In six to ten years, in a minor but important step in the response to Global Warming (air travel is the fastest growing emitter of carbon dioxide), a substantial portion of express air travel is likely to be outlawed or heavily taxed. To the delight of many of us, the federal government, at long last, will invest heavily in intra-city rail travel, and ten year’s hence, assuming sea levels haven’t risen as high as some scientists predict and the Atlantic coast remains as we know it today, Amtrak’s Philadelphia – Miami run will take a respectable seven hours and thirty-five minutes, not quite as blistering as the three hours six minutes from Paris to Marseille, but you get the idea.
