It is my opinion that while transportation is certainly an important contributing factor, it is not one of the main causes of the current recession. This is a somewhat contentious issue, because many others believe that the rising fuel costs are the main reason that everything seems to be getting more unaffordable. The USA relied much more on rail transportation to ship commercial products fifty years ago. wikipedia states: "1950s and 1960s: Drastic decline in railroad travel in the United States of America, due to automobiles, trucks, and airplanes, as first jetliners take to the air. Railroads respond through mergers and attempts to shut down trains and railroad lines. " Most trains in the USA were coal powered, and most of the newer ones use diesel to drive a generator, which then powers electric motors. In other words, most trains in the USA run on electricity, at least directly. And it would be relatively easy to convert these large diesel engines to operate on natural gas, much more so than converting smaller truck diesel engines, or especially personal cars. It is much more difficult to try to convert trucks to coal or electric motors because of the difference in size scale. One of the real reasons for trucks surpassing the use of rail transportation, besides the expansion of a cross-continental highway network, was the availability of cheaper labor. It takes many more truck drivers to transport everything, and these drivers no longer earn the middle class wages of the drivers in the 1960's. From 1980 to 1984, average wages for truck drivers fell 12.4%. There has also been a massive phenomena of de-unionization in the last two decades. Wages in 1995 were 28% below the level they had been in 1978. An increasing number of minorities have been available to fill jobs. "How Did Truck Drivers' Jobs Become So Bad? The Effects of Deregulation" There is no doubt rising fuel costs have limited economic activity, but in many ways the price of petroleum has been used as a distracting issue from the other problems. Much easier to blame a foreign phenomena than to recognise falling wages as more workers desperately compete for a shrinking number of decent jobs. If fuel costs really was responsible for most of the problems, one would expect the price of land to be much more affordable, since its price is not directly dependant on transportation costs. But this has not been the case. One of the main problems of overcrowding has been the overexpansion of cities, such that natural resources become necessary to transport in from long distances. These resources include lumber, fresh food, often water, and even the gravel used in cement. It becomes expensive to live in these cities, which have grown beyond the maximum size which their adjacent surrounding region can self-sustain. And most of the newer urban areas have not been designed well to enable people to live in such areas without a car. So much of the supposed reliance on fuel is actually the result of limited economic opportunities being overconcentrated in certain areas, and poor urban planning. Rising crime, deteriorating school districts, and rising land prices in the main cities resulted in the flight of the middle class into the suburbs, which lengthened work commuting times, necessitating the use of more petrol. Many western countries, including the USA, managed to provide ample opportunity before the widespread use of liquid petroleum powered transportation. We have to ask ourselves what has changed since that time. In the future, Americans may likely have to live closer to where they work, similar to the time before car ownership was so widespread. People will still have cars, they will merely be more reluctant to drive longer distances for cost of fuel. People will find they can no longer afford to live in the cities, and vegetable fields and orchards will spring up around the growing smaller towns to provide local customers with food. The American North will no doubt rediscover the lost virtues of greenhouses, when it no longer becomes affordable to import tropical fruits from outside low-wage countries. If all this sounds idealistic, it is. All of this will no doubt make everything more expensive than it was before cheap truck transportation, but there will also be many less quantifiable benefits, such as more open space, less noise and pollution.
it is a known fact that most western civilizations are build on the assumption of cheap plentifull oil, everything from our oversized homes that need to be heated in winter to our sprawling cities where we need to travel great distances daily to go to work and also all these fast food places that consume vast amounts of natural gas and electricity! I think even the shopping mall may be a thing of the past in 50 to 100 years from now!
The expansion of suburbia and automobile dependence was a deliberate policy decision fostered in the cold war where cities and fixed transportation infrastructure were seen as vulnerable to nuclear attack so industry and the population were dispersed to the suburbs and dependence on railroads reduced. There was absolutely no thought given to the long term ramifications of this especially any thoughts about oil except for contingency plans to occupy the middle east at the first signs of trouble. It was not until the 1970s that the social and economic problems of this dispersement began to arise and since then they have only gotten worse. This is not really so big of a problem outside of the US since Europe and Japan have long paid a much higher relative price for oil and so long ago began to order their economies with this in mind. For example France generates much of its electricity from nuclear power and runs all of its trains with electric engines, passenger trains in the day and freight trains at night to even electricity demand. It is unfortunate that the oil industry is so dominant in US politics that there is little chance for the US to move away from oil until after the economy has suffered considerably.
The other possibility is that governments will use policies to decrease the costs of fuel as long as humanly possible so that when it becomes unsustainable, there's no time left to adjust and we wind up with a period of disorder and potential catastrophe. Just look at the way people react to any policy that would increase fuel costs. At some point the pressure will be on to decrease fuel costs no matter what the consequences.
Can you blame them? Part of my job is to look at my customers heating/cooling bills. Some of these bills are upwards of $800-1200 in the winter months! Tell these people that the cost per gallon of oil is going to increase and they will have a heart attack on the spot. We need to weatherize as many homes as possible to reduce the footprint of each house and reduce the usage.
Sounds like we have a consensus: we should stop letting Exxon make our energy policy, and instead, face the fact that oil will at some point run out by initating a Manhattan project to free our economy from oil over a reaonable time period (say 5-10 years), funded by a tax on big oil and staffed with the best engineers and scientists money can buy. That's how democratic nations solve problems, not by hoping giant oil companies will act in our best interest. They won't.
No. It is rational at the individual level. The rational thing at the social level is to decrease dependence on fossil fuels and encourage reduced consumption while simultaneously shielding people from the ill effects. Such policies are hard to pass in the US... in fact the exact opposite of what would be popular here (keep prices low, increase consumption, screw the poor if they still can't afford the heating).
I agree, I would like to see us less dependent on fossil fuels. I especially agree with reducing consumption, considering it is my job. I do my best day in and day out to help home owners (all the way from low income to filthy rich) save money on their bills and make their homes more energy efficient - aka- use less fossil fuels. Indeed, but at least here in NY we are doing our best to try and educate people. My boss and myself have been to the NYSERDA (NY state research and development authority) offices in Manhattan a number of times aiding them in writing legislation for programs to help with weatherization of homes. Such as Green jobs green New York. I don't see how keeping prices low is a problem though.
from what I read, there is still over 100 years supply of petroleum if you include all non-conventional oil like heavy oil and tar sands!
Yea, dey got us thinkin' we're gettin' gas cheap at $3.07/gal. Strong Dollar Slices Into Oil Prices 12/12/11 -- Oil prices finished sharply lower Monday as investor confidence in Europe's debt-crisis plan waned, driving up the U.S. dollar.
So why isn't Saudi Arabia helpin' us out by raising oil production? Iranian threats churn up fears of spiking oil prices Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - Miscalculation could set off conflict See also: Gas prices rising, to top $4 a gallon this summer Thursday, 01.05.12 - Gas prices for 2011 set a record, and they're going even higher this year. Brace yourself for more than $4 a gallon during the summer.
Another excuse for oil companies to raise gas prices... South Sudan Threatens Oil Production Shutdown January 20, 2012 - South Sudan says it may shut down oil production because neighboring Sudan is seizing southern oil flowing through its pipelines.
