"It's axiomatic that the more weary you feel the more kindly you look on fossil fuel." -- Michael Pollan
This is exactly what took hold of me yesterday, Friday, as I intended to mount the bike for yet another slog into work but I just couldn't do it. I slept in a little longer and commuted by the Silverado Chariot instead.
I had no other viable option -- the last E-tran bus left at 7:34, I wasn't going to ride the bicycle, the next RT bus was a full 55 minutes away, so I drove. Ho-hum. Just another day in suburbia, I told myself, as I motored out of the driveway towards work. I was physically tired from the bike riding earlier in the week, and most certainly I felt kindly towards the benefit fossil fuel provided. I would have done the same thing had it been $8 instead of $4. I had zero consideration for the cost of my fuel, directly or indirectly.
Which is too bad. I continue to fall into this complacency mode, as do most of us, yes, but I continue to fall into it more and more the older I get. I have not the energy to ride 5 days a week (I've only ever done that once) and 4 days a week is a fucking chore. Three is about the max...and sooner than later two is going to be the new norm as I approach 50. That is, so long as I still have legs and a back that work that won't get broken from a car-bike accident. That is, so long as I have lungs that still pump oxygen that won't sullen from automobile exhaust.
I am hopeful that my personal and expected fossil fuel allotment guaranteed to me as an American (24 barrels per year, or 1,872 barrels over my lifetime) will be available as I wane into my sunset years. I've not burned as many during my formative years as have my contemporaries, so I should hope they will be made available to me as an elder.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
To Catch A Thief
I'd say that my electric utility has about 1.5 break-ins per month at our bulk substations, people cutting a hole in the chain link to steal copper.
There's a fair amount of visible copper in any substation, as each metal structure is grounded via a 4/0 or larger copper cable. These are cut off, yielding about two feet of grade-A copper each, which at, say, one pound each would yield $4, enough for three 24-oz cans of 211 malt liquor. Yeah, baby. While we may store rolls of aluminum wire and conductor at a substation, we'd never store any copper outside as it would grow legs in less than a fortnight.
The obvious problem with these thefts is that the equipment is no longer grounded, which could lead to a ground potential rise during a fault that'll kill anyone in contact with the ungrounded gear. Not a likely event, no, but one that we always protect for. The same thieves can do the same thing on nearly every utility pole -- we always have a copper ground wire running the length of the pole, so that lightning arresters have a path to ground when conducting. Someone with an axe or a hatchet can easily chop off a 7-foot section of copper at the base and as high as they can swing. Utilities generally cover the copper ground wire with a wooden U-channel simply to keep the copper out of view, but many people know it's there.
This sabotage at $4/copper highlights one of the things we'd experience in mass volumes if this nation underwent an economic depression, or if commodities rose up even more. Infrastructure of all sorts would be subjected to thieves, cars couldn't be left outside on the curb lest their fuel lines be cut and gasoline drained into five gallon buckets, on and on.
I'm taken aback at my local news this evening, highlighting two thugs with a modified van stealing 400 gallons of diesel, as diesel is so expensive.
My question is, are fuel thefts rampant in Europe where petrol is twice as expensive as ours? I recall not once seeing any hint of that when I was there twice over the past six years, not that I really would see it to be sure, but no, I wasn't made aware of it when I was renting a car, for example -- the lady behind the counter didn't warn me to keep the car garaged or some shit like that. No, I'd wager that at $7 a gallon in Europe theft still isn't a big deal...yet we can't even handle four dollars. This is America for you. Wonder what it'll be like when it goes to $6.
We have a huge maintenance bill on our infrastructure. Think about how much oil is used everyday to maintain hydroelectric generation stations, to move fuel rods for nuclear plants, to repave a thousand odd miles of old road every week, to inspect power lines, to maintain gas pipelines, to perform levee repairs. We've spent an entire century building this stuff and I'd bet that we blow a million barrels of oil each day out of our consumption of twenty million barrels just to maintain it, let alone use it.
This is why we need a higher level of energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) in this nation than virtually every other. If/when energy becomes scarce and more expensive, we will have to blow expensive energy just to keep the sound walls erected between the suburban subdivisions and their freeways. If we move to electric cars, do you think we'll still even need all those tens of thousands of miles of 16-ft cinder block/concrete/steel sound walls we've built? How much oil will we have to burn to power the backhoes and dump trucks to remove all those broken, unmaintained walls in 45 years time?
Our energy intensive lifestyles are the real energy thieves.
There's a fair amount of visible copper in any substation, as each metal structure is grounded via a 4/0 or larger copper cable. These are cut off, yielding about two feet of grade-A copper each, which at, say, one pound each would yield $4, enough for three 24-oz cans of 211 malt liquor. Yeah, baby. While we may store rolls of aluminum wire and conductor at a substation, we'd never store any copper outside as it would grow legs in less than a fortnight.
The obvious problem with these thefts is that the equipment is no longer grounded, which could lead to a ground potential rise during a fault that'll kill anyone in contact with the ungrounded gear. Not a likely event, no, but one that we always protect for. The same thieves can do the same thing on nearly every utility pole -- we always have a copper ground wire running the length of the pole, so that lightning arresters have a path to ground when conducting. Someone with an axe or a hatchet can easily chop off a 7-foot section of copper at the base and as high as they can swing. Utilities generally cover the copper ground wire with a wooden U-channel simply to keep the copper out of view, but many people know it's there.
This sabotage at $4/copper highlights one of the things we'd experience in mass volumes if this nation underwent an economic depression, or if commodities rose up even more. Infrastructure of all sorts would be subjected to thieves, cars couldn't be left outside on the curb lest their fuel lines be cut and gasoline drained into five gallon buckets, on and on.
I'm taken aback at my local news this evening, highlighting two thugs with a modified van stealing 400 gallons of diesel, as diesel is so expensive.
My question is, are fuel thefts rampant in Europe where petrol is twice as expensive as ours? I recall not once seeing any hint of that when I was there twice over the past six years, not that I really would see it to be sure, but no, I wasn't made aware of it when I was renting a car, for example -- the lady behind the counter didn't warn me to keep the car garaged or some shit like that. No, I'd wager that at $7 a gallon in Europe theft still isn't a big deal...yet we can't even handle four dollars. This is America for you. Wonder what it'll be like when it goes to $6.
We have a huge maintenance bill on our infrastructure. Think about how much oil is used everyday to maintain hydroelectric generation stations, to move fuel rods for nuclear plants, to repave a thousand odd miles of old road every week, to inspect power lines, to maintain gas pipelines, to perform levee repairs. We've spent an entire century building this stuff and I'd bet that we blow a million barrels of oil each day out of our consumption of twenty million barrels just to maintain it, let alone use it.
This is why we need a higher level of energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) in this nation than virtually every other. If/when energy becomes scarce and more expensive, we will have to blow expensive energy just to keep the sound walls erected between the suburban subdivisions and their freeways. If we move to electric cars, do you think we'll still even need all those tens of thousands of miles of 16-ft cinder block/concrete/steel sound walls we've built? How much oil will we have to burn to power the backhoes and dump trucks to remove all those broken, unmaintained walls in 45 years time?
Our energy intensive lifestyles are the real energy thieves.
Friday, May 6, 2011
The Second Coming
My sister-in-law disclosed her $400 per month gasoline bill to shuttle herself from South Sacramento to Rocklin 5 times a week for work. $400 a month.
This in a Ford Explorer, a rig that was pretty cheap to operate when they purchased it in 2006 at the height of our hallucinated economic boom, when gas was what, $2.39 & 9/10ths? Even if gas drops 50% to $2 a gallon (which is highly probable) it'll still cost two bills to operate each month.
The job in Rocklin wasn't part of their program in 2006, part of the cheap oil lifestyle. And even if commuting to Rocklin was part of their everyday living back then, well, $2 gas was just a simple cost of doing so, much like tires and oil...just another small expenditure to live the hypertrophic extreme auto dependent Californian lifestyle.
I wonder. How many Rocklinites grind out commutes to Sacramento each day to work at $22 an hour jobs? I'd wager that more make that commute, because Rocklin living is far superior to Sacramento living. It's the wealthy suburbs. It's beyond Roseville, the red-headed stepchild of Sacramento. Rocklin residents are superior in every metric: higher per-capita income, higher white-collar crime but far, far lower liquor store hold-ups, $37k imported sedans are the norm rather than $19k domestic minivans...life is...simply...superior in Rocklin. No mixed race issues to bugger things up, no visible drunks, just affluent people who look like everyone else living the good life, drinking Chablis on the porches of $445k custom housal units. The way life ought to be.
The commute in and out of Rocklin is a total bitch on the best of days and slit-your-wrists on, say, Tuesday afternoons as everyone tries to motor along two-lane collector roads to get in and out of all those myriad cul-de-sacs...living at its finest. Then! The commute down I-80 through that chockablock Roseville turn! $400 a month in gas is nothing, nothing! to $135k/year real estate professionals, financial planners and insurance saleswomen. Their FIRE jobs can easily support $10 gasoline, if need be. So long as they are able to stay one step away from urban dwellers (a politically correct codeword) they are willing to pay any price for gas to keep them isolated.
I argue these points, not because I'm in awe of what these people have that I don't. What, a pair of leased BMW's in the driveway of a $445k custom housal unit with a mortgage balance of $311,257 remaining? Sorry, I'm not in awe. I argue these points because cheap energy allowed many more of us to economically segregate ourselves miles and miles away from each other. They don't ever have to mix with people who don't look like them...and truthfully, I could easily see their point. However, what passes for community is eroded down even further with such living arrangements, and while sheltered in 3,100 sq ft units with granite countertops and gold plated showerheads feels safe, it is incredibly energy intensive.
And completely unsustainable.
I still believe, in the same way that many believe in a spooky invisible father figure, that we are reaching the limits of growth in energy. We won't run out of energy; no, but the costs of growing our energy supply to support Rocklin commuters and indeed commuters of all sorts is likely going to become prohibitive for many. It is a belief, yes. I can observe things around me and form some opinions. And I believe that with the observable North Sea, Mexican Cantrell, Indonesia and the Alaskan North Slope all producing less and less oil each day going forward, while China and Brazil and India and Bangladesh and South Korea all trying to mature their economies on a western-style approach (read: cars, cars, and more cars), we are going to reach the limit of maximum extraction. Demand will exceed supply, and the moment that occurs, we'll be locked into an oscillating price run up, demand destruction, price drop, increased production, price run up even further, and on and on.
Holding this belief is like waiting for the second coming. It is very nearly a religion of sorts, yes, because I'm taking the word of a few thousand petroleum experts on faith, in much the same way parishioners do.
But as I do hold this belief, I am trying to adjust today for an expensive energy tomorrow. I am one to believe that if it costs $400 a month for gasoline today to commute to Rocklin five days a week, if energy doubles in price tomorrow, even buying a fuel efficient car won't offset the total cost of living this way. Now you've got a $400/month car payment for six years in addition to a $200 fuel bill. These aren't the things I want to face, and so I've learned to sit next to Asians, Blacks and other Whites on the bus. Contrary to the prevailing Rocklin opinion, you won't get knifed or mugged. I've learned to ride a bike. Contrary to the prevailing Rocklin opinion, cars aren't all that dangerous -- it's the pedestrians and wrong-way bicyclists who are the most dangerous. Not to mention, a twenty-nine mile one-way bicycle commute from Rocklin into Sacramento is hardly something you'd be able to sustain for any length of time.
I am awaiting the increase in energy as you may be awaiting the second coming. One substantial difference is that we've had two energy shakedowns in the '70s that portends another one. I guess you could argue that hurricanes and tornadoes portend the second coming, yes. But I do see another storm looming on the horizon...
This in a Ford Explorer, a rig that was pretty cheap to operate when they purchased it in 2006 at the height of our hallucinated economic boom, when gas was what, $2.39 & 9/10ths? Even if gas drops 50% to $2 a gallon (which is highly probable) it'll still cost two bills to operate each month.
The job in Rocklin wasn't part of their program in 2006, part of the cheap oil lifestyle. And even if commuting to Rocklin was part of their everyday living back then, well, $2 gas was just a simple cost of doing so, much like tires and oil...just another small expenditure to live the hypertrophic extreme auto dependent Californian lifestyle.
I wonder. How many Rocklinites grind out commutes to Sacramento each day to work at $22 an hour jobs? I'd wager that more make that commute, because Rocklin living is far superior to Sacramento living. It's the wealthy suburbs. It's beyond Roseville, the red-headed stepchild of Sacramento. Rocklin residents are superior in every metric: higher per-capita income, higher white-collar crime but far, far lower liquor store hold-ups, $37k imported sedans are the norm rather than $19k domestic minivans...life is...simply...superior in Rocklin. No mixed race issues to bugger things up, no visible drunks, just affluent people who look like everyone else living the good life, drinking Chablis on the porches of $445k custom housal units. The way life ought to be.
The commute in and out of Rocklin is a total bitch on the best of days and slit-your-wrists on, say, Tuesday afternoons as everyone tries to motor along two-lane collector roads to get in and out of all those myriad cul-de-sacs...living at its finest. Then! The commute down I-80 through that chockablock Roseville turn! $400 a month in gas is nothing, nothing! to $135k/year real estate professionals, financial planners and insurance saleswomen. Their FIRE jobs can easily support $10 gasoline, if need be. So long as they are able to stay one step away from urban dwellers (a politically correct codeword) they are willing to pay any price for gas to keep them isolated.
I argue these points, not because I'm in awe of what these people have that I don't. What, a pair of leased BMW's in the driveway of a $445k custom housal unit with a mortgage balance of $311,257 remaining? Sorry, I'm not in awe. I argue these points because cheap energy allowed many more of us to economically segregate ourselves miles and miles away from each other. They don't ever have to mix with people who don't look like them...and truthfully, I could easily see their point. However, what passes for community is eroded down even further with such living arrangements, and while sheltered in 3,100 sq ft units with granite countertops and gold plated showerheads feels safe, it is incredibly energy intensive.
And completely unsustainable.
I still believe, in the same way that many believe in a spooky invisible father figure, that we are reaching the limits of growth in energy. We won't run out of energy; no, but the costs of growing our energy supply to support Rocklin commuters and indeed commuters of all sorts is likely going to become prohibitive for many. It is a belief, yes. I can observe things around me and form some opinions. And I believe that with the observable North Sea, Mexican Cantrell, Indonesia and the Alaskan North Slope all producing less and less oil each day going forward, while China and Brazil and India and Bangladesh and South Korea all trying to mature their economies on a western-style approach (read: cars, cars, and more cars), we are going to reach the limit of maximum extraction. Demand will exceed supply, and the moment that occurs, we'll be locked into an oscillating price run up, demand destruction, price drop, increased production, price run up even further, and on and on.
Holding this belief is like waiting for the second coming. It is very nearly a religion of sorts, yes, because I'm taking the word of a few thousand petroleum experts on faith, in much the same way parishioners do.
But as I do hold this belief, I am trying to adjust today for an expensive energy tomorrow. I am one to believe that if it costs $400 a month for gasoline today to commute to Rocklin five days a week, if energy doubles in price tomorrow, even buying a fuel efficient car won't offset the total cost of living this way. Now you've got a $400/month car payment for six years in addition to a $200 fuel bill. These aren't the things I want to face, and so I've learned to sit next to Asians, Blacks and other Whites on the bus. Contrary to the prevailing Rocklin opinion, you won't get knifed or mugged. I've learned to ride a bike. Contrary to the prevailing Rocklin opinion, cars aren't all that dangerous -- it's the pedestrians and wrong-way bicyclists who are the most dangerous. Not to mention, a twenty-nine mile one-way bicycle commute from Rocklin into Sacramento is hardly something you'd be able to sustain for any length of time.
I am awaiting the increase in energy as you may be awaiting the second coming. One substantial difference is that we've had two energy shakedowns in the '70s that portends another one. I guess you could argue that hurricanes and tornadoes portend the second coming, yes. But I do see another storm looming on the horizon...
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Not One Thing Different
Gasoline prices have peaked and they are on their way down. Enough with the unrest in North Africa, the "fear premium" is overdone. We're going to see sub-$4 gas here along Franklin Blvd. by the end of the month, methinks.
As it has been, as it is, and as it soon shall be, prices rise and fall over time and we yank our chains as they do because it's the thing to do. The thing is, gasoline is $8 a gallon in Europe and all their cars are predominately fueled by petrol. So it'll take a whole lot more than $4 gas to get us slovenly, out of shape, overweight Americans to drive anything other than big cars to get us around for every time horizon I can possibly imagine. The notion that we can tax the excessive profits of a few multinational oil companies who produce a sliver of the world's production and expect a wholesale change towards renewables is among the most naive suppositions imaginable. We're going to use gasoline to power our automobiles all the way through $20 a gallon and beyond, and if the poorer among us can't afford it, well, they'll simply be the first to be priced out of private personal automobiling.
The Chinese aren't building electric cars and electric scooters for their burgeoning suburban middle class, either. Gas is still the preferred energy medium.
Come on. I didn't change one fucking thing, not one, between $2 and $4, to curb my energy use and neither did you. We all grudgingly accepted the increase and simply didn't spend that money elsewhere. The same thing will happen in 2013 when gas rises to $5. It will still be cheaper than bottled water, so we won't bother with changing our behavior.
It will have to get a whole lot more expensive for us Americans to do anything about our profligate energy use. A whole lot more expensive...and that's years away...
As it has been, as it is, and as it soon shall be, prices rise and fall over time and we yank our chains as they do because it's the thing to do. The thing is, gasoline is $8 a gallon in Europe and all their cars are predominately fueled by petrol. So it'll take a whole lot more than $4 gas to get us slovenly, out of shape, overweight Americans to drive anything other than big cars to get us around for every time horizon I can possibly imagine. The notion that we can tax the excessive profits of a few multinational oil companies who produce a sliver of the world's production and expect a wholesale change towards renewables is among the most naive suppositions imaginable. We're going to use gasoline to power our automobiles all the way through $20 a gallon and beyond, and if the poorer among us can't afford it, well, they'll simply be the first to be priced out of private personal automobiling.
The Chinese aren't building electric cars and electric scooters for their burgeoning suburban middle class, either. Gas is still the preferred energy medium.
Come on. I didn't change one fucking thing, not one, between $2 and $4, to curb my energy use and neither did you. We all grudgingly accepted the increase and simply didn't spend that money elsewhere. The same thing will happen in 2013 when gas rises to $5. It will still be cheaper than bottled water, so we won't bother with changing our behavior.
It will have to get a whole lot more expensive for us Americans to do anything about our profligate energy use. A whole lot more expensive...and that's years away...
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Apps to Save Gas
Always looking for ways to save a few cents, eh? Try this hot-shit new app for your cellularized telephone, Bankrate's gas calculator.
It'll let you know if the distance to travel to that station with gas at $0.04 less than your normal station is worth the trip. You might just spend more in gas to get there and back than you'd have saved.
I wonder why we need smart phones to tell dumbass Americans that it's going to be a net loss to drive an extra nine miles to fill at a cheap station because a GasBuddy! told us so. And I wonder if this Bankrate calculator also factors in how much gasoline you're burning while idling at the side of the road entering in all this information into your smart phone, with the air conditioning on, with the windows down...
This is why I love America...
It'll let you know if the distance to travel to that station with gas at $0.04 less than your normal station is worth the trip. You might just spend more in gas to get there and back than you'd have saved.
I wonder why we need smart phones to tell dumbass Americans that it's going to be a net loss to drive an extra nine miles to fill at a cheap station because a GasBuddy! told us so. And I wonder if this Bankrate calculator also factors in how much gasoline you're burning while idling at the side of the road entering in all this information into your smart phone, with the air conditioning on, with the windows down...
This is why I love America...
Carbeque
Two interesting items during today's bicycle ride into work. First, the carbeque at 41st and Franklin. As I was downwind of it I began smelling burning plastic a good 3/4 mile away, and approached a fire truck just finishing the dousing of said SUV. Totalled, as all carbeque's are, but unlike the movies they just burn hot, they don't explode. This is the third carbeque I've witnessed in my life...another one here near my Franklin Blvd.
Two miles up the road I had to "take my lane" to pass this teenager on a bicycle with another teen on the handlebars. Oddly, they were going in the correct direction (going with traffic) as most teens are never taught to do. I passed them and in doing so, was bitched out by a car's driver who yelled at me to ride on the sidewalk. He possessed such powers of observation that he failed to notice that there wasn't one there on that section of MLK Jr. Blvd. He also failed to respect the law that states that I have the right to take the lane, I have the right to do what I did, so fuck him. But as I was trying to get past that confrontation, the two teens on the one bike came out of nowhere and hit me from the back left and I almost wiped out. I regained my ride, but these two knuckleheads ate pavement having flipped over the front wheel after it hit my bike. I got to witness a pretty cool faceplant on the roadbed.
That looked pretty damn painful! But I didn't stop; no, they didn't announce the attempted takeover, I was already back in the lane, they were already on their way down to the asphalt by the time I even knew what was going on, they weren't wearing helmets and it's almost to be expected when you're riding on handlebars that you're gonna eventually get yourself into trouble.
My first "accident" in over 5 years, and wouldn't you know it, I got hit by a bike instead of a car.
Two miles up the road I had to "take my lane" to pass this teenager on a bicycle with another teen on the handlebars. Oddly, they were going in the correct direction (going with traffic) as most teens are never taught to do. I passed them and in doing so, was bitched out by a car's driver who yelled at me to ride on the sidewalk. He possessed such powers of observation that he failed to notice that there wasn't one there on that section of MLK Jr. Blvd. He also failed to respect the law that states that I have the right to take the lane, I have the right to do what I did, so fuck him. But as I was trying to get past that confrontation, the two teens on the one bike came out of nowhere and hit me from the back left and I almost wiped out. I regained my ride, but these two knuckleheads ate pavement having flipped over the front wheel after it hit my bike. I got to witness a pretty cool faceplant on the roadbed.
That looked pretty damn painful! But I didn't stop; no, they didn't announce the attempted takeover, I was already back in the lane, they were already on their way down to the asphalt by the time I even knew what was going on, they weren't wearing helmets and it's almost to be expected when you're riding on handlebars that you're gonna eventually get yourself into trouble.
My first "accident" in over 5 years, and wouldn't you know it, I got hit by a bike instead of a car.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
You Must Be The Change To See It
I've been left wondering what happened to the global warming discussion. Many others have as well. How is it that a topic that not five years ago seemed unstoppable, that we were finally going to get mandates for reducing carbon emissions enacted on a global scale, is today foundering in a rising ocean of distrust and failed cooperation?
Today it's not even referred to as global warming anymore; no, call it climate disruption, which is a "more appropriate" term to explain to those looking for answers in the aftermath of a dozen Alabama tornadoes.
What I believe, and indeed it's just a little opinion on a monologists web log, is that it failed because the representatives for the movement refused to adopt the low-energy alternatives they argued the rest of humanity had to follow. Understandably so -- I find myself arguing against the unsustainable lifestyle of suburbia while blogging comfortably from within its realm. I refuse to take meaningful actions regarding the profligate use of energy to support my suburban life...the only life I've ever known...
Yeah, I attached a couple of solar panels on the roof, and yeah, I bicycle to work 3-4 days a week. I've only partially adopted a less energy intensive living arrangement. I have no illusions about how I'm nowhere near a break-even energy lifestyle and I'd argue that the inertia of my existing way of life is still far too much to overcome.
I would argue, nonetheless, that to get on a bicycle and commute 88 miles a week is a step very, very few other Elk Grovians will ever take. The inertia of extreme auto dependency is just as powerful. It has become so powerful that Elk Grove mothers routinely forbid their children from walking and cycling to destinations that, when they were children themselves, were easily accessible via these modes, and instead are now shuttled about in three-ton Yukons for the sake of their children's safety.
To take that first stroke on the bicycle pedal is the hardest stroke to engage -- "you must be the change to see it," as Gandhi would have said. To mount a bicycle to commute to work is an active action, signalling a change to an entire lifetime of car dependency. But this is the one thing that we don't do, but it is the one thing that actually matters. This blind spot is what's plaguing the climate change movement and what's leading to riotous outcry over $4 (and someday, $5) gasoline.
I am taking baby steps, but they are important steps nonetheless. I simply cannot yet afford the high prices commanded by walkable, human scaled, transit oriented neighborhoods in Sacramento. Until I can, I'll continue to mount my 11-lb aluminum chariot, and I hope you wave to me as you drive by me on Franklin Boulevard.
Today it's not even referred to as global warming anymore; no, call it climate disruption, which is a "more appropriate" term to explain to those looking for answers in the aftermath of a dozen Alabama tornadoes.
What I believe, and indeed it's just a little opinion on a monologists web log, is that it failed because the representatives for the movement refused to adopt the low-energy alternatives they argued the rest of humanity had to follow. Understandably so -- I find myself arguing against the unsustainable lifestyle of suburbia while blogging comfortably from within its realm. I refuse to take meaningful actions regarding the profligate use of energy to support my suburban life...the only life I've ever known...
Yeah, I attached a couple of solar panels on the roof, and yeah, I bicycle to work 3-4 days a week. I've only partially adopted a less energy intensive living arrangement. I have no illusions about how I'm nowhere near a break-even energy lifestyle and I'd argue that the inertia of my existing way of life is still far too much to overcome.
I would argue, nonetheless, that to get on a bicycle and commute 88 miles a week is a step very, very few other Elk Grovians will ever take. The inertia of extreme auto dependency is just as powerful. It has become so powerful that Elk Grove mothers routinely forbid their children from walking and cycling to destinations that, when they were children themselves, were easily accessible via these modes, and instead are now shuttled about in three-ton Yukons for the sake of their children's safety.
To take that first stroke on the bicycle pedal is the hardest stroke to engage -- "you must be the change to see it," as Gandhi would have said. To mount a bicycle to commute to work is an active action, signalling a change to an entire lifetime of car dependency. But this is the one thing that we don't do, but it is the one thing that actually matters. This blind spot is what's plaguing the climate change movement and what's leading to riotous outcry over $4 (and someday, $5) gasoline.
I am taking baby steps, but they are important steps nonetheless. I simply cannot yet afford the high prices commanded by walkable, human scaled, transit oriented neighborhoods in Sacramento. Until I can, I'll continue to mount my 11-lb aluminum chariot, and I hope you wave to me as you drive by me on Franklin Boulevard.
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