Friday, May 9, 2008

Al Gore is Fat

I was working on a big, long post about Peak Oil and the end of modern civilization when I came across this post from Tim F. over at Balloon Juice. In it, he sorta nails down the growing sense of unease I feel about where we are as a nation, vis a vis the (completely foreseeable & utterly predictable) energy crisis:
I don’t feel particularly smug when I stand next to my Honda Fit watching some SUV owner near tears as she puts more than $100 of gas into a car she doesn’t need. It just feels sad to think about how long it’s been since it became obvious to anyone who cared to look that we won’t be able to scare off problems like fuel scarcity and climate change by closing our eyes and wishing.
That lead time was an opportunity to make changes. Some would have been painful and some merely sensible, but it would prevent huge numbers of honest Americans get caught with their pants down. Instead we blew it out the tailpipe of cars that average 15 MPG. Now, instead of a planned transition, we get to see what happens when stubborn denial meets inescapable change. It’s simply unsustainable to live in suburban car country with a negative equity on the house, $6-7 gas (wait until you see what that does to property values in outlying suburbs) and expensive SUVs that nobody wants. The saddest thing for me was that most who will get fucked the worst had no idea this was coming. There was that one guy who warned us, but he had a snooty laugh.
I hope those guys with W stickers on the Hummer parked in front of mcmansions that the bank owns enjoyed their beer
But Al Gore is a nerd who sighs too much and Jimmy Carter looks like a wimp in his sweater.

Go Ronbo!!!
More on this topic to come.

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