The hardest thing that most folks will have to deal with when things start heading south is that their movement is going to be seriously constrained.
Americans "love of the road" is going away. You are going to have to make the place that you live where you want to be, not some mythical elsewhere when you have enough coin scraped together.
We have somehow become a society of jet-planes, second homes, time share condos, and endless racing around. Lets face it, as peak oil comes in to roost, you had better be comfortable where you are, because it is going to be hideously expensive to get somewhere else.
Movement equals energy use. I have 500,000+ airline miles and by having such I acknowledge that I have been part of the problem. I helped lower the needle on our the gas tank that powers civilization.
But it really isn't going to be all that bad. Most of it is going to be a simple recognition that the party is over. What will probably happen is that the cost of getting around will rise until folks realise that they pretty much have to stay put.
Maybe this will solve a lot of my big issues. Maybe we can get shut of the shallow, self-absorbed masturbation that passes itself off as the "tourism industry". By making travel expensive, when you go and visit other places maybe it will become the precious gift that it is.
1 comment:
I'll take the slow ride myself. Don't really go too far afield as it is, mostly due to budgetary constraints. Work is a four mile round trip. My longest jaunts these days are to my folk's place and my garden, 52 miles and 41 miles respectively, and that's only once a week at most. I could probably drive Bigfoot and use less fuel than most people do. If I skipped the out of town trips I'd only have to fill up my truck once a month. Flying, you can keep that crap. I flew three times in my life and that's more than enough. If I gotta go anywhere, I'll drive. I haven't left the state since 2002, and I haven't been more than 4 hours from home since then either. But that's the beauty of Texas. I'm on the coast. I can be in the east Texas pineywoods in 4 hours, the hill country in a shade over two hours, in the mountains in eight hours... Don't have to leave the state for a major change of scenery. Two hours in any direction from here brings something different (though east is rather wet, ha ha! Gulf of Mexico).
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