Merely Speculation…
Blogging, Political July 1st, 2008It should concern a lot of people that, while the prices of gasoline and food continually rise, the prices of other things, such as consumer goods, are going down. High definition TV’s, computers, video game consoles, iPods, iPhones, toys, furniture, “designer” clothes; all of the shit that we don’t need is continually becoming more and more of an option while travel is becoming less and less of one.
I recently travelled five hours to go see a concert with some friends. I didn’t even have to buy the ticket, it was a spare one that was offered to me. I graciously accepted the offer, and embarked upon my journey to see said show. Now, I don’t drive a very fuel efficient vehicle; as a matter of fact, I drive a gas-guzzling SUV that would make Rex Tillerson proud. (If things get worse, trust me, it’s gone) Before I even get one mile down the road, I have to fill up my gas tank. I believe my tank can hold about 20 gallons, and at $3.93 a gallon, that comes out to around $77 to fill up (and note, I was below empty when I filled up). My trip was a total of 754.3 miles around trip, so mathematically that equals, at about 18 mpg (which is generous for my guzzler), approximately $165 round trip for gas. So about $200 out the door just as fixed cost for getting there and back.
If this shit continues, imagine where we will be in another year?
Airlines are just as bad. They’re cutting back services and charging $15 just to check a bag because they’re feeling the pinch as well. Sure, they went through a phase of low ticket prices to put asses in seats and rely on volume to make up the difference, but that tactic slowly revealed itself to be about as unavailing as George Carlin performing at Lakewood Church. In order to turn a buck, they have now cut-back on the number of available flights and increased ticket prices. (Not to mention numerous surcharges)
Yada, yada, yada. I know you’ve all heard this before, but it begs the question: What effects will this constriction of a person’s ability to travel have on society as a whole?
Well it’s really quite simple.
We will continue to buy shit we don’t need, eat food that makes us fat, and travel less.
We will stay home more, associate with the same people, and never experience anything more than the vacay to OBX. We will depend on opinion machines to feed us information and tell us what to think in crystal-clear 1080i.
Or maybe I’m just paranoid because I’ve barely traveled outside the continental U.S. myself.
And I’m starting to feel the pinch.
July 4th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I don’t think this limits your, or anybody else’s, ability to travel. What it limits is our collective ability to travel in fuel inefficient vehicles. Do we have a right to waste precious resources? In many other countries, where fossil fuels have not been subsidized and gas has always been high, societies have naturally found the way to live efficiently. Like mass transportation that works, is clean, and ubiquitous. Like small cars that have very high mileage. Like energy efficient homes, solar and wind energy, etc. But here we built the highway system, the most expensive industry subsidy in history–we don’t pay train tracks for instance, train companies do, and we don’t build buildings for banks, they build them themselves–at the expense of mass transit. In fact Ford, GM, and others, bought all the small train companies that existed in the early 20th century only to close them, killing competition, so that people would buy cars.
In the recent era of apparent abundance in the face of gas subsidy, we all bought big cars and justified doing so with the fallacy of safety–we know SUVs are LESS safe that smaller cars.
So what do we do now? We do not have the mass transit infrastructure anymore and it would take decades and a major shift in culture to make that viable. Yet, India, China, and other parts of the world are becoming more and more capable of buying cars and demanding gas. So for every new gallon of gas we pump, several new people will come to the gas market, raising prices with higher demand. More gas is not a solution either. It’s a finite resource for which demand will continue to rise unless we shift energy sources altogether.
Of course fossil fuels have 2 main problems. It is a limited resource–we will eventually run out of oil weather we like it or not–and it pollutes shitloads, making our environments poisonous for ourselves–so even if we could burn oil perpetually, its probably not a good idea. It seems funny that the most abundant energy source is the one that does not contaminate and the one we can count on forever: the Sun. I mean, if that runs out, we have bigger problems than lack of fuel.
The only thing that keeps us in this dilemma is the fact that big corporate interests that have spend lots on a system–gas–and makes tons of money from it, does not seem interested in switching.
It’s time to move on. let’s take advantage of this crisis to move on. Let’s not be stupid either. Biofuels still contaminates too much and puts humans and machines on a race for food. Nuclear energy is too dangerous. Electricity is only good if it comes form clean sources.
Think! Think! You reap what you sow.
July 4th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Your arguments are sound, but I’m left feeling dissatisfied. My reason for this is that you’re all against bio-fuel; but at the same time you’re against every other alternate source of energy. Well, okay, at least the major players…there are tons of alternate sources for fuel but none that have been seriously considered enough to develop the technology to take a step forward in that direction. Because of this, we don’t know enough about them to weigh the pros and cons of each, which prevents us from determining the best ones available. I mean, just one source is not going to the end-all cure-all. It’s going to take a concentrated effort on combining multiple sources of energy to provide clean, yet efficient, energy for a hundred million people.
I don’t think we should abandon fossil fuels altogether, and believe me, that will NEVER happen. But you’re really harping on the downsides of all these alternative sources, while not taking the time to examine the benefits.
For example, nuclear energy. It seems rather dim to just simply label that option as “too dangerous”. The only reason most American’s “believe” nuclear energy is “too dangerous” is because we know absolutely nothing about it. The only things we know about nuclear energy; better yet, the only two things that come to mind when someone mentions nuclear energy is:
- Chernobyl
- Three Mile Island
These two accidents could and couldn’t have been avoided. Granted, Chernobyl was obviously worst-case scenario. However, nobody died as a result of Three Mile Island. Nuclear energy was still being developed, and there were multiple flaws in the design, infrastructure, and the training and expertise of the people operating both plants.
Most people recall the Three Mile Island incident, which occurred in ‘79, as the turning point against nuclear power. And obviously, Chernobyl was the nail in the coffin.
But there were many factors that occurred well before Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, that tipped the scales against nuclear power:
- The Arab Oil Embargo of 73-74
- Labor unions calling for raises which in turn drove up the prices on reactors
-Anti-nuclear activism which led to regulatory delays, also increasing the price of reactors.
-And bad management among utility companies in the construction of the plants.
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were both terrible accidents that could have been avoided. Even if the actual incident couldn’t have been, the reaction and the way they were handled or mishandled ultimately led to everyone writing it off as just “too dangerous”. I believe in technology, and technology as come a long way insofar that I think it’s obviously worth developing and giving a whirl.