It’s About Making Babies!

America. The American dream. Essentially, conspicuous consumption.

The single family dwelling? Shows the family is rich enough to provide a home without involving an extended family. Fashion? Fad clothes have always been an affectation of the rich and social wannabes. Personal transport - the flashiest horse or carriage, the newest car - from wooing the prettiest girls in school to flaunting wealth (surely not taste ..) in front of the neighbors, personal transport has again been a sign of being upper class, rich, a social light.

So what does ‘green’ mean? Going green will probably be the biggest offensive against American since Senator McCarthy invented the Communist threat in the 1950’s.

The big auto US auto makers - Why do we still count Chrysler, Ford, and GM the ‘big three’, when there are more Toyotas and Hondas made in the US? - want us to buy new cars. That get better mileage.

When the energy expended to mine and develop the raw materials, manufacture the components, and build the vehicle will take so much energy - that simply driving the old car three to five years longer, whatever the mileage - would consume less fossil fuel.

I spoke with my Mom the other night. She told me the retirement condo she lives in has paid off on the building, and bought eight (8) new washers for the building. The Dryers were OK. It occurred to me, to think, “I wouldn’t replace any washer until that machine had had at least two service calls.” Mostly my initial thought was about managing resources - budget - and conserving capital. But I got to thinking.

How much of our ‘conspicuous consumption’ can we afford, if we really care to reduce our energy budget? The kid’s ‘wheelies’ shoes - take more components to manufacture than simple sneakers. By the time we make 10 million pairs of wheelies - won’t that amount of energy difference add up?

We take family vacations. Visiting distant relatives keeps a sense of community, of belonging, and of connection to us and to our kids. Seeing different regions of the country and the world develop a sense of history, of geography, and an appreciation for the new people we meet.

But should we each drive a personal car, loaded with hundreds of pounds of luggage? The Amish mostly live with two suits of clothes. When the good clothes get threadbare, they make a new good set, and hand down the next-best suit to someone that can use it. Taking two or more complete sets of clothes for each day of a trip - is that energy efficient?

What about wearing the same clothes to school or work two or four days in a row? Consider that all those garments, for you and for your neighbors and the rest of the nation, are produced, and shipped to stores near you. Near all of you. Think of dividing the amount of fuel used to haul clothes around by 2/3rds. Think of investing less oil into producing the nylon and polyester for those thousands of tons of extra clothes.

If someone wants to reduce energy consumption, how about returning, formally, to the extended family dwelling. Common rooms, common entertainment and facilities, shared (personal) vehicles. Shared parenting resources. Reduced number of separately heated dwellings.

The county re-paved the road by my house this month. A wonderful job, the road s safer, wider, and no longer has dangerous pits, pot holes, and dips. About five (5) or six (6) inches of asphalt. Much of asphalt is rock. The rest - tars and oils from oil wells. Five (4) inches by twelve (12) feet by miles. A lot of oil. Not to mention the dozen trucks hauling asphalt to the paving machine. The two heavy rollers. The miscellaneous one (1) ton, two (2) ton, and larger trucks and the specialty grader and other equipment. A lot of oil there, too. But it is a nice rod.

We have a lot that can be done, if we want to stop consuming oil. Only the marketers make money when we buy new cars. Cars with ‘better’ gas mileage. From Ford, Chrysler, and GM, that play games with federal regulations about fuel ‘economy’ - like using foreign-made parts or assembling vehicles in Canad and Mexico to keep certain product lines out of the calculations. I really don’t understand the Union stickers about ‘buy American’. That bit still sounds like a protection racket.

My idea? Return to rail travel, intra-region and inter-regional bus lines. Tax employers 1 penny per mile each employee drives to work, each day - to promote telecommuting, getting involved with co-locating work places and residences, to point out that long commutes waste fuel. Invest the value of a new Nuclear power plant into developing low head pressure hydro electric power. When we can convert 1 foot drop of water into electricity, fairly efficiently, every waterway becomes a series of sources of energy.

Our ancestors used mill ponds and mill races for power, and horses for field work. The argument that mechanised farming is more efficient was seductive when the US Dept of Agriculture ‘happened’ to co-market with the fledgling tractor companies to move horses off the farm in the 1930’s. Working the ground with horses takes a lot of time and energy - big farms took a lot of people. But we have a problem in the US - we produce more than we need. The US Department of Agriculture administers farm ‘programs’ each year to divert farmland from production, to keep agriculture prices reasonable to keep farmers in business. There is lots of room for more people to move into small-production, horse or small tractor oriented operations. And the market for organic and small producer products is booming. Products from range-fed chicken to organic wheat and corn to home crafts. The Amish believe that a farm is the proper place to raise children. There is always enough work for them to learn, to grow, to grow strong and happy.

But learning to reduce our need for oil - that will destroy the American economy. 60% of marketing would become valueless - that is a lot of people that would be looking for a ‘career change’. Maybe 2/3rds of Wal-Mart’s products would disappear, especially among the clothes - reducing the employment at Wal-Mart and every other store in town. Well, Jo-Ann Fabrics and Singer and other home-craft staples stores would do well. Grocery stores might be impacted, if there were a major shift from truck to rail transport - the number of distributors would likely diminish, reducing somewhat the diversity of brands we enjoy today.

Bicycles and horse products would likely do well. Maybe a return to carriages, to vegetable gardens. Who knows? We might be working so hard, smoking, gambling, and alcoholism might even decline, although they have always thrived in the past.

I am not advising a return to some mythical ‘golden age’ of the past. What I describe here are, to me, obvious ways to credibly reduce our nation’s use of fossil fuels. And I do believe, whole heartedly, that to accomplish any significant change will wreck the country, to make way for something new.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 8:18 am and is filed under Environment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.