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Btw, this was a great article and punched a hole in the oil companies contention that you can't trace the ultimate source of fungible oil from the gas station all the way back to Nigeria, Texas, Saudi Arabia, whatever.
But what I really liked were the personal stories, about how people all over the globe are impacted by this magic elixir we call oil. Cause of so much convenience, sustenance, and pleasure, but all the center of so much pain, corruption, war, and death. A Faustian bargain, for sure.
And, oh yeh, loved the one about the wealthy suburbanite, real estate lady who had to have that Hummer to impress her clients. Around here, our real estate lady drives a Prius. Now that is impressive!
"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
- G. Orwell, 1984
It's about time. Oh, the heatwave caused a NG spike. $8.10/million BTUs.
Would you spend 1/4 of your salary to get to work?
I wonder how much people's variable sense of 'security' (ie, the security of a Suburban) is going to be compatible with one of the next steps, carpooling. I see the 'big car, big house, big yards, gated community' movement as part of a mentality in the US that sees Success and Security in Isolation. I don't think we're homogeneously antisocial by any means, but many people have grown very accustomed to the 'freedom' of not having to coordinate our efforts, deal with quirky neighbors, adjust our needs within a group for the sake of economizing.. Rusty old tools to start to sharpen up again.
My family built a passive solar house out in the Maine woods in 1980 with a lot of images of independence and being less dependent on many things 'mainstream', but it quickly became clear that the facet that was left incomplete was the lack of friendly neighbors and the amount of 'energy' available when multiple families are available to each other to do big lifts, watch kids, etc.
Bob Fiske
The car is in better shape than the house!
The car is longer than the house!
Makes the statues on Easter Island look sensible
What kind of business?
Mobile Whorehouse?
Still a scary picture.
I was thinking about her defensive comment about her Chevy Suburban, something like "small cars scare me" and her decision to replace it with a Mustang. Seems to me that conservatives who oppose increasing fuel efficiency in automobiles have used the 'smaller car = deathtrap' argument again and again. Perhaps this has influenced her thinking (and others) and has actually made many people afraid of smaller cars. Just a thought.
It hasn't been without a grain of truth. Small cars designed for putting around on 20-30 MPH streets didn't do so sell when put on 60MPH American streets, or against American land yachts piloted by ppl used to casually ricocheting off of each other's tanks at times. The makers of imports at first didn't have any idea of how many sheer hours Americans spend in their cars, the speeds they drive them, and in what kinds of weather. Now, the import makers all have test facilities out in places like the Mohave desert, far North, and have more of their people over here living the American life and driving the American way.
That the American makers' tries at small cars were horrible (like the Pinto) didn't help either.
The "small cars are deathtraps" meme is very strong in the US, remember it was being used to sell SUVs up until very recently.
The makers of imports at first didn't have any idea of how many sheer hours Americans spend in their cars, the speeds they drive them, and in what kinds of weather.
* I think we established yesterday that Americans don't drive substantially more miles per year total than Europeans or Australians (maybe on 1 road trip per year) [Isn't the whole premise of the PHEV that most Americans only drive an average of 30 miles per day????]
* Germans drive way faster than Americans... for many years your legal limits were quite prohibitive in most states...
* What... you have some kind of unique weather in USA that they don't have in Northern or Southern Europe??
Small cars designed for putting around on 20-30 MPH streets didn't do so well when put on 60 MPH American streets
Where exactly are these 20-30 mph streets... and where are the American 60mph STREETS?? Urban speed limits are similar everywhere... as are highway limits
This idea of unique car markets really cracks me up every time I read such car industry nonsense... I remember in Australia... a certain model wasn't allowed to be imported until it had been modified for our "type of roads"... as if they have different kinds of corners/bends... or different kinds of potholes?? Or is it because the cars drive upside down??
Maybe you can show me where Europeans are spending 4 hours a day commuting back and forth as most of the population of Southern California does. Maybe you can show me where Europeans are commuting for hours (at a very slow speed) in 110F or higher temperatures as they do in Phoenix and a fair amount of other Sunbelt cities in the US. Maybe you can show me where Europeans are all getting out onto the roads when they're iced-over and in snowstorms, instead of just staying home, or taking the train. The "winter madness" is pretty common in snowy areas in the US, and smart (although not smart enough to stay out of it!) Americans in these areas keep some survival gear and food/water in their cars in case they have to spend the night in a snowdrift. By God they're gonna drive! Whether hot, cold, rainy, etc., no matter how huge the traffic jam, driving is taken to be an unquestioned, holy duty in this country.
I guess if you can prove it's the same in Europe, my doomerosity has to get adjusted upward at least a couple of points.
When I landed in San Francisco and drove over the Bay Bridge the first time I was scared out of my mind going 55 mph with all the other traffic.
There was a story on NPR a few weeks ago about the drawbacks of Volkswagens sold in the U.S. In spite of feedback from U.S. sales executives, German engineers refused to design in common American things like cupholders. They cited the German lack of understanding of how much time we spend in our cars in the U.S.
Is there a way to ammend/edit my comments?