We all may rightfully be very upset about the costs of filling up our cars with gas, at this point in time. Greed is at the helm of all this, and of course, none of us could guess who is at the forefront of that circle. But we need not go there; it's beside the point.
The point is this:
Blessings often come in disguises. And if we can see the roses within the thorns, we will be happy instead of just plain ol' feeling the pain of our pricked fingers or psyches. So let's "reframe" this matter in our heads, right now.
Perhaps, as a result of these unbelievable gas prices, more people will ride the bus. More people will carpool. What effect will this have on the environment? Mr Bush, this is the one time that I can say that I honestly have to thank you. Maybe your work against global warming solutions is not going to work, after all. Maybe you are even a big part of the solution right now!
What if....as a result of high gas prices, people simply had no choice but to buy locally-grown food? Because to transport food cross-country, or across the ocean ,will simply cost too much. Therefore, things may end up going more local.
What if the local farmers became the hub of our food supplies? Would genetic engineering have to disappear as the mass-produced foods draw less and less demand?
What if people started walking and biking to the stores to purchase smaller and more frequent supplies, instead of a carful at a time? After all, that is what they do in Europe.
Perhaps as more people start walking or biking to the stores with increased frequency, the obesity rate will drop, heart attacks will not cause people to drop as frequently; diabetes and hypoglycemia will be less of an epidemic...doesn't it all makes sense? With exercise comes good health and even a boost in endorphins and serotonin. Less prozac, anybody? Improved spirits? Yay! Sounds good to me!
Think globally, act locally. This is a very wise saying. Perhaps, as things become more and more localized as a direct result of these horrific gas prices, then the problem of global warming will ease at least a bit. Americans may begin to participate in the solution, at last.
Let's all concentrate on the solution:
Urge your local city council to plan more small stores and shops in your home town, to create increasing numbers of local hubs around the country. This will cut down on traffic and improve the global warming situation, as people drive less and less frequently to the stores, hospitals, and other places...because all will be at the reach of one's fingertips, with good urban planning.
Ask the Cities to make bike paths.
How about sponsoring a *monthly* Walk To School day? How about simply starting this up through your local school? Word will spread, and it becomes The 100th Monkey.
How about YOU arranging with YOUR boss to telecommute to work? If your work is of a nature that this can't happen, how about arranging carpooling?
What about a local shuttle service? Maybe letters to the editor will convince someone that this is a business they would want to go into, using hybrid cars as the vehicle. Green shuttle anyone? I'll bet there would be lots of takers.
This quote summarizes the nature of my concerns and the content of personal experiences which stir my activism:
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement on human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves". --Paul Revere, House of Commons
I have to disagree with you. American is not Europe. Europe is much closer together and this allows different structures/etc. The United States is massive and its population is spread out. What the advent of $4/gal and $5/gal and higher gas will do is cause an recession or maybe even a major economic depression. The rural poor will be destroyed .... they will not be able to aford to travel to their low paying jobs with such high gas prices. We are looking at economic hardships at a massive scale.
Stirling
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Lord Stirling (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 117 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 1:14:40 PM
America may not be Europe, but $5 a gallon gasoline isn't European either. Here in Prague, I'm paying nine bucks. NINE BUCKS, pardner.
What European cities do have is excellent tram and metro transport systems.
America has seen (or should have seen) this coming for a long time. It's just our American way to not do anything until the last minute and then we do it very well. So, I think Katherine is right on the money.
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Jim Freeman (108 articles, 42 quicklinks, 193 diaries, 364 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 4:45:57 PM
I have to disagree with you. American is not Europe. Europe is much closer together and this allows different structures/etc. The United States is massive and its population is spread out. What the advent of $4/gal and $5/gal and higher gas will do is cause an recession or maybe even a major economic depression. The rural poor will be destroyed .... they will not be able to aford to travel to their low paying jobs with such high gas prices. We are looking at economic hardships at a massive scale.
Stirling
by
Lord Stirling (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 117 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 1:16:50 PM
I agree whole-heartedly with your idea that higher gas prices will make us use closer to home sources of supply. But, I live in a large residential area and the closest grocery store is over two miles away, not within walking distance for perishables.
I suggest that we stop the importation of all oil immediately, creating by necessity, a strictly local, walk to economy, and reserve domestic oil supplies for the making of biscuits and gravy.
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Ed Martin (116 articles, 0 quicklinks, 31 diaries, 133 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 1:19:16 PM
When I wrote this, something was going through my head which I did not put into print. That is, when walking/biking to the store or farmer's market, of course that presupposes living close to downtown.
But those of us who live in rural/remote areas---and I have done my fair share of that too---would indeed be in a different position. Yes this will have huge economic impact: There is no doubt about it. But perhaps there are ways around that, too.
Example: Biking two miles to the store is not so far as we may think. Maybe once we start doing it, we'll find it a joy and not a hardship.
Biking five or six more more miles would be an entirely different story, especially when going over hilly terrain, etc.
If far away from the stores or in hilly terrain, maybe local grocery shuttles can be made a reality. Or, people can carpool together to the stores, taking turns driving to share the gas cost.
Maybe it's time to invest in a motorcycle with three wheels, and those little covered spaces alongside those three wheels can be used for groceries. Anything to cut down on gas costs!
Time for horses and buggies again?
But in the final analysis, it all comes down to urban planning. Yes it's an enormous expense for a city to plan little local shopping hubs. On the other hand, the cost to the economy without it, given the gas prices and the slowing down of commerce which will result from it, will also result in lost tax revenues. THerefore, it may make total sense to plan new little post office/store hubs in smaller, remote areas of town. Something to propose to your city council?
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Kathryn Smith (88 articles, 2 quicklinks, 35 diaries, 343 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 2:48:04 PM
[Thom]: Right, what they're trying to do is blame the cost of gasoline, half of which is the result of the decrease in the value of the dollar, the other quarter of which is arguably a function of supply and demand on the market place, who knows, and speculation, you add them all together, but I mean, if we were paying for gas in Euros right now we'd be paying two dollars and25 cents a gallon. So they're going to try and shift the blame away from the Bush administration and their failed and catastrophic policies onto Democrats and environmentalists, number one.
And number two, you're saying that there is not a ban and in fact, what we've got, I mean, I'm looking at this Committee on Natural Resources report. Between 1997 and 2007 the number of drilling permits, now we're actually talking about permits for drilling, on public lands increased by 361 percent. There's over ten thousand of these permits that the oil companies are simply, they got them and they're just sitting on them.
So it sounds like what they're trying to do is two things. Number one, make political hay with this, and number two, help their buddies the oil companies get thousands or millions of more acres of land leased to them so that they can sit on it as it continues to appreciate in value as we slide into peak oil or as the value of oil goes up.
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Sandy Sand (133 articles, 0 quicklinks, 169 diaries, 1271 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 6:02:02 PM
I think that Kathryn is correct. We can adjust to this change and yeah, it will suck and cause hardship. Most of all, it will cause a shift in paradigms which is really, really a hardship, but in the end we will look back and say "That was our finest hour". Ok, ok, I am waxing philosophical and the do-do is getting very deep, but most of us are in agreement that it is high time that we started doing things differently. We read about Ed Begley's house and his electric car and think, that's cool I'd like to do that too. But can we really do that? Yeah, if we are gifted actors and make a bundle of money, but most school teachers can forget it. Until fairly recently, the captains of industry would sell us a small hybrid at nearly the same price as an SUV the size of the Queen Mary. What kind of market gives you such a ridiculous choice?
I have looked at park and ride lots recently in my full car that gets over 30 MPH and they are loaded with SUVs and huge pickup trucks and it is a wonderful sight. Can light rail, well engineer mileage vehicles, hybrids, compressed air cars, hydrogen powered cars, bicycles, and suburban truck farms be far behind? What about Blokarts? OK that's over the top again, but it would be cool to see that instead of dirt bikes. Maybe we will even get decent rail service like most other civilized countries and stop flying the Luftwaffen Airlines where they treat you like Russian POW's. I have read where entreprenuers (too bad the French don't have this word) have started marketing solar panels like dealerships do new cars.....in other words, you don't have to have all the money up front and you can pay for the panels through the savings on your utilities. Maybe the grid will begin to allow any green tinker with a good idea to come up with ways to contribute to it and make a living doing it so that our power will be diverse and not dependent on the fluctuations of "energy commodities". If we can keep the greed heads at bay, we won't have a Mad Max world at all.
by
vidiot (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 171 comments)
on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 8:02:58 PM
Wolfie, you bring up some important points which I don' t want to under-estimate. However, if you can't find a constructive way in which to make your points, then I suggest you refrain. Because truthfully, after reading both of your posts, I thought to myself "here is one person whose writing I will never look at again" and I was not thinking about your writing in connection with anything I have written, per se. I was thinking of your writing, in general. Your style discredits you and I really wish more people here would take a moment to think about how they want to make their point. Credibility is not so much in the facts as it is in the presentation. Think about it.
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Kathryn Smith (88 articles, 2 quicklinks, 35 diaries, 343 comments)
on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 1:58:58 AM
This was/is coming sooner or later and we are better off taking it now. I will certainly grant you that the circumstances that have brought it about are most likely criminal and deceitful but the result is the same. This is the attention getting shock we need to improve and upgrade our mass transit across this country. Using electrical energy from many sources(preferably clean ones) we can use technology like Mag-Lev to connect states, cities, suburbs, and small towns with elevated monorails or surface rails(as long as they do not intersect with roads). These will be high speed(relative to their locale) units with capacity flexibility based on times and loads. All current trains would be replaced by this as well as cross country trucks and shorter plane flights. To do this the airline companies and over the road truckers would need to be included in this shift of priorities(job retraining, company investments). It is time for our transportation to come into the 21st century. The current crisis is just what it will take to actually get this much needed shift into motion.
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Hayesml47 (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 395 comments)
on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 9:30:12 AM
I always have had emergency supplies to last for at least a month stored in a quick move or TOGO kit due to my work with the Red Cross. Now I’m finding it a good investment.
I already grow my own food because of cost. I now have a large stock pile of imperishable food too. I do enjoy coke and understand that it will go up at least 18% in cost within the next year. I know I’ll buy and drink it sooner or later. That is why I have a pallet of coke in my garage.
My wife thought I was nuts at first and so did her parents. Now they are doing the same. They are stocking up on food just in case, but are also finding it cheaper to buy in bulk and the percentage of price is going up faster than any other investment they could make (CDs, bank interest, the markets, etc..).
At the rate gas is increasing all products will have to increase close to the same amount, because all commerce is attached to in some way fuel. Fuel has gone up 33%. You can expect all food products to follow.
I have little faith in your government to protect me too. I now have my own well armed militia formed too.
I do suggest that you start preparing for the worst.
If McCain is in office there will be more war and prices will go up.
If Obama is in office there will be more war (just without us he hopes), he will tax the crap out of gas, and prices will go up.
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Gallaher (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 537 comments)
on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 4:31:10 PM
the gas wars were not shooting wars, but pricing contests between stations. I remember 16 cent gas, yes kiddies I am an old old fart. The US automakers have their heads firmly planted up their posteriors. I heard of 20 billion in losses last quarter from a leading corporation, and rightly so. I cannot go to the dealer and buy a hybrid without having delivery dates and body style dictated to me. If I were an auto manufacturer I would offer a pickup hybrid, a roadster hybrid, a van, a sedan etc. etc. The japs are leading the pack because they arent tied-up with big oil mattoids and their world domination agenda. By the time we catch up those oriental buggers will be running cars on water or LNG or some other fuel that takes foresight and ingenuity to develop. Its high time we quit spouting our superiority and pull our corporate heads out of our little establishment blow-holes and produce useful desirable clean running cars with style at a popular price.
I dont really think it is right for the masses to get the shaft for the idiocy of the big three. but maybe this will shake them out of their gasoline box.
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 395 comments)
on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 8:29:37 PM
