And Drive Only

A quote from J.M. Greer in The Long Descent: If USAnians used only as much energy as the average European, we'd be an energy exporter, not an importer.

Yesterday I recorded stage 7 of the Tour de France and every time I watch that bike race I have to stand in awe of the towns and cities in Belgium, in Holland, in France. The way they are laid out, with urban cores usually rising more than one story, with defined demarcations between their urban limits and rural areas -- these are the hallmarks of living arrangements that support lowered energy use. A European, generally, can find her way to the store, to work, to her sewing club, and back home again both with relative ease and without ever having swung open a car door.

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that an Elk Grovian can't possibly do any of those things without having swung open their own car door...multiple times.

We must be different. We must be special. We must have the entitlement to use as much energy as we see fit, because we are doing it, we've always done it, and we [clearly] intend to continue to do it for the foreseeable future. I would suggest that because we built our cities hundreds or sometimes thousands of years after the first Europeans laid out their cities, we've only ever known energy prosperity, and built our cities accordingly.

And I would add that energy intensive living arrangements might be perfectly acceptable if we had no concerns over energy, water, and other natural resource availability. Indeed, we are living as if we had no concerns.

I see this every day. There isn't a single Elk Grovian who considers her energy use in the commissioning of her daily activities. This Sunday morning there's assuredly a steady stream of motor vehicles to and from the donut shop at Laguna and Franklin. Granted, those who patronize the donut shop generally aren't the same types who would walk or bike, but not a single one of these people even gave it a second thought. Drive. And drive only. And who would really want to be walking back two miles with an unwieldy box of a dozen maple bars? No one I know...including me.

But these donut patrons don't consider preparing their own food in the morning an option, either, and if not donuts, then processed food prepared earlier in the year by others. I'm simply saying that not a single consideration towards energy use is ever made. Multiply this by three hundred million, thirty times a day. It's not hard to understand that if we collectively had the option to choose the less energy intensive solutions we might be energy neutral.

But we don't have those options. We've imprinted profligate energy use into every aspect of our lives and if it's not imported oil to power our cars it'll be coal fired electricity, if it's not processed foods then it'll be notional imported foods. We will never willingly build cities that aren't car dependent. This is the reality that we live in. I believe we would rather destroy ourselves than change, and in some respects we are already seeing this through oiled pelicans and mountains of unpayable debt.

It goes well beyond simple European fascination with bicycles and the Tour de France. It is a fundamentally different approach to how our different societies view natural resources.