(Long Island, NY) Here we are, right on the verge of Memorial Day, and we’ve got three bucks a gallon plus at the pumps. Isn’t that great? The oil companies are turning record profits, we’ve got Al Gore giving warnings about global warming, and the entire country is nowhere near ready to abandon fossil fuels in favor of anything resembling a major solution to the problem.
Some experts give us about fifty years before the oil starts running low, or stops flowing altogether. Then, we’re basically screwed. It’s a nice rosy outlook, complete with a happy ending. Don’t panic, folks, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway, right?
Well, actually, there ARE things we can do, starting right now. Public transportation, for one. Part of the problem with fossil fuels is our addiction to the convenience of cars. We have built our entire society around being able to hop in a vehicle and drive…wherever. Contrast that with the United Kingdom, where communities were built on a much more centralized principle—smaller and more compact communities with a shopping street and service-related districts which make far more sense in terms of a community that is not built around the automobile, but around a combination of travel modes-foot, pedal power, public transport and autos. The bloke on a bike, in the UK at least, has at least as much access to goods and services as the man in a motorcar.
If more of us start shifting away from the “one body, one vehicle” mindset, it’s possible that the American way of life might start shifting back towards a more centralized ideal of living. Imagine smaller, but well stocked groceries serving neighborhoods; a local pub and cinema. The shopping experience would naturally have to be modified to handle rough weather-plenty of covered walkways and even bike paths-but with a shift away from car culture; the inconvenience of the weather could be accounted for with the right kind of planning.
That’s right, folks, we’re going to need to do this together. America is running out of options-except for the expensive ones. Gas prices will continue going up. At the current rate of production, the number of cars on the road will only increase. How many highway expansion projects can we do before we start running out of room? America can’t even deal with the estimated 13 million illegal immigrants it has on the books in terms of basic health care. If everybody who moves to America decides to buy a car, we are talking serious gridlock here.
Before you mistake this for a screed against immigrants owning vehicles, forget about all the newcomers to the country getting behind the wheel and think about the next two generations of teenagers who are all eying the highways even as I type this. Don’t blame illegal aliens for the coming highway race of doom—how many kids do you have? These freshly scrubbed faces will soon be adding to the snarl of traffic in greater numbers than ever. The ever-vanishing amount of room on the road can’t be blamed on any one bunch of drivers; we’re all in it together.
More drivers means more gas consumption, which means a quicker drain on the amount of oil that’s available. Going, going, gone. One day we’ll look back and tell some new set of freshly scrubbed faces that once upon a time, prices went up every holiday season because the oil barons rigged it that way. The kids will look at each other and ask, “What’s OIL?”
So, it’s up to us to start thinking of new ways to live. This Memorial Day, in addition to all the other things you’ve got planned, try planning a new way to get to one or two of them. Cut out the car and see how you like it.
You’ll HATE it.
That’s the whole point—not to get you to abandon the car RIGHT NOW—but rather to demonstrate just how ADDICTED TO OIL the entire nation has become. We’re junkies and we don’t know how to get off the evil stuff. Somehow we’ve got to create a 12-step program that can help us become reliant on better power. Whether that’s pedal power, solar power, public transport or something else. IF we can start weaning ourselves away early enough, when the end of the oil finally does come it won’t be such a big shock.
Of course, all this is a pipe dream; chances are we’re just going to drive ourselves stupid until there ain’t no more oil. Then we’ll all get the shakes, start hallucinating, and get sick until the withdrawal symptoms pass. Then we’ll be left to pick up the pieces and wonder what the hell to do with all those damn useless cars.
