pfft, test it on any Ace Ventura movie where Jim Carrey does his own reverse taking sequence!

Roundabouts are a good solution as you said in rural areas and also in residential neighborhoods. In low traffic situations, they work great to prevent having to stop in most situations. But yes, go to Carmel, IN (north side of Indianapolis). Try to go east or west through the town during rush hour (most traffic going north or south). You can't. Block a roundabout with traffic going one way, and all ways come to a dead stop, probably backing that street up to clog up another roundabout and you get a chain reaction from intersection to intersection.

Hey, don't forget asphalt for paving roads and straight up gasoline for cleaning things!

How about reducing weight that we all have to drag around with us just to get our bodies from point A to point B. Do I really need to haul around a backup camera? How about a computer to manage stability control? 15 airbags? A plastic engine cover?

They still get 0 miles to the gallon technically... Plus even if they aren't running the engine, it probably doesn't turn off the radio/AC/accessories, so they are running on some sort of energy that will need to be recharged. Regardless, better flowing traffic with minimal stops is much better for everyone. Longer battery range for electrics, better fuel economy for gas cars. Sadly, pretty much every city has lights that are poorly timed for rush hour that really screw everyone over for the other 22 hours of the day. Not to mention every residential neighborhood that has stop signs instead of yield signs, or 4 way stops when they should be 2 way stops. So much energy savings could be had with some good design, but it's the government that would have to fix it, and they have no incentive to do so...

Actually, we should spend a bit more money on increasing traffic control and road design efficiency. Every car gets 0 miles to the gallon unnecessarily stopped at a light.

I agree, when people say "what will we do with cities like Tampa and New Orleans?" and I reply, 200 years ago, they were just a few maybe 2-3 story buildings. How many cornerstones in those cities are marked pre-1814? Not many important ones. People migrate over time due to the environment, it's a natural process.

Deeper water, increased flow. Both add thermal mass and the increased flow velocity could slow or halt freezing on the surface. I'm not saying anything about temperature differences, just pointing out that there is a scientific argument to be had that dredging a river could make it less likely to freeze given constant temperature.

My problem is with 7... The assumption that a warmer climate will be catastrophic or even net harmful to humanity. Even worse is number 8, the assumption that we can or should attempt to keep the climate where it has been throughout the very recent period of human societal development.

There is perfect competition in the fuels market, that's not to say the oil market has perfect competition, it does not. The price changes in the oil market have an effect on fuel prices, but it does not affect the marketing and competition among the sellers of the refined product. This is why people think there is collusion, because the price of gas is very similar at all stations in a given region and that is actually because the competition is so fierce for customers.

Ain't that the truth. If car companies were ISPs, you'd get to choose between Chrysler and Kia. Both would suck ass and be worse than what is available to the rest of the world. Your car would be sold lease only with low payments for the first year, plus a nice surcharge for a steering wheel, billed monthly. They would advertise "Up to 100 MPG!" and not tell you that that was downhill with no traffic. Actual mileage might only be 10MPG on average. You'd take it into one of their shops because it doesn't get the advertised mileage, they'll make you wait 10 minutes before a tech tells you that it must be the gas you put in it and refuse to fix anything.

I know I'll get flamed for this... Motor fuels:

1) They are all selling an identical product (made to meet standards, with any slight differences being indistinguishable in performance benefits in a laboratory.
2) Their prices are advertised on huge signs so that people can easily price shop.
3) Pipeline transportation is regulated as a utility so that companies can't give preferential treatment.
4) There are still many companies involved in the refining, transportation, and marketing of fuels.

Sure the government meddles, but at least for now is mostly meddles evenly across all companies, so the net effect of the loss is still even across the industry.

No, but I'm just saying the IRS wouldn't accept my word that I didn't hide income and assets if they were doing an audit. Sorry, I lost all my paper records would not be an excuse.

Well according to their word the President didn't know about it. Sadly it seems all records of any conversations about it were lost...

Yes, because I work for an oil company and when the government comes to investigate a pipeline leak they suspect was due to intentional decision making and my emails were lost in a hard drive crash and the drive was thrown away is a completely valid excuse and I'm sure the EPA will let us off the hook for any potential negative information that may have been contained in those emails.