Why walk/Drive more

With a little dip in gas prices recently, most people are back to driving their cars and not giving much thought to conserving. I certainly don’t have a long tradition of walking, using the bus, or riding a bike. Like most people, I got to work in my car, and the fact that I lived close to work meant I could come home for lunch.

When gas was cheap and plentiful, there wasn’t a lot of incentive to find other ways to commute. Who knew about global warming and peak oil? Arabs were our friends back then.

Now, though, things have changed and it would be nice if people were looking for every opportunity to save fuel and money. That doesn’t seem to be happing, though. According to news reports, most people are driving about as much now as they did a year ago, even though higher gas prices mean they have to cut back in other areas. People are actually trying to cut their spending on groceries so they won’t have to cut their driving.

Columnist Thomas Friedman has been addressing this issue for a few years now with a common-sense solution that will never happen: Friedman advocates a higher federal gas tax, maybe another dollar or two a gallon. The money would go into mass transit systems and development of alternative fuels.

With reduced demand and more alternatives, we’d quickly make a substantial cut in our reliance on foreign oil and within a few years could actually be energy independent. We’d all be riding to work in our solar-powered SUVs or going to the beach in a Jeep that runs on laughing gas. Service stations would exist only to wash our windshields.

Of course, Americans would never stand for a higher gas tax and politicians would never propose it: Republicans get too much money from big oil and automakers, and Democrats have to stick up for the little guy’s right to have cheap gas.

Meanwhile, people concerned about the looming impact of reaching peak oil in a few years argue with each other about whether we’ll enjoy a soft landing or suffer a hard landing when demand exceeds supply. The better data seem to support a hard landing, with some observers predicting a total meltdown of the social order. (See the essay “Imagine There’s No Oil” in the August issue of Harper’s Magazine. I found it comforting since Klamath Falls, where I live, already sounds a lot like the “lifeboats” being discussed by peak-oilers. And we’re already heavily armed. We practically invented the second amendment out here.)

Even now, before things get ugly, with my scooter and electric bike, I feel good that I’m doing my little part both to save energy and promote alternatives to gas guzzlers, like my ¾ ton Diesel pickup which has barely moved in the last month.

Mary’s back at work teaching junior high science, and she’s been riding Big Swede every day. Her kids think it’s boss. (They probably have a different word.) I’ve been riding the scooter on errands and start back at the community college in ten days, so I’ll be using it more then. It got seventy-nine miles per gallon on the first tank I measured. It only holds 1.2 gallons, so I can fill it up on pocket change.

Our incredible summer weather is supposed to come to an end tomorrow, though; no sooner and no later, and it might even snow in the mountains. Part of this experiment for me is to see how practical the bikes prove to be over a full year.

Whatever happens over the winter, for the last month, we’ve both been enjoying the pleasures of bicycling and the fun of scooting around town. As with my motorcycle, if winter weather drives us back into our cars, it will be all the more enjoyable to get back on two wheels in the spring.