickof time realized that I was there picking the truck up qnly an hour after I had left it off. Ralph Nader, get to work on this one. -TB January 1980 RAIN Page 3 TRANSPORTATION; Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow, Dee Brown, 1977,.$12.95 from: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 383 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017 Why are Americans still unable to run It reasonable train system? Perhaps it has to do with lack of practice. Dee Brown's absorbing his_tory of frontier railroads shows how our ancestors got us off to an unpromising start by turning construction over to promoters whose primary concern was the creation of lucrative private fiefdoms, backed with generous grants of public land and money. According to Brown, their roads • were often laid out in helter-skelter fashion, with more thought given to speculative potential than to meeting any real transportation needs. By the 1880s, when western settlers began to understand this and express their anger politically, the nation was already saddled with what the author terms "the most absurd railway system in the world." Nonetheless, Brown gives full credit to the technological ingenuity evidenced in the building of the transcontinental train system; and his book also provides fascinating glimpses of frontier life in the era of railroad boom towns and the waning Plains Indian culture (which died in large part from changes brought by the railroads). In one poign.,ant anecdote, Sitting Bull is invited to ~peak at a ceremony marking the completion of the Northern Pacific route and takes the occasion to bitterly denounce land thieves and liars. An Army officer transforms his remarks into "English metaphors of benevolent hospitality" and he receives a standing ovation from the assembled crowd. It is apparent from this book that he deserved a better translator. -JF I'
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