Park your fucking car and walk!
Ten Ways to Prepare for a Post-Oil Society
Editor’s Note: James Howard Kunstler is a leading writer on the topic of peak oil the problems it poses for American suburbia. Deeply concerned about the future of our petroleum dependent society, Kunstler believes we must take radical steps to avoid the total meltdown of modern society in the face looming oil and gas shortages. For background on this topic, read Kunstler’s essay, “Pricey Gas, That’s Reality.”
Out in the public arena, people frequently twang on me for being “Mister Gloom’n’doom,” or for “not offering any solutions” to our looming energy crisis. So, for those of you who are tired of wringing your hands, who would like to do something useful, or focus your attention in a purposeful way, here are my suggestions:
1. Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars by means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars running at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially unhelpful that so many self-proclaimed “greens” and political “progressives” are hung up on this monomaniacal theme. Get this: the cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on fossil fuels, vodka, used frymax oil, or cow shit). They are at the heart of the problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring system by shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things much worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. We have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common activities of daily life.
This article via my hubby – great food for thought. This is why I won’t work at Microsoft or anywhere else that’s not within walking distance of my house. I can walk to Teague in half an hour and could walk home from Gensler in 50 minutes. Granted, I live really close to a major city center, something that not everyone can afford to do. Which is why we should all care about the design and development of new mass transit systems that serve everyone, not just rich, urban white people. Coming up with just another form of fuel for cars is like putting a band-aid on an old wound. We need to rethink the whole transportation system. Too bad Apple or IDEO, companies so good at innovation, don’t team together to brainstorm on this one. What the world needs is a good dose of design thinking!