Remember the concept behind peak oil, we have used 1/2 of the oil in the world, 1/2 of the oil is still in the ground and it will take another 150 years to get it all out. During that time period out society will change. The change will NOT occur till AFTER the Crisis hits (And it appears to be hitting NOW). This has been known to centuries that people will NOT change till a crisis hits and then change during the criss. FDR's New Deal of the 1930s was NOT something thought up at that time, but reforms that had been kicked around since the 1880s, but none of the recessions before the Great Depression was severe enough to force people to accept that needed changes. When Truman proposed a new set of Reforms it was shot dow, but the 1940s we were no longer in an Economic Crisis. We hit another mild economic Crisis on the 1970s, reforms were proposed by during the 1980s, when the crisis no longer existed, those reforms were killed as were several of the Reforms of the New Deal, for it was argued such restrictions on business was hurting business (And the economic mess we are in today is do to those Reagan era "Reforms" that undid much of the New Deal.
Crisis brings reforms, the Crisis hits then society stabilized then reforms (This is what happened in the 1930s, economic Crisis in the early 1930s, followed by a period of Economic Stabilization where FDR passed the New Deal, by the late 1930s the Crisis was behind us and further reforms ended. Notice the reforms did NOT occur during the Crisis, but AFTER the crisis had stabilized for a couple of years. That same happens in Revolutions, the Worse year for the French Peasant was 1787, that crisis was over when the Revolution of 1789-1792 took place. Russia's worse year in WWII was 1916, things were looking better for Russia in 1917, thus you had revolution. People will revolt when they feel confident that they can, that occurs NOT as situations gets bad, but as things bottoms out and improves.
How does this affect the reforms needed for Peak Oil? We will NOT see anything Change till a large percentage of the population (I will say 10%) can NO longer afford gasoline. The bottom 10% of the population today is on some form of Social Security or Public Welfare, therefore they do NOT count for the 10%. It is the group ABOVE these truly poor that are the key to oil. Most lower income employees afford to drive to work, if gasoline starts to equal his of her hourly income. This is less true as income goes up but I have discussed before. To see the calculation see:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=266&topic_id=586&mesg_id=588it was written three years ago and minimum wage has gone up since that date (No much but some increase in Minimum wage, so the Article says $5-10 a gallon when this happens, it may be $7-10 a gallon do to inflation.
Once these minimum wage employees are out of the employment market, you have several related problems. First as these workers STOP working, they buy less Gasoline (Because they can NOT afford Gasoline). This reduces pressure on the price of Gasoline.
Second, the stores employing such workers have to decide what to do next. You an NOT operate a store without employees. Thus the employer has to increase wages to get any workers OR do other things to bring the employees to work. The problem is the Solution to get more workers to work requires the use of oil, which puts pressure on the price to go up, forcing more workers to quit work. Thus sooner or later you get into a situation where stores close do to lack of employees.
Another factor is these employees buy in suburban stores (Most jobs are in Suburbia today NOT the inner cities or Downtowns, both of which will survive better the increase in the price of Gasoline then the Suburbs will). No work, no money, no buying in the suburban areas (This is true even if the inner city stores charge higher prices, for buyers to those stores can get to such inner city stores without Driving).
Now most of the lower income workers I am discussing live in the Inner Cities or the older Suburbs (i.e Suburbs older then the Malls, which first were introduced in 1964). For more details see my paper on the History of Suburbs:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=266x203Thus the newer Suburban Malls will be hurt the most, for they are the most dependent on people driving to their malls. I remember when the Pittsburgh Airport opened up as a New Suburban Shopping center. People love it, easy drive, but the stores has a problem, they could NOT get workers. Why? All of the workers willing to work at the wages the stores were offering lived in the inner cities or older suburbs and took public transit, which did NOT exist in new shopping area. The stores kept putting pressure on the local Bus Company to improve service, but they couldn't. It was a variation of which came first, the Chicken or the Egg? Do you operate buses waiting for passengers to discover the service, or do you look where people are waiting for a bus and not find one? It took them years to provide a very low level of public transit, and even today those newer shopping areas have the worse mass transit. People will opt for them as the price of Gasoline goes up, but all that will lead to packed buses, not more buses for the local bus company only has so many buses as it is.
For a comparisons, South Hills Village, south of Pittsburgh, opened in the 1960s, had a reputation in the 1970s gas crisis, as the only mall where sales did not drop. Why? South Hills Village had been built right by the remnant of the old Pittsburgh to Washington PA Interurban Street car line. It had stopped running to Washington PA in the 1950s, but ran as a commuter line within Allegheny County (The county Pittsburgh is in). Do to that rail line, South Hills was able to increase sales while the other malls saw a drop in sales do to the gas crisis.
My point is the outer suburbs will be hurt first and the most. Those areas that have access to Public Transportation will suffer less. The problem is most Mass Transit is an Inner City or Older Suburb transportation system NOT a Suburban transportation system. On the other hand, once price of gasoline gets so high that no one goes out to the suburbans any more, the demand for gasoline will drop as will price.
Other ways to reduce demand. Carpooling is an option, but only if you have people who live close by to each other and work close by, rare in today's society but an option.
Mopeds/ Motor Scooters are an option. A 50 cc Motor Scooter costs only about $2000 and get 90-100 mpg. If your car is getting 20 mpg and you opt for a Scooter, you will save 10 Cents a mile when gasoline is $3 a gallon and 15 cents a mile at $4 a gallon. The typical driver drives 12,000 miles a year, if just half the trips are done by a Scooter this will reduce the demand for gasoline (Notice I do NOT see Scooters replacing cars given bad weather, but in decent weather, even if it takes you more time, the gasoline savings may be worth it).
Bicycle, even more efficient than a motor Scooter.
Solar panels on one's home can reduce demand for oil, more expensive then buying a bicycle but something that can be done today by people how want to.
All of the above can be done NOW, using mass transit will cause a strain on the Public Transit system, but you have to start somewhere (and SOlar Panels made take a while to get installed but again you have to start somewhere).
Long Term (i.e. more than five years) we have a lot of options. One recent research has come up with a plan to use the current of the Rivers to provide electrical power. That power then could be used to provide electric Rail Service (Cutting out some of the demand for oil). Other power sores will take even longer to build (Nuclear for example we are looking at ten years development).
I wanted to mention that as the price of oil goes up, the demand for oil does go down, but the effect will be slow, people will continue to buy oil till they can no longer afford it then and only then will they look at alternatives. In my neighborhood, a lower income small inner city, I have seen more and more low income people riding cheap bikes around town (And I an talking about adults NOT teenagers). The pressure is building. Three years ago I believe when Gasoline reaches $5 a gallon people will have to quit work. I believe it will higher now, but I see it already hitting some people, but the hit on the working poor so far has NOT been so high as to force them to quit they jobs. I am waiting for that to happen, the key is how far must oil go before it becomes widespread?
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