Letters to the Editor
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Looking forward to it...
The American car-centered world is about to take a serious tumble. This is a good thing.
Our British friends visiting this week were talking about their aging parents, their health care, their various health issues. The one major significant problem they DON'T have is mobility. Because the basic services they need are all available on foot, within two or three blocks, this particular set of aging parents can stay in their homes well into their 80's.
For most Americans with aging parents, the loss of driving means end of life care has begun... moving to assisted living, moving in with children or other family, loss of independence.
In America, daily services (grocery, post office, library, doctor), close by, accessible, on foot with a rolling shopping cart, are very difficult to find and usually involve a move and a search for a particular kind of house or apartment. In Britain (and I assume France, Germany, and the rest of Europe), having what you need right in your neighborhood is "as common as muck."
I would love that here. There's no reason other than cheap oil and stupid suburban planning that we don't have it. I ran out of cream for my coffee this morning. Instead of driving my car to the grocery, I went without. I wish I could have walked there, got a morning paper, said hi to my neighbors, and got cream for my coffee.
This will be expensive, and it will change many things. But it won't all be for the worse.
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I tire of calls for revolution
To all the people who are champing at the bit for $9 gas I need to throw out, right now throw out about a quarter to a third of the food in your house. Then I need you to run upstairs and toss out 90% of the prescription drugs you take. Go to your closest and toss out a large chuck of your clothing not completely made by natural fibers. Then I need to run back downstairs and toss 2/3rds of the plastic you can get your hands on. On your way down stairs you might want to toss or at least lock away in a closet your computer, iPod, DVD player and TV. And if it's a flat screen you should kiss it goodbye. When you go outside I want you to drain half the gas out of your gas tank and only fill it up half as much even if that means it's empty for a few days a month.
None of this a good thing. These are the kinds of things that happened to countries experiencing a Crash, a Great Depression or South American style hyperinflation freefall. These are countries ripe for REAL Revolution where people get shot or starve or die of disease. This is real third world brush war stuff and trust me, you don't want it.
No we won't solve anything by shocking and punishing people. You know why? Because rich people will still be able to afford it. Did you know that at the height of the Great Depression Duesenberg sold a car that cost $30,000 in 1933 dollars?
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High gas prices for the economy are like Alli for the obese: good in theory, messy in real life....
We Americans hate density, advocate NIMBY-ism and love detached homes with lawns, which necessiates individuals driving 10,000+ miles annually, yet which eat too much beef (also energy intensive), which requires that we get bigger cars and spend $$$$ on wars to protect nations against the bad guys who are funded by petrodollars.
You try to be the politican that goes on TV and says that we're too fat, spoiled and decadent for our own good.
Cognitive dissonance and democracy don't mix too well.
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The Chinese Nuclear Button
Yeah, there is a limited supply of oil and there exists something like a market, athough it's hardly a free market.
But the international price of oil is more a reflection of international power politics then of any "invisible hand" of markets. The leaping price says a lot about the wonderful effect of the Bush Presidency on the world stage.
China will never start a real war against the United States, bit they do play a strong game of economic power politics. The volume of U.S. debt they own is essentially an economic nuclear button, with no missiles required.
If the U.S. ever does have a war with China, the U.S. will surely be the initiator.
Hey, let's try to keep that from happening, OK?
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This Isn't About Revolution--Its About Dealing with Scarcity
Many indicators are now pointing to a reality that we have reached and passed the peak oil point. The big oil companies are drilling in places they would not have considered a few years ago. It is taking more energy to get this stuff out of the ground and refine it than it delivers in BTU's. The same is true for some alternative fuels such as ethanol. This should not be a surprise to anyone--it was predicted years ago.
So far, we have done nothing to prepare. If we continue to do nothing, we will perish as a culture because Americanism was built and is maintained on the assumption of cheap and plentiful energy.
Gas prices of $9-$10/gal. may well result in some of the scenerios described by one of the posters. It will certainly force the American people to WAKE UP!!! If we are lucky and begin serious action now, there will be a revolution. If we take no action, there will be chaos.
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Throw out all the crap...
To all the people who are champing at the bit for $9 gas I need to throw out, right now throw out about a quarter to a third of the food in your house.
I was at Massacre Rocks State Park last fall. The local Indians who lived there 150 or so years ago got 90% of their nutrition from grass seed. They were pretty healthy.
Then I need you to run upstairs and toss out 90% of the prescription drugs you take.
Most prescription drugs are worthless. Prescription drugs are oversold to people who would be much healthier if they lived on the above mentioned grass seed.
Go to your closest and toss out a large chuck of your clothing not completely made by natural fibers. Then I need to run back downstairs and toss 2/3rds of the plastic you can get your hands on. On your way down stairs you might want to toss or at least lock away in a closet your computer, iPod, DVD player and TV. And if it's a flat screen you should kiss it goodbye.
Well, we can do without a lot of that stuff, but being resourceful critters we will find a way to have some of it. Most plastics can be made from crops like soybean oil.
When you go outside I want you to drain half the gas out of your gas tank and only fill it up half as much even if that means it's empty for a few days a month.
During WW2 my mother got along on 3 gallons a week. Delivery men came by with grocery carts, butcher wagons, etc. My neighborhood could easily be served by diesel hybrid trucks bringing the stuff to us. Instead of 75 households driving 10 miles round trip to shop two or three times a week delivery services could easily do it. If a typical household only drives three times a week to the stores, it would take 2250 miles of driving a week for the 75 houses. That would burn about 100 gallons, as opposed to say three delivery trucks driving three times a week at half that mileage, that would burn eight gallons a week. Many of us would walk the 10 mile round trip, greatly benefiting our health.
I am looking forward with eagerness to $10 gas. The present scourge of type 2 diabetes would end in three months, along with many other benefits.