Alright class. Today we have a guest speaker who will be filling in for me. So please give your attention to Sir Adam.
Why this article is bullshit:
1) The President makes $400,000 a year. He lives for free, get driven/flown for free everywhere he goes. We pay his energy bills. Meanwhile, he receives the best medical benefits available to modern medicine, for free, for the rest of his life. He does not feel our pain— he feels an approval rating so dismal that he makes Richard Nixon look like John Glenn. What I wouldn’t give for an Andrew Jackson right about now to step into office and start hitting people with his walking stick…
2) The chances of Washington finding a quick solution aren’t low because Republicans and Democrats are deadlocked—it’s low because there is no quick solution. Sorry, dear America, who always believes in quick fixes to complicated problems, but the facts are thus:
• they have most of the oil
• oil is a finite resource and will run out
• we need their oil
• they choose the price.
You can bitch and moan about greedy oil barons and sheikhs, but at the heart of it is simple economics. And considering that our nation prides itself on strong capitalist instincts, all the bitching we do is lip service because you can be sure of one thing: if we had all the oil, we would be doing the exact same thing that they are.
3) this quote: “And with the federal government now more than $9 trillion in debt, where would Congress find the money to pour into public transit and research into alternative fuels?”
Rather than bring up the estimated (roughly) two trillion dollar price-tag of the war in Iraq (that’s $2,000,000,000,000) and how much public transportation that could have purchased or debt that could have paid off, I’ll just throw up a quote in reference to the war:
"It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars."
- Kenneth M. Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, 9/02
‘Nuff said.
The major problem here is that people, from the bottom to the top of our social pyramid, are looking for the quickest, most painless answer to the problem of rising oil costs. But the answer is not to cut federal taxes on gas for a while—that will lower prices about $.18 a gallon (roughly 4.5%), and in my neighborhood they’ve risen more than that over the past week. I would still be getting bent over at the pump, meanwhile our nation would be losing billions in revenue to build/maintain roads.
The answer is also not drilling in ANWAR— and I don’t take that stance for environmental reasons, I take it out of common sense. Yes, that might lower gas prices for a while, but we would suck every drop out of the ground in a few years and be right back in this boat. None of our fundamental beliefs or behaviors would change in the slightest if gas suddenly dropped to $2.90 a gallon. That’s like a junkie saying ‘I know I need to get clean—I’ll just rent a room in that crack house down the block and get right on it’.
These are band-aid solutions to a bullet wound. The wake-up call is here: the only way out of this mess is to not be dependent on oil and, like changing any dependency, it is going to hurt. It’s going to involve a complete reshifting of American perceptions. It’s going to involve replanning our urban/suburban centers from the ground up. It’s going to involve massive expenditures for reliable and affordable public transportation. It’s going to take huge investments in alternative fuels and huge leaps of faith in consumers to not keep purchasing Hummers.
And meanwhile, we are just going to have to bite the friggin’ bullet and pay our $4 for gas and be damn well pleased to do it—while we’re complaining about the new projected cost of our summer vacations, the price of grain (which has risen even faster than oil) is killing people across the globe by the tens of thousands.
3 comments:
Although costly, revamping the urban sprawl would no doubt be very profitable for the U.S. in the long-term. Just like the 'costly' creation of the interstate highways under FDR was considered an insane expense by many, but it was this that ultimately led to the U.S. becoming a 'superpower'.
- Nell's dad.
Urban sprawl, car culture, equating cars with social status and symbols, and a history of low-cost gas. The list of why we're in this situation goes on for many pages. The problem is the same as many of our problems: short-sightedness. We act in the short term with no thoughts as to what happens down the road.
I was appalled to hear a spokeswoman for the auto industry claim that there was no way to know that the current gas situation would happen. That's utter baloney. What she really meant was "the U.S. auto industry failed to prepare for this situation because they were busy reaping SUV and truck profits". They knew. Why? Because oil is finite, therefore so is gas. We get oil and gas from countries with very different social and political situations than our own. So someday we will run out or supply will change. Other countries are also developing, which requires energy. Hence demand changes. Whether the oil production peak is now or 50 years from now, the fact is it will be gone. What's left will cost more to get. Hooray capitalism!
It's going to require tough love for a country that was spoiled by cheap oil and over-consumption. But for those people out there that are paying attention, have the resources to adapt, and have the foresight to know it will happen can prepare and weather it. It's the people with blinders on, people with a "my gas should be cheap forever" attitude, and the poor with no money to easily adapt that will suffer the most. The world does not owe us cheap gas and an extravagant lifestyle.
A (non-scientific) CNN poll reported that 83% of people said they couldn't live without their cars. That's utter bullshit too. There are buses and trains, bicycles and your own two feet. We have to get over this attachment to personal transport. What they mean is they can't get over the idea of their car. But most of the world lives without cars. We can too.
I would love to see major improvements in public transportation and mass transit. Getting around town by foot, bicycle, or bus isn't all that difficult but the real problems come into play when I want to go 25-100 miles and there's no effective mechanism aside from a car. Bus routes don't connect the entire distance, terrain may prevent bicycling by any but the most experienced cyclists, and trains are considered a joke in this country.
Are there easy answers? No. This is going to be a painful, difficult transition that will harm the poor much more than any other group. The only reason we're hearing any significant griping in the country is because gas prices are finally affecting groups other than the poor.
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