Coping With High Gas Prices

So, NPR , you want to know how I’m coping with high gasoline prices. When there was a frenzy to buy into the suburban fantasy of the country micro-estate that coincidentally requires commuters to drive 25 or 50 or sometimes, insanely, 200 miles a day, I quietly declined and settled for a house that was less “perfect” but that is very convenient to my workplace and shopping. When so many of those in my community seemed to be Hummering-up in some sort of ritual of purification by gasoline consumption, I made an effort to get in the habit of walking or bicycling for as many of my errands and trips as possible. When I understood the enormity of our trade and federal budget deficits and the economic risks inherent in those, I wrote to my representatives and legislators asking them to address the issues (clearly, the least effective of my coping strategies). When RV’s and four-wheelers and snowmobiles and speed-boats were all the rage, I cultivated interests and recreational activities that didn’t require the combustion of fossil fuels. I taught myself to be satisfied with the slightly unkempt look of a lawn after it is cut with a push mower and I thought of the chore of lawnmowing as part of my exercise regimen. When I needed a new car, I made sure the one I selected had at least reasonable fuel efficiency. I steadfastly supported and voted in favor of public transit, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in my community and region. My coping was over years ago.

As much as it sounds as though I am gloating, in fact I am not and, indeed, I am by turns, dispirited, more than a little scared, and contrite. I understand that our fates -mine and the Hummer driver's- are entwined and, you see, it was obvious to me many years ago that the day of reckoning with our oil consumption was coming very quickly. I think we are in for a long and perhaps very painful readjustment to this new reality and that we have been terribly betrayed - betrayed by the selfish indifference of our policy makers, captains of industry and agriculture, national leaders, media, including you, NPR , and, finally, by people like me who were troubled by what they saw but just not quite sure enough of themselves to genuinely sound the alarm. That betrayal lost us the opportunity to really do something about the situation - to do something when there was time and it might have softened the blow. And I have no illusions but that now we will all of us pay a very dear price for our gluttony and our silence.