USA Ramblings

[jeff oakley]

We have just returned from a California road trip starting in LA, to San Diego, to Palm Springs and Back to LA for the last few days. It has been an interesting trip to say the least.

Flying into LA the first thing to notice was the pollution that hung in the air very visible as far as the eye can see, thick with a brown tinge.

When you land you can see why, traffic everywhere even the 10 lane highway almost at standstill. We hired a car for three people and four suit cases what they gave us was a Chevy Tahoe, as you can see below it was massive with a V8 that struggled to pull the weight around and not the biggest we were offerred.  

 Speaking with various people electric cars although more popular yet the charging infrastructure is worse than here, one guy told me that he has to get up in the middle of the night to get into the communal charging station as there are simply not enough so prising people out of gas cars is going to take year. And as their cities are designed around the car it will take more to get public transport to change to meet expectations.

Our government bangs on about becoming nett zero it will never happen in the US as their energy consumption is massive. Everywhere we went Air Con on full blast all day and night, everything lit up like Blackpool and yes they have solar and wind farms but apparently they cannot keep up with the growing energy needs.

I love going to the US I love their sense of patriotism but their problems with social issues is growing fast and homeless people living on side walks with no help seems so wrong with such affluence around them. What is clear is that they have such an effect on the rest of the world and the election, especially now Biden has gone, is going to be massive. 

The car culture is still king and the diversity is huge, from the off road type lifted trucks to the Lowriders which we saw driving in SD and everything in between, it is unlike anything else anywhere in the world and worth seeing.  

[Flying Carrot Steve]

I haven't been to the States since the 90s but even then air con was everywhere. Trouble is air con pollutes and raises global temps and so we need more air con and so it goes on and on. The day may come when air con is everywhere because that itself is causing the need for it. Hope not obviously, but places like Dubai are almost totally reliant on it already from what I've seen. I even have two portable units in my house which I can't do without for maybe 3 to 5 weeks of the year and this is with cold horrible UK weather! 

[MR.C]

I watched a documentary on BBC 3 the other night about Kyle Rittenhouse.

Powerful situation.