And the whole thing got me thinking about something James Kunstler said, about how most people’s thoughts about the future revolve around what we’re gonna put in our cars after the gasoline’s gone, and what it says about what people think is coming in the future. So I said so in the comments at Matt’s place, and this was one reply:

Kunstler is an idiot.

There was a short mention of how the author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency (as well as several novels) was “not a reasonable analyst about the things he’s analyzing”.

And then everyone went back to speculating, discussing, agreeing with some assertions, contesting others, and generally trying to predict what colors our unitards will come in during the next phase, the Age of Happier Motoring, when the cars will be driving themselves.

The Internet is a funny, funny place.

James Kunstler’s got that feeling:

The reason our energy debate is so hollow and idiotic is because we can’t face this basic reality. The fantasy-du-jour among both political parties is that we can become “energy independent.” By this they mean we can keep on living the way we do by means other than oil. This is just not true. We have to make profound changes in everything we do from the way we inhabit the landscape to the way we produce our food. Lately, the only change we’ve shown any interest in is changing what our cars run on. But that is not going to rescue us, not even a little. Our inability to talk about anything else except the cars will drag us down into poverty and turmoil.

I turn to the estimable Lawrence for my response:

Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I guess… I don’t know. Sometimes I get the feeling like she’s cheating on me.

Lawrence: Yeah, I get that feeling too, man.

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?

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.

“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.

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.