As for Redford, I forgive him many things for his making of "The Great Waldo Pepper", one of the best movies about flying ever made. Redford did his own stunts in the movie, including wing walking and plane-to-plane transfers without a parachute or safety wires. Sure, they made a couple mistakes (for the record, Jimmy Doolittle did the first outside loop, not a German based on Ernst Udet), but the movie is one of my all time favorites. "The Natural" is also a very good movie.

As for catalyst fuel cells, yes, they do release some carbon dioxide as they extract hydrogen from alcohol or a hydrocarbon. However, they're still much cleaner than existing internal combustion engines, both from the perspective of CO2 emissions as well as other emissions.

Mass transit systems are only economically viable where you have a high population density. Virtually none of the systems built in the last 20-30 years breaks even. Even the simple bus system here in Colorado Springs has to be subsidized to the tune of about $5 million a year. People are going to live where they want to regardless of the wishes of utopian urban planners. If I wanted to live in a high density urban area, I'd do so. I don't, nor do millions of other people.