Last week, there was a group of protesters at the Arco gas station across the street from my house. The were urging the boycott of BP and it's subsidiaries, Arco being one. Problem is, there's a gas station around the corner, and another directly across the street. The oil spill that is replacing the Gulf of Mexico could have been caused by the parent companies of either of those stations, and surely the same vitriol would be spewed towards any company that was in the same situation. Blaming BP is not the answer- a systematic and fundamental shift in the lifestyles of every person in every Post Industrial country in the world is.
Weaning the planet off of oil will not be easy, or fast, or easily distillable (I made that word up) into 30 second soundbites to insure politicians can keep their jobs. On the other hand, JFK asked congress to put a man on the moon in '61, and 8 years later, Neil Armstrong was setting up Alan Shepard's lunar putt-putt course. Unfortunately, the pragmatism of the 60's has been replaced by 21st century duelism (made that one up, too). In our society, no one can say anything without someone else calling that person an idiot and starting a Facebook page, "One million strong against that one thing that somebody said which I don't actually know anything about but since (insert left or right wing mouthpiece) says it won't work I believe it." So, just like Live Strong bracelets, Obama's presidential campaign, and the concept that people pay attention to Lady Gaga because of her "music," change will have to start from the bottom up. But, how?
As I was considering the futility of protesting a gas station, I thought about my family in middle America. It takes half an hour to walk from their house to anywhere that isn't another house. Living as I do, in an urban city, it's easy to not rely on a car, but for them, it's not possible. Another thing to worry about is the city planning, infrastructure, and business that is based on having a car. Mass transit and bicycles are also not viable options for families, the elderly, and infirm. What we need, is to build a better engine. In about a hundred years, communication has gone from telegraphs to iPhones, but in about the same time, the automobile engine has gone from the combustible engine, to... the combustible engine.
