Guzzle Gas and Pretend

[sintax]

Guzzle Gas, and Pretend

by Derrick Z. Jackson

Americans probably know this deep down. It is almost as if we are binging to distract us from the needless killing. We build bigger subdivisions as far out as we can, no matter what it means in commuting time and $2.55 gasoline.

Even though the average size of the American family has shrunk, the average size of a new home has grown from an average of 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,330 square feet today, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The percentage of new homes over 2,400 square feet has zoomed from 10 percent in 1970 to 38 percent today. The percentage of new homes with two-car garages has grown from 39 percent in 1970 to 82 percent today.

In a New York Times feature this week about ''living large" in the exurbs, a sales representative joked with a family that was looking at a model home, ''Lots of places to hide, aren't there, boys?" It is mathematically impossible for the rest of the world to live like this. As the boys play hide and seek for a moment, the parents play out the fantasy that hiding from the reality of consuming a quarter of the world's energy and producing a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases is an all-American right.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for a populace to be enlightened if its leader keeps leaving it in the dark. President Bush, according to the Times, is planning to leave out mega-SUVs such as Hummers from new fuel economy standards, apparently to ease the competitive strain on Detroit, which has invested far more in selling gas guzzlers than foreign automakers. With the explosion of SUVs (trucks now account for 50 percent of light-duty vehicle sales), the nation's average fuel economy has been flat for a quarter century and has actually fallen slightly, from 22.1 miles per gallon in 1987 to 21 miles per gallon today.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0817-22.htm

[Paranoid Pessimist]

1. Read the entertaining and depressing "The Long Emergency"

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7203633?rnd=1121636006239&has-player=unknown

To me, a lot of it is that stupid stubborn streak in the American character that wants to say, "You can't tell me what not to drive (or do)! I gotta right!"

When the oil mess undercuts the whole global economy, will we who thought this way gain any satisfaction from saying, "We warned you! We told you so!"?

We're all in the same boat and we who said, "Hey, stop drilling holes in the thing before it sinks" will sink just as fast as those who shortsightedly kept on drilling.