Every talking head in the MSM universe and on social media is fulminating about rising gas prices and falling petroleum supplies. Everyone has a favorite cause to invoke and a favorite person to blame. Everyone has a solution: ramp up American production, cut a deal with Argentina, ramp up OPEC production, ramp up renewable energy sources. Ramp up something, and do it fast so I can keep my eight-cylinder pickup truck topped up. Not one word about the silver lining this black cloud is offering us — a chance to survive as a species.
Instead of ramping up, relaxing environmental controls and breaking the budget to make sure no one has to change their way of life, we should embrace this fundamental change in the petroleum economy. Accept it. Address it by reducing our consumption of petroleum. Forego the gas-guzzling pickup truck and buy a hybrid. Take the bus.
(I understand that these options are not available to everyone, and that high gas prices can be an existential threat to low income workers who have to drive in order to work. We would be better off figuring out a way to help those who need it rather than wasting our time trying to change reality.)
But that is not the way we roll in a crisis that affects our well-being. The Corolla virus pandemic reduced pollution, improved air quality in major cities, caused a noticeable improvement in wildlife well-being, and showed us with a firm hand not only that we could, but how we could, treat the world a lot better. But we can’t wait to get back to “normal.” Literally, we can’t wait. The pandemic rages on, but we are sick of it and going back to normal anyway.
The third or fourth time our beach house is wiped out by a hurricane or our riverside village is erased by a flood or our forest town is burned to the ground, what is the song we and all our leaders start to sing immediately? “We will build it back better.” Never, “maybe we should change our ways.”
Most people I know who install solar power with the intent of going off the grid design their installation to supply all the power they use when on the grid. They would be far better off to reduce their consumption of electricity to a level that solar can handle comfortably and affordably. But that would mean a change in their way of life. Anathema.
And then there is the relentless advance of global warming, which is rolling up the edges of our civilization like the proverbial cheap rug. We knew what it was and what it was going to do in the 1970s, and are still arguing about what we should do about it “before it’s too late.” We are like a patient that has been brought to a hospital hemorrhaging severely, and all the doctors can think of to do is replace the blood so he can carry on like normal.
It seems sometimes as if Mother Nature is trying over and over again to send us a message: don’t burn so much fossil fuel, don’t try to live here, don’t keep overusing your (actually my) resources. And after each event, we just sing louder: “We’re gonna build back better.” If that is true, and everything that has happened to us collectively in the past few years consisted of warning shots, imagine what it’s going to be like when she gets really pissed.
Seriously: we should pay for our gas, forget who is to blame, shut the hell up and get on with some serious lifestyle changes.
You go first.
Some of us are forced into lifestyle changes. Housing is out of reach. I feel lucky to have a safe and comfortable trailer to live in. It’s a “park model”, about 1/2 the size of a regular single wide and has a 200 sq ft add-on room. It’s not too bad for a retired couple. I just wish we had a bit of property to grow potatoes and cabbages on.
As someone who commutes 50 miles/day in a 15mpg truck (a requirement for transporting livestock to butcher now that on-farm butchers have disappeared), I couldn’t agree more.
I have an Amish buggy and buckboard at the ready in the barn. It’s much nicer to use them when there’s no auto traffic. Everyone waves. I notice the flowers on the side of the road. Life ii better at that pace, no doubt.
I completely agree with you.
Well said!
It is curious that you chose “eight-cylinder pickup truck,” a working class standard, rather than say, recreational air travel, a professional management class standard, as an example of excess. What’s more, P/Us may sometimes be used to do something useful, recreational travel is always a total waste.
Tom: You and I remember the Arab oil embargo of ’73. What a shocker! My nascent graphics and screen-printing business went belly-up as a result. There was a similar shortage at the end of that decade which also caused quite a disruption, but by that time I had taken to cycling and walking as my primary modes of transport. [There was a Tomos moped somewhere in the mix, but I don’t remember exactly when.] I do have a car now, but it’s a tiny one – a Hyundai Accent. I still walk or bike whenever possible, and I still live in town.
Why don’t Americans learn the simplest lessons from history. I mean, it’s written on the walls, halls and bathroom stalls – minimalize!
Yep. And I hear the howlers scream, “how can the gas prices be going so high when we only get 20% of our oil from Russia?” and then dive into some conspiracy theory or Joe Biden diatribe. That’s when I recall that the Arab Oil Embargo that brought this country to its knees involved a loss of only ten per cent of our imported crude.
People wont change habits until they have to.