The American Car Culture Is Running Out of Gas

Yes it's amazing what you can do when you aren't spending all of your time and money starting fake wars and building military bases in other people's countries.

This gas crisis is so out of hand, that I've resorted to drastic measures. Recently I converted my 04 Cadillac to utilize water as fuel from an easy to install kit, I obtained online from a company called Water4fuel.info

It astounds me that the French can come up with a train which does 350 miles an hour without fossil fuels while, as a New Jersey resident since the Garden State seems to be the center of attention here, I was working in Jersey City a few years ago and riding New Jersey Transit trains whose cars I know I rode on thrity years ago when I was in college. The Robert Moses era of endless highway and byway building is dead, it can even be argued it never existed except in the minds of the people who pushed it. Provisions should be made that no federal highway projects be built unless there is a mass transit link down the middle in the median that hooks up with train or bus lines. Existing train lines that have been abandoned should be re-opened. Intensive efforts should undertaken to develop mass transit lines into airports and other transportation hubs. The recent surge (sorry, I really didn't mean to use that word) in train ridership should convince government authorities that mass transit has a role that is profitable and positive. New Jersey, for example, could extend the Path down to the Plainfields and finish the surface rail work in Bergen County. If all of this is done we can truly say, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! (oh brother, I think this is worse than I thought....)

RandB, I look forward to that day.

One possibility would be to have some highways designated as heavy vehicle highways. The remaining highways would be for lightweight vehicles only. (A Honda Civic is a heavy vehicle by the way).

In time most highways would be maintained for lightweight vehicles. With these lightweight vehicle highways it will be easier to convert the cities to using lightweight vehicles because the lightweight vehicles would provide the owners with both intercity mobility and urban access. Urban access for heavy vehicles would be restricted to fewer roads and mostly to deliveries.

The lightweight vehicles would also provide society with fuel savings, smog reduction, most likely some reduction in the carnage on the roads (if speeds are kept reasonable) lowering insurance costs. Pedestrian and 2-wheeled travel would be safer. Another consideration is that lightweight vehicles do not pound the shit out of the roads like the heavy trucks do, thus the lightweight vehicle roads would be less costly to build and maintain.

As always alternatives exist.

Thanks, Ticonderoga. :)

Anne faith, I'm impressed with your environmental concerns, and I wish I had a good answer for you, but I don't.

The first thing that popped into my head, though, when I was reading your post was that if you're riding a bicycle or a little electric motorcycle it's not going to make much difference if you get hit by a Honda Civic or a Hummer. You're going to get creamed, either way. So, since I'd hate to see you get run over by anything, I hope you continue to drive your Honda Civic, at least until somebody else can come up with a better solution for you.

"Oil at $250 a barrel or higher would force near-immediate cultural changes"

Yes.

Especially for the cold northern part of the continent where citizens would become closer to "freezing in the dark" in our "ownership society" where those with money are the ones who are deserving enough to get the scarce resources. Quite sad.

But there are other ways to conserve besides auctioning the oil and gas off to the highest bidders.

One method, which would never be tried but which would work would be to give each citizen a modest allotment of oil and gas and electricity at a low price, (possibly even free. yes, *gasp* nationalization of the energy industry *gasp*) The allotment would be insufficient for current lifestyles but would be an amount sustainable and adequate to meet the citizen's needs with some adjustments. If more energy were needed the citizen could buy more which would be available at a much higher rate. The citizen could sell or use or save part or all of the oil and gas and electricity allotment. The rate of buying additional energy would be set to subsidize the cost of the allotments.

If a citizen has an allotment of oil and gas and electricity, and it becomes expensive to buy more, and profitable to sell any surplus of the allotment, then the citizen has motivation to conserve by insulating homes, using more efficient vehicles, home generation of power, etc. Over time the citizen will reduce usage of oil and gas and electricity to near to the allotment.

Yes impossible. There are major problems in implementing such a system. There are hurdles to restoring ownership of resources to the commons.

However the points that are being made here are:

1)the resources should be shared fairly, and

2)giving away oil, gas, and electricity at low prices can result in conservation. Where a market solution to apportioning the resources would be costly and unfair to the citizen and would drain the citizen of the financial resources needed to invest in conservation of energy, the system of giving away prudent amounts of energy leaves him with an energy usage target to meet, motivation to conserve, and leaves him some resources to use towards meeting those goals.

Looking at things from a strictly climate change perspective, current fuel prices aren't high enough.

In order to force change in behaviour, a majority of the "masses" need to feel significant pain. rather than trying to stem the tide, we should be trying to drive the price higher. Oil at $250 a barrel, or higher, would force near-immediate cultural changes, which would decrease consumption and increase research and production of alternatives to current methods and practices in almost all industries.

Granted, this kind of shift would cause economic depression and hardship, but a 10 foot increase in sea levels would be infinitely worse.

Given that oil is the root of our economy, culture, and problem, perhaps those who take climate change seriously should be working to price it out of reach.

anne faith asked: As long as there are monster SUVs on the road, many people like me will refrain from biking to work or from buying compact, fuel-efficient cars like the Smart Car because they're afraid they'll be crushed on the highways. Anyone have a solution to that dilemma?

I live in rural NM, where the norm is a full-sized truck. There are two reasons for this:
1) We need them to haul stuff (some folk carry more than just a newspaper and laptop to/from work) and;
2) we cannot afford a second, efficient vehicle for when we are not hauling.

So please spare a thought for workers and laborers who need a gas-guzzling truck for work, as these are the very folk who can least afford a truck, and whose jobsites can change from day-to-day.

If gasoline prices climb high enough, the world will fall into place around them. Behaviors that currently would be considered anti-social or bizarre--such as riding the bus or car pooling, will become normal. Video-conferencing would become the norm for conducting business meetings, kids would compete locally for sporting events instead of traveling all over. We would adapt to eating produce that was local and seasonal.

America has enjoyed artificially low prices of commodities for decades. What did we do with our good fortune? We became ever more wasteful. The planet's treasures have been for sale at going out of business prices. We are just starting to see prices reflect something closer to their true value, yet how do we respond? With trucking industry strikes, calls for a repeal of our already hideously low gasoline taxes, and calls for drilling ANWR. Basically we are MAD that prices are high.

There is a finite amount of oil on the planet. We have blown through about half of the world's supply in something like 200 years. So what should the price of oil be? It should be exorbitant, considering that it took millions of years to form, and will not be replaced.

Our response to higher food prices is equally disgusting. We have become accustomed to wasting food just as we have become accustomed to wasting gas. The planet has a limit and we are at that limit. Of course prices are climbing. Although the devalued dollar is in large part responsible for our current high prices, it was really just a matter of time.

I have to commute to work twice a week about 23 miles each way (the rest of the time I work out of the house), and have considered riding my bike there or buying an electric, highway-speed motorcycle (like the Vectrix). However, my husband is afraid I'll end up as road kill as I travel on South Florida roads with posted speed limits of 45 and 55 and risk getting creamed by some houswife driving a Hummer while chatting on her cell phone. This is the only thing stopping me from leaving my 36-mpg Honda Civic at home and riding a bike. (There is no train or bus that can get me to work from where I live.) As long as there are monster SUVs on the road, many people like me will refrain from biking to work or from buying compact, fuel-efficient cars like the Smart Car because they're afraid they'll be crushed on the highways. Anyone have a solution to that dilemma?

"Of course it depends on your route, but wherever you are, you can answer that question in this way:- Stand on the curb, and count how long it takes for twenty people to pass in cars. If it takes 30 seconds for twenty people to pass by car now, then if there were no cars, then a bus would pass every 30 seconds. Because those people will still have to get around, and therefore they will use public transport." braithwa842

This is a very good way to visualize transportation needs and shows just how inadequate current mass transit is as we wait our fifteen to thirty minutes at transfer points. I haven't used a car for ten years and plan my bus trips very strategically but I am retired and do not have daily trip comittments.

My daughter tried to park her car and use public transit but had to pay the insurance and start driving it again because she just could not get to the places she needs to be in time on public transit. So that is something else that will need to change, the amount of stuff we expect to do in a day. Employers will just have to get used to a lower level of productivity, (and profits) from their employees and the entire economy slow down to a walking pace.

The tremendous productivity of western workers has been subsidized by those workers themselves using their own vehicles and their own gas to get everything they need to accomplish done in a working day. Employers have been taking that for granted for a long time. Those expectations will have to change also.

This whole problem is multi-generational in scope. We will 1) never eliminate private vehicular transport and 2) we will not convert from a suburban culture to urban culture in less than 30 years, if ever at all.

Think about it. We have invested 60 years in building suburban culture, and there is no way it can be changed overnight or even within a single generation. So we must adapt to providing private vehicular transport to the majority of Americans who live in the suburbs. Smaller, more fuel efficients cars is the only way it will happen. Forget about fantasies of vast new networks of public transport, of eliminating completely the gasoline-powered car.

American society will adapt, and alter our lives to meet the changes required. But our unique American lifestyle will continue, albeit scaled back. What is really neat is that America will pave the way to finding solutions, and implementing them. This is how America can reclaim its leadership role in the world.

According to some statistics, approximately 40% of automobile trips are for a distance of two (2) miles or less. Think about that children!

Sixty years ago my in-laws built a house on a street that did not yet have water or electricity but, it did have a trolley line at the end of the street which enabled them to get to work and other places. Unfortunately the trolley at the end of their street has been gone for many years. I would have to drive 15 miles to gain access to public transport.

At that time there were many rail lines and most of goods shipped by rail. Most of those lines have been shut down or made into bike trails. So goods are now shipped by truck. I live near a grocery shipment hub. All those diesel trucks..... Would it be possible to regain the use of trains for shipment of goods around our country?

As for Obama et al... IMO, what is truly important is for- now pay attention!- is for EACH ONE OF US HERE to pay close attention to and participate in our local state's election for Secretary of State. They control the voting process. Also, participate in your area's NetNuetrality events. Those are the big ones... getting money out of politics/propaganda, as much as possible.

And as for Global Warming.... do we have opinions on, with 3-30ft sea rise, what happens to all those New Yorker's and coast livers, and the majority of our food (non-corn/soy) system (california)????

"Did it ever occur to anyone that the price of oil is high because of the collapse of the dollar."

This is only a part of it. Roughly 100% increase in the last year in dollars. In Euros it's still up a good bit, roughly 80%.

I have lived in the city, suburbs and countryside.... and never owned a car. Think of all the poor people without cars (yes they exist in this country). You just prioritize your life differently. You find what you need that is closest to you, and you combine your trips. I was depending on trains and buses, as well as friends and family, and walking and biking. The new car-sharing thing is really cool- though it's only in the big cities for now. What was impossible was intercity travel. Plane tickets were too much money, and anyone whose traveled by bus knows that it is the Worse mode of interstate travel. Though the new megabus lines are much better. Amtrack was my perferred route- though it's been so severley cut I can't use it anymore. then again, I'm not doing much interstate travel, and when I do I use a rental. (and as for China & India, yes their car#s will increase, but their infastructure and standard of living has not surpassed us yet. The US will still be buying more cars than them next year. And for god's sake- we have the responsibility to work on ourselves before we start passing the buck to someone else)

So the article was very right in one area.... you've always had options, you just didn't choose them (over the car).

Mike Peter
I think you got your web site wrong, this isn't a dating service
you wrote:
I am 50 years old and ridden a moutain bike for years and am fit.
signed lonely but fit

Chip, to say that China and India are consuming as much crude is the U.S. is a falsehood. U.S. consumption is about 21 million barrels per day (5% of the planet's population - 25% of oil consumption) while China is about 8 million and India about 2.5 million barrels per day. The per capita numbers aren't even on the same scale.

Due to the growth of consumption in nations such as China, India, Brazil, Russia as well as the Middle East nations themselves and other parts of the globe, production is strained. There is no doubt speculation and the severe decline of the U.S. dollar (the petrodollar) have also contributed greatly to what we are witnessing today. World production is going to be a far more serious problem going forward, the implications of this are immense.

How long would you have to wait for public transport if we lived in a world where
few people owned a car?

Of course it depends on your route, but wherever you are, you can answer that question in this way:- Stand on the curb, and count how long it takes for twenty people to pass in cars. If it takes 30 seconds for twenty people to pass by car now, then if there were no cars, then a bus would pass every 30 seconds. Because those people will still have to get around, and therefore they will use public transport.

Yes, when the cars are gone, public transport automatically becomes highly efficient.

@Treefrog May 18th, 2008 2:25 pm
"I don't mind using public transportation when I have an extra two to three hours for the time it takes getting to one place and back."

That will change when most people used public transport.

oh and the street cars must be free - crucial point

im hungry....

this lets people enjoy their facade of freedom while they do 5 miles an hour over the speed limit ------ on their way to work ----- because they still get their car ------ but it eliminates all those mini-trips to the grocery store and video rental store etc etc which is actually the cause of the congestion (in suburbia) and plus kids can ride it and their moms can make them buy stuff ----- and moms can cook more! see the chain! see the chain! cmon people lets get these good ideas out there!

Though I never agreed with suburban culture - i just think it promotes complete mediocrity and is prime fertile grounds for thought-control - mob mentality and fear manipulation -
PEOPLE CAN HAVE IT! you can actually make it quite easy ------- here's how ------------- most suburbs are built, zoned with big housing neighborhoods next to a supermarket - outside mini mall type of thing....-----OK so heres what you do ------ let people have their cars ----- but each neighborhood must have little street cars which go to and fro the neighborhoods to the supermarket ----- even old granny can get her groceries all by herself! you never have to leave your 1.5 square mile existence! WAKE UP - TV - RECEIVE THOUGHT CONTROL - get on cable car - BUY FOOD - get on cable car - GO HOME - watch more TV- THOUGHT CONTROL - go to bed - do it all over - ahhh suburbia -

and at least the people on the car will talk to one another instead of honk and yell and race one another in the streets in automobiles...

Did it ever occur to anyone that the price of oil is high because of the collapse of the dollar. And the fact that china and india are using it just as much as we are.

To Rand B. Yeah, l thought adding that .7 would make it sound realistic.

Sorry all. Anyone who thinks Peak Oil is going to result in a pedestrian-oriented utopia is deluding themselves.

Economic collapse and mass die off. That's what in our future.

No one cares. Fill up, have fun.

Question for IKE who advocates voting for Obama to solve the world climate crisis:

It seems to me that Clinton AND Obama both have made only proforma efforts toward discussing climate change, and of course, McCain talks about it, but I have no confidence in his proactive stance. Where in Obama's speaking or writing has persuaded you that he really will get into doing something about it with specific actions, NOW? I really want to know where I can get this information for my own knowledge. Thank you.

Public transportation is great when there is access to it. The problem is, this is a huge country with lots of wide open spaces in between medium sized cities and big cities where public transport can move large numbers of people. It seems unless that unless a lot of Americans are just going to be stranded, some kinds of vehicles powered by something eco friendly, are going to have to be developed. What about moving goods from point A to point B? There aren't enough rail lines to move it all.

Earle Simmins wrote above at 4:56 -> "34.7% jobs in this country are directly or indirectly involved with the automobile (mechanics, attendents, sales people, autoparts stores, toll collectors, traffic police, road construction, etc.)"

Interesting number that 34.7%. If by getting rid of most cars we reduce the work needed for transportation in the country by half of that 34.7% to about 15% of the countries employment, and we then shared the saved time by reducing the length of the work-week for everyone, then the work-week would be 34 hours long instead of 40. (This is based on a course guesstimate that we would still need about 15% of the workforce to properly and adequately run public transportation, rail lines, and maintain transportation infrastructures).

To me that 6 hours sounds better than tax relief and would be partly used to enjoy some fresh air with people important to me.

Indeed the car-culture is doomed. But the USA has exported it to the world including China and India. god for a little while fr the big three and the UK but hell for survival, while at the same time taking the Chinese off their bicycles and never developing a really good public transportation system as in Japan and Europe

The present Congress and in the blogs most people avoid reality and don't really deal with the issues head on. Most are still looking for the magic technological bullet that will save the American economy so the USA can continue on the way it's going with ever more growth and ever more and greater GDP as the bankers, advise. Even some scientists think we can continue this way of life unchanged if we just, ease little bit on energy consumption and wait until we figure it out.

But there really there is not any quick fix. I am a filmmaker and have worked on the environmental change-issues since 1978 so I have a fair amount of experience to speak. While LED light bulbs are good and 40 MPG for cars is better, it is not the 80-MPG, necessary! Also, refitting for all existing cars rather than exporting them to the developing world presently being done. The developed world continues to export the problem from the USA to other countries as if we don't share this world with other people.

It was GE that killed the electric car not long ago who in Congress complained about that? Special interests were behind that decision and now the US auto industry is rushing to catch up ten years later. Whether health care, big business, environment, energy alternatives, toxicity in the environment or any and all of these it comes down to who has the courage to talk about all of them rather than focusing on the head of a pin as major media does. Health care, Rev. Wright beaten to death why? Obfuscation of all the interrelated problems the USA must face! Fear of this and the possible legislation by a liberal government that understands that "business as usual, will kill the USA and the world.

You want to hear about health care? The advance of environmentally based health problems by a toxic environment and air related pandemics is what we are looking at in the next few years with rising global temperatures. The candidates are discussing universal health care for the USA alone? That is sort of like a sentence fragment! Try that on for the globe and all the sicknesses the policies of the USA have caused, five percent of the world's population the USA produces seventy three percent of global toxicity. You wonder where cancer comes from?

The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush . . . No one not even the dog catcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for animals!

The real problem is not Obama elected president; the major problem is the media forces him to divert the discussion of the important issues to the back burner to become elected. Thus forcing him to put his emphasis on the wrong problem at the wrong time. The problem is getting him to address a credible platform of ideas.

There is not enough time to have the issues most pressing avoided, like the environment and those really important issues before the congress, like children's and senior's health care!

The issue of this election will affect the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Yet if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle because of regressive US election laws. It is compulsory for every one to vote in Australia. None of the candidates are really talking on the major points of the environment in association with the economy or health care and reform election laws. But that will not happen soon enough and look to Obama being defeated by the Electoral College if he does receive the nomination, which cannot be stopped!

The environmental news coming out is not new but it is very grave and keeps being pushed to more urgency as new research comes to light. If any one reading this comment cares to look at the website of NASA, the research papers of James Hansen in particular that were published long before Gore was on the scene and many since, they would understand that we really cannot deal with much more than one degree to two and half degrees Fahrenheit of warming at its maximum to ward off the most serious effects of industrial societies pollution and to offset this growing catastrophe.

At about two and half degrees warming which is presently in the pipeline we will be dealing with about 550 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, a rate actually above the tipping point of one and half
Degrees warming. This is the absolute figure to avoid the major positive feedback loops that are starting and scheduled to kick in by 2020 or earlier if nothing is done quickly. Positive feedback is starting now with Methane now being released on the tundra into the atmosphere a four times addition to greenhouse gasses and causing the poles and glaciers to melt more rapidly, or has no one noticed?

The below scenario excerpted from the climate articles here on common dreams tell us clearly without rapid change runaway climate change and their feedback loops are in reach within 10 to 30 years if nothing is done rapidly. The positive feedback loops will melt the remainder of the glaciers and perhaps dump Greenland into the sea as well. Also, the melting of additional ice-shelf's at the poles. That means perhaps a 3 to 30 foot ocean rise by the end of this century, but the process is beginning now and in 20 years or less without rapid change in economic direction the human race will reach a point of no return. The so-called news and other media continue to bend the information toward the global economic agenda thus minimizing its importance. India for example is less concerned about climate change than they are about economic production thanks to the G8, although their neighbor Bangladesh is slipping into the sea. Still in India, there are several moves in the direction of smaller is better concepts of reality.

There will be sufficient human displacement of people on this planet to bring American citizens into a nightmare scenario that makes the present Mexican border problem a walk in the park. What about the transfer of health risks as a result of this problem? Not to mention water and food related issues and the economy, always the economy.

Yet is seems the political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points in isolation, such as Clinton's health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake which is human survival. These folks on the stage wanting to be president rarely talk to the complete interrelated package of all these issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all here are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package, which a true leader must address. The media keeps the public dumbed-down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue, which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change.

The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change now! Remember New Orleans? Within next10 to 20 years is where it all hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!!

Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock, in his view it has begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame for action within the time in office of the next president of the USA and so does the UN. I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned here or the IPCC. It is technical information but worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests.

For example the best work would be to defeat the pro-business Clintons and elect Obama or possibly a joint ticket with a man who is active for the environment and know how to move politically. Gore will not accept the VP spot but would be a good director of the EPA or environment CZAR. While we know they have an outside chance of winning the election as a result of the Electoral College, they are the best possibility for change.

But we all know business interests will prevail with Clinton capturing the vote and a pro-business vote is a vote against the environment. No one running on the Democratic side could be worse than Bush and the pro- special interest group which is why the "Dream Team" would be absolute failure for change. Gore Vidal knows that as well. The business interests control the environmental agenda and most candidates. If they are not defeated we all perish along with globalization and the so-called "free market system" free to enrich the few at the expense of the many and the world.

The republicans will continue the work of burying the planet, as will pro-business democratic candidates most of whom have been bought, whether by health interests or anything else concerning big money. The facts concerning climate science, is what is important. What the environmental facts really suggest is economic depression in the West in the near term. But if we are really serious about saving the planet (no one wants to hear that if they are connected to big money) it means voting for economic and environmental legislation limiting pollution and green house gasses . . . that is change!

The environment, water, energy production these are the real issues of this election campaign but no one would dares mention them in association with change in economic direction for fear of defeat. A redirection and a retooling of the global economy and of America is in order and that is not a popular issue on Wall street or people invested in Wall Street, the 401k . . .most everyone in one way or another.

We have to change rapidly and move to a none-stop production of environmental invention and energy alternatives for the western world and developing nations rapidly. It also means rapid technology- transfer for the developing world without delay; this may save us some time. A cut of 80% of the carbon emissions within the next 10 years is in order and it must be done beginning now and well on the way before 2012 the next date for Kyoto. Kyoto is a western world fabrication to tell us we can keep polluting while where trying to find a way to deal with this crisis economically.

A change of the present direction of economic production and fast move in a different direction economically is required by anyone that can think and put simple figures in context of this crisis. The world is waiting for this move by the Americans and watch the dollar rise rapidly against other currencies once this plan would be announced if ever. This is why this upcoming election is so critical and the results of it will determine whether the human race survives . . .. It is that critical!

An additional 3 degrees to four degrees Fahrenheit is three more degrees greater than this climate and its creatures can sustain or endure without collapse!! This quoted from the recent UN assertions here in Common dreams and from accurate information by scientist's not political organization: "a temperature rise of between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 and 4 degrees Celsius) would displace
340 million people through flooding, droughts would diminish farm output, and retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people, the report says." this is an understatement
and conservative.

The above report is economically associated and conservative as well as misleading!!! Forget this idea of 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit of warming that is the Martian landscape because it allows for the runaway positive feedbacks to take hold. Whomever believes this world can sustain this degree of warming is either working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, or is gathering this information from the laboratory at EXXON Mobile or its publicists!! ??????

The masses? Unless you have not heard, these are the people above who are worrying where their next bag of groceries comes from and the money to pay the rent and where to find the money to fill up their gas tanks the very basis for the problem a vicious circle! They really don't give a damn about the environmental issues. . And have no time for thinking about 10 to 20 years from today that has no realty attached to it for most Americans or the rest of the four and half billion people on this Earth in the same situation.

Or, for the rest of the population working for and controlled by big business and big money . . .that is what this election is really about and if one thinks about the complexity of all these interrelated issues we know that we cannot beat the odds business will win. That means the future for humanity is limited even for the one percent that has everything.

As Gore Vidal agrees, elect Obama he is not funded by big business for this election, as is Hillary Clinton. We still live on beautiful planet for a short time limited to the next two generations in the future, unless we fix the problems quickly. While it is painful for the average American to pay the high-energy costs, they are a blessing for the environment and the children. It will force the USA to deal with reality and change its energy footprint and move away from hydrocarbons and toxic energy production. This may give the world a chance to save humanity!

IKE

Sure the commuting angel helps, but what about that staple of the American Car Culture known as racing? When will we stop wasting thousands of gallons of gasoline, oil, and other car parts per race?
How much money? How many hours are wasted watching grown men and women zoom around and around on a track.

Oh, and let's not forget the motorcycle races, crash derbies, and monster truck rallies with their wastefulness.

Yep there was just a front page article in the Star Ledger about record train ridership on New Jersey Transit.
And then? We find out the very next day that New Jersey Transit in their infinite wisdom is cutting my local train stop to 3 1/2 hour gaps in service, our overall stops being cut 40%, and the Morris Line is suffering 18% cuts
in train stops!
Unbelievable!!
After a deluge of phone calls. mails etc they have given us back 3 stops out of 21 cut...
In 2006 they cut our service to Hoboken, New Jersey a major transit hub here to 2 hours gaps on weekends.
After literally decades of hourly service!!
This is how our state promotes mass transit!

34.7% jobs in this country are directly or indirectly involved with the automobile (mechanics, attendents, sales people, autoparts stores, toll collectors, traffic police, road construction, etc.) do away with the automobile and civilization as we know it will collapse. We need more cars not less one for every man, woman, and child above the age of thirteen. Build more roads, increase the gas tax, give Saudi Arabia statehood, free Venezuela, get rid of those varmit' animals in Alaska, allow drilling in the La Braea Tarpits and down town Dallas. Build bigger cars with bathrooms and sleeping quarters and TV sets to entertain us during those long commutes. Do your duty, spend that tax rebate on on the first month payment on leasing that new SUV. God Bless the USA, God Bless GWB, God bless GM. Wow the wife just made me some damn good coffee.

I walk most places, ride my bike, take very rare bus and train rides to longer distances, and am a passenger in a car every once in a great while (maybe 4 times a year, usually holidays). So it is possible. AT the very least, hopefully people will use their cars less and less and at least try to ride a bike in the warm weather months.

Well organized and distributed mass transit is absolutely possible. My parents used to tell stories of the Chicago of their youths, and they were never more than a few blocks from a street car, and we could certainly make that possible again in only a few years if we make it a national goal that is hyped like, for example, the "terrorist threat."

If you total up the amount of money spent on autos and private trucks and the highway system it is huge. We need to divert that into creating a sustainable future that does not depend on oil like the unsustainable mess we have now.

It is a fact that is somehow seldom mentioned, but the car centered transportation system we have now is killing 40,000+ people a year and injuring a million people just in auto accidents alone, not to mention the health effects of all the pollution the cars output.

We need to fix our cities. How can we live/work/walk in a megalopolus? Much of the world knew how to build cities long before Henry Ford. Saying Tata to the car is one thing but saying that we can mend a city with buses or a 40 mile bike ride is a lie. Better to stay home and buss your children and lovers.

I don't mind using public transportation when I have an extra two to three hours for the time it takes getting to one place and back.

While I don't really wanna see gas prices rise so quickly that it disrupts anything essential, I'll be most pleased to see it go up to a degree that will force the otherwise ignorant to see the need for change. North America was designed to maximize energy consumption. Oil companies win, everyone else loses. Wasting energy is baked into the cake. Only price discomfort will inspire most people to find a better way. Better ways do exist.

Number one - Cities have been urban-planned since Day One, so that the car is a necessity - urban planning not only keeps those nasty poor brown people who can't afford cars out of our nice white suburbs (unless they're cleaning the house or the pool), but also at the same time boost business for the barons of industry, those fine, worthy white humanitarians who serve us so selflessly.

Number two - I have tried both ways of getting to work - commuting and driving. Sitting in hot traffic for 2 hours is an enormously frustrating unhealthy experience. However - even with that problem factored in, it takes me 40 minutes longer and costs $4.00 more per day to commute. And I still have to drive 15 minutes on a highway to get to the bus that takes me to the train that takes me to the subway, etc etc. This commute takes 2 1/2 hours each way and costs me $435 a month. And I have to walk 1/4 km to finally get to the terminal tunnels, where the escalators never work. (yaaay privatization!) On what planet is a 5-hour transit time acceptable? Depends on who you are, doesn't it?

I think the writer needs to look a little more closely at all the elements that make up this problem, the commuting experience. Anyway, trains use fuel too, andso do their consruction and maintenance.

Last week, in our area, a two-lane road was narrowed down to one to make room for bicycle lanes. Now the rush-hour traffic is congested and crawls slowly along that stretch, squished into one lane in each direction.

There was one - ONE - bicycle in the new bicycle lane everyone else was sacrificed for.

Yes, people should do the right/sensible thing, but in that case, the infrastructure should facilitate it and not keep throwing up blocks to good behavior or compliance. And then frowning disapprovingly from on high.

And let me tell you also, that no matter how well-behaved, sensible, self-sacrificing, and obedient we become, a) it will never be enough, and b) the wealthy (=those who own us) who browbeat us after manipulating us into this situation will continue to operate their fully-stocked and gassed-up luxury fleets and multiple climate-controlled mansions on pesticide-soaked lawns. Let them eat cake.

Check out the 'Moped-bus' mass-transit idea in philsinventions.com

Gas prices are high because of market speculation. Gas is basically a public utility and therefore prices should be regulated.

1. Break up the oil monopoly: and don't allow any more mergers as the Clinton and Bush Administration have done.
2. Require oil companies to bring back on line the refineries they shut to jack up the price starting in the mid 1990s.
3. Re regulate the trading for oil futures to stop the rampant speculation that began in Jan. 2006. Make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission actually do their job.

You do these three things and the price of a gallon of gas drops down well below 3 bucks a gallon, where it should be.

I am a person who enjoys cycling and am in fairly good shape. I live in a town that has a lot of great bike lanes and trails. I live in a climate where a person can bike year-round, as long as they have raingear. Finally, I have no children so I can usually get away with not having to transport people or things around with me. And STILL I find it difficult to consistently convert my car trips into bike or bus trips.

Many progressives have been touting bikes and busses as the way to go, and I've always agreed with them whole-heartedly. However, I think that the percentage of people who can actually make the conversion are relatively few because our cities, suburbs and even rural communities are all built around the assumption that everyone will have a car.

We will need to explore other ways to get around the problems of high gas prices and continued greenhouse emissions, like car-share programs and huge expansions in public transit. Otherwise, I'd like to know how the average financially-stretched American is going to handle the ever-increasing price to fill up their tank?