If the BP gulf oil disaster doesn't get your attention, then maybe something closer to home will. A fuel tanker flipped over on Route 44 by Punderson on Saturday. 8,300 gallons of gas spilled and contaminated the soil and water in the area. Crews are cleaning it up right now.
Cheap energy makes our civilization possible--without it, the 6 billion human population of the planet would decline quickly and painfully. Without it, I doubt we'd have the opportunity to get out and ride (if we had bikes), we'd probably be out digging for grubs or chasing eachother around in a post-apocalyptic mad max world.
Unfortunately, cheap energy isn't really so cheap. As environmentalists have pointed out, the cost of the damage done by industry is often dumped on the public, or just never paid even as executives and shareholders collect artificially inflated bonuses and dividends. Ride up to the Diamond Shamrock superfund site for an example in our back yard. Or if you haven't become totally depressed by thinking about it, read up on the inefficiency and toxicity of oil production from the Canadian Tar Sands.
I can confidently write, despite the carnage caused by the BP disaster and the momentary uproar in the public, there will be no major policy or societal changes. Nearly every day to day activity of ours depends on cheap energy.
Of course, societal inertia is a lame excuse to do nothing personally. Since this is a bike blog, the natural thing to do would be to write about how bikes could reduce energy demands, but that's just a fantasy right now. As TOTV approaches, I think back to last year when Chris and I got bitched out by a red faced lady driving past in a Hummer while we were watching TT finishes--I'm pretty sure most Americans would rather die than trade a car for a bicycle, or would die if they were forced to ride a bike.
So what to do? Well, I think at this point, an interesting goal would be to see if I can come up with a plan to use almost zero gasoline by the end of the year. That will give me something to do while I'm stuck in a cast for the next couple of weeks.
2 comments:
Well, in my life, it goes back to the mid 70's and the first "gas crisis". In the time since then, what has been done to improve the situation? Damned little. We used more gas and oil than ever before. Wind, solar, or other forms of energy have made almost no impact. Why? Energy is still"cheap" and plentiful. Besides, our politicians want to keep getting elected and they aren't willing to step in the path of big oil. Heck, they can't even run a balanced budget or figure out how to fund schools.
Even as cyclists, we don't have a lot of room to talk. Sure we ride, or race, our bikes. But we burn lots of fuel to get to the race, or tour, many times in a big SUV with a roof rack to show off how successful we are and how many toys we can buy. Wish I was smart enough to find another way.
yeah, it's pretty rare that I use my bike to run errands. In fact, I've only done it three times since I've been old enough to drive. and there's no chance I could offset the amount of gas I've burned just making a trips out to Westlake to race.
I'm thinking I'll do some research on the feasibility of biodiesel--that seems to be one of the more reasonable alternative fuels right now.
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