Paul Krugman talks about what a Future That Doesn’t Suck might look like, and he thinks it might look like Europe, where gas is about $8/gallon (emphasis mine):

Any serious reduction in American driving will require more than this — it will mean changing how and where many of us live.

To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

It’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea?

An objection that comes up frequently in any discussion of changing our way of getting around is that people will never give up their cars, that they’d rather drive alone than ride a bike, take the bus, or take a train to work.

Now I understand that many people making this claim haven’t had the experience of living somewhere with a functioning, useful public transit system. But I also know that folks from urban sprawl centers do have the experience of trying to get from point A to point B in a city like Los Angeles or Atlanta, and know how jaw-grindingly, wheel-poundingly aggravating it is to do 3 miles per hour on a freeway filled with single-occupant automobiles. They have to have experienced the hostility and stupidity of inching and crawling through gridlocked surface streets, and I know I’m not the only one who has looked upon the thick, brown layer of smog that periodically hovers over such a city and thought, “I can’t believe I raise children in this air”.

And it always puzzles me as to why anyone would choose that over… well, over anything else that isn’t that? I always thought people did this because there wasn’t a better alternative, not because it was the most desirable option. Does having one’s own HVAC and stereo system really make up for everything else? Is it just a failure of imagination that people can’t envision their city with functioning pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit infrastructures? Is it a failure on the part of those of us who can see that future to compete with Madison Avenue’s car-culture message?

Okay, so this doesn’t have anything to do with Twin Peaks, but it is about a coop.

Via SurlyBlog, check out these photos from Eastside Egg Co-op at Zenger Farm of Portland, Oregon. This beautiful portable chicken coop is outfitted with a heavy heavy bad-ass Surly wheelset (Surly hubs, Large Marge rims and Endomorph tires), mounted to ISO-558-74 Chicken Coop Forks (fabricated by Sacha White of Vanilla Cycles).

Sustainable farming, pastured chickens, human powered farm equipment, bike geek participation… that right there’s a vision of a future that doesn’t suck, folks. Big salute to everyone involved, nice work, and great pics!

Mmmm eggs. And flour, lard, and sugar. And cherries. And coffee.

China has taken over our position (h/t The Editors) as the biggest carbon dioxide producer in the world, although we still produce 5 to 6 times as much per capita. What’s scarier is the fact that the China’s average yearly income is less than $2000, so I don’t think they’re looking to slow down on the “progress”. I did particularly enjoyed this quote:

“But there is no sense pointing a finger at the Chinese. They are trying to pull people out of poverty and they clearly need help.

“The only solution is for a massive transfer of technology and wealth from the West.”

He acknowledged that this eventuality was unlikely.

I don’t know about the technology, we’re still talking about peeling mountains like apples to get at the dirty, dirty coal. But a massive transfer of wealth from the West to China? Unlikely?

Evidently, the man’s never been to WalMart.

Devilstower at DailyKos asks Robert Zubrin, author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, about the importance of getting off foreign oil, and about the potential role of biofuels in kicking the habit.

Most of what I’ve heard about biofuels as a drop-in replacement for petroleum is pretty pessimistic, and I’m skeptical about the scalability of combustion-oriented solutions given the dire climate situation we’re facing. However, Mr. Zubrin does raise interesting points about how biofuel can dramatically change our foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East.

This year, the USA will import 5 billion barrels of oil. At $100/bbl that is $500 billion dollars taxed out of the US economy by the collection of foreign governments known as OPEC, some of whom are using it to promote terrorism directed against the United states and numerous other countries. When George Bush took office in 2001, we were paying $90 billion per year for foreign oil. So the Bush administration has effectively responded to 9-11 by increasing our financing of the enemy fivefold — and now we are actually paying OPEC more than we are paying our own defense department (the US DOD budget this year is about $435 billion).

Not only that, but this OPEC price rigging is driving our economy into a recession. Consider this: The Congress just passed a law to take $150 billion out of the treasury to pass out to taxpayers in the hope that they will spend it and thus stimulate the economy away from falling into a recession. However, even as Congress is raiding the treasury to try to put $150 billion into our pockets, OPEC is taking $500 billion out of our pockets. That is an economic de-stimulus package three times as big as the effort Congress is paying for.

The fact that we’re paying the Saudis more than our astronomical defense budget is stunning. But if our economy’s being slapped around a bit, the rest of the world is taking a vicious beating to keep up with OPEC’s prices.

People need to understand this: OPEC’s price rigging amounts to a huge extremely regressive tax on the entire world economy. Setting oil prices at $100/bbl is harmful to the advanced industrial countries, but it is brutally destructive to the third world. It is one thing to pay $100/bbl for oil when you live in a country where the average worker makes $45,000 per year. It is quite another when you make $1000 per year. Effectively, the high oil price amounts to taking hundreds of billions of dollars away from the world’s poorest people and giving it to the world’s richest people.

Think about this: In 2006, Saudi Arabia, with a population of 24 million people (15% of whom work) raked in $200 billion in foreign exchange from its oil exports. In the same year, Kenya, with a population of 36 million people (the majority of whom work) earned $2.5 billion in foreign exchange in exports of all categories combined. Distributed elsewhere, the $200 billion taken by the Saudis for their overpriced oil would double the foreign exchange of 80 countries comparable to Kenya.

Now, personally, I’m a bigger proponent of conservation and human-powered transportation, or at least more focused on those pieces of the puzzle. Neither is a panacea, but applied where easily applicable, I think both will be important components of an alternative energy strategy. While biodiesels, hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles will reduce emissions, I just don’t see how adding a giant, toxic battery to every 2-3 ton car on the road is going to clear up the many problems that car-oriented culture creates. We’ll still be left with this:

72 people by car, bus, and bike

Also, reading through the comments, there’s abundant skepticism to Zubrin’s assertions (ranging from polite disagreement, to personal attacks, to Ultimate Pissing Championship strikes and choke holds, ’cause that’s how DailyKos comments roll). Amidst the din, there are some serious objections worth weighing, and I’ll be curious to see if these are addressed in the book, as well as what Zubrin’s literary critics have to say. Maybe he’s wrong, or short-sighted, or maybe he’s even full of shit.

But no single solution is going to solve our energy problems, and it’s going to take time to bring oil alternatives online. In the very near term, I think that these two points, about OPEC’s toll on our economy, and that of the global economy, are valid and definitely worth consideration. Whether or not Mr. Zubrin’s particular argument for how to deal with these problems is viable, the goal’s still worth pursuing.