We Americans tend to be a wasteful bunch. But who can blame us? We are victims of our own circumstances.
Why conserve space when we have so much? Why be frugal with food and water when we have the most arable land and freshwater supply in the world?
Like watching a man who owns a golden egg-laying duck simply make omelettes, I’m sure many people around the world think we could be using our resources in better ways.
I can see why a country like India, is jealous of our wide open spaces with nothing but a few cows and subsidized farms speckled across them. But what are we going to do? sublet parts of Montana as Calcutta west? That wouldn’t work for anybody involved.
We are lucky that beneath all of the transnational corporations and businesses which form the US’s economic base, we still, in our farmland, have something to fall back on. We should sleep soundly knowing that if there were to be some unprecedented failure of the global economy, we as a nation could at least feed ourselves.
Despite our significant industrial and commercial sectors, this nation is, and always have an agricultural heart.
Most countries are not so lucky. If oil were to become completely irrevelant overnight most oil producing nations in the middle east would have trouble making ends meet, to say the least. But, maybe a move away from oil would not be so bad for the US’s national security ? Oil producing nations in the middle east would be in trouble but terrorist groups in the region would be hurt as well.
To say all, or even a majority of, money flowing back to OPEC nations directly supports terrorism is too large of a logical leap. But, ignoring that a small portion money we spend at the pump is funneled into school’s of terrorism, is just as big of a jump.
But what are we to do? As a nation, making widesweeping changes in oil consumption takes years if not decades. And curbing our gluttonous oil consumption through items like increased mileage standards for one, does not seem to be on too many ‘to do? lists in Washington or Lansing these days.
Sometimes it seems we, as a nation, from the White House to your house, are too full of compassion for the royal family of Saudi Arabia’s lifestyle to change our oil wasting ways.
The Detroit suburbs are an example of this. When was the last time you got a ticket for driving in the car pool lane without a passenger? Oh wait we don’t have carpool lanes. How about this question then: If you went the speed limit on the freeway would you be the slowest car on the road?
For the record, driving 100 miles with the engine at or above 3000 RPM’s wastes more gas than driving the same distance with the engine at 2500 RPM’s. The difference in speed? About five miles an hour.
Solutions need to start somewhere and not all the answers have to come from on high.
Just like I can not ignore the money I spend at the pump, ferreting it’s way back to groups like Al Queda, I am not so starry eyed to think that everyone with gas guzzler can just trade in their hummers and F350’s for hybrid cars.
People are stuck with their cars in times of cheap and expensive gas prices. But even H2 owners can curb gasoline consumption.
Maybe a carpool to work is not for everyone, but how about one for the kids to school, an H2 should be able to fit half of the a second grade class in the back seat.
A car pool and slowing down is a good start. We as individuals can only do so much, but hopefully if we lead the government will follow our example.