Living in Excess
Last night I was flipping channels and happened to pass Ahnold talking to the West Coast Customs gang on Pimp My Ride. This was more than bizarre enough for me to do a remote control double take and flip back to catch what the Governator was doing there. I came in late, I realize, but I got the jist: Ahnold was buffing up his youth and green credibility by talking up biodiesel. It went something like this, 'You see, incredibly popular people who probably don't vote - and if you do you vote probably vote Democrat - I keep telling people that technology can solve all problems. Don't complain about SUV's, just change the technology.'
It was moving.
Being a politician it doesn't surprise me that the words coming out of Ahnold's mouth are poorly thought out, and that the long term consequences of this technology solving all our SUV problems are but twinkles in the eye of a future PR consultant. The problem here, though, is not a question of technology, it's a question of excess.
America has coasted from surplus to surplus. We had an abundance of land, so we built sprawl to house us in comfort. We had an abundance of labor so we built huge factories where they could make products for others to consume. We had an abundance of gasoline so we drive in single occupant armored cars. We had an abundance of natural resources so we throw away what could be repaired. We build up magnificent lifestyles based on the abundance of something and then are left to panic and flounder when that abundance dries up.
Readers will probably also note that all our so-called abundances have something else in common: that abundance comes at the cost. All that empty land was only empty after the people who got here before we did (viz, the Native Ameircans) were killed and rounded up into the Res. And never mind the ecosystems that were cleared out to fit in our single story ranch homes. Cheap labor was so commonly abused and live so poorly that it spawned American versions of Oliver Twist. Gasoline and natural resources are becoming dwindling resources, and the cost of our consumption is paid by the air and water that is forced to absorb our pollution. This one has the greatest potential for divine justice in that we are, ultimately, consuming our own waste, but then it's rarely 'us' that is consuming it. Poor and minority communities are disproportionately affected by toxic pollution, both because their homes are more likely to be polluted by industry since they can't afford to live anywhere else, and because they don't have access to the healthcare that would help reduce the effects of living in a toxic cloud.
America curretly lives on foreign abundances, namely foreign labor to build what we buy and foreign money to finance our national debt. Ahnold wants to cure us of depending on the abundance of foreign oil by moving us to biodiesel, which is far superior to petroleum based fuels but is anything but a magic bullet.
Depending on what you drive, you probably burn about ten to fifteen gallons of fuel each week. Do you know anyone that eats ten to fifteen gallons of vegetable oil a week? Of course not. This isn't a quick and easy move-production-from-here to there issue, we're going to need tons upon tons of corn, soy, canola etc to be turned into fuel for our cars. The increase in ethanol production has already impacted the price of food: in Mexico, the price of corn tortillas has quadrupled as a result of the increased demand for corn for fuel. Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel make up not even 5% of our total fuel consumption. What would happen to global food supplies, and prices, if we increased that amount to even 25%?
We have an abundance of food and grow fat. Having grown so fat we can't eat any more, we decide to turn food into gasoline for our cars while 25 million people die of hunger each year.
I'm a vocal advocate of using technology to solve problems, but we invite further disaster by using technology to prop up false abundances rather than using it to reduce the cost of our consumption. Instead of investing in city designs that make driving unnecessary, we build ten story high streets to fit more cars into our cities. Instead of building cars that use less fuel we are still using an engine that was invented over a hundred years ago. Instead of living where the climate can support human habitation, we expend precious power and water to live in the most hostile environments possible. Instead finding ways to share the abundances we've created we hoard and increase the gulf between rich and poor.
It was moving.
Being a politician it doesn't surprise me that the words coming out of Ahnold's mouth are poorly thought out, and that the long term consequences of this technology solving all our SUV problems are but twinkles in the eye of a future PR consultant. The problem here, though, is not a question of technology, it's a question of excess.
America has coasted from surplus to surplus. We had an abundance of land, so we built sprawl to house us in comfort. We had an abundance of labor so we built huge factories where they could make products for others to consume. We had an abundance of gasoline so we drive in single occupant armored cars. We had an abundance of natural resources so we throw away what could be repaired. We build up magnificent lifestyles based on the abundance of something and then are left to panic and flounder when that abundance dries up.
Readers will probably also note that all our so-called abundances have something else in common: that abundance comes at the cost. All that empty land was only empty after the people who got here before we did (viz, the Native Ameircans) were killed and rounded up into the Res. And never mind the ecosystems that were cleared out to fit in our single story ranch homes. Cheap labor was so commonly abused and live so poorly that it spawned American versions of Oliver Twist. Gasoline and natural resources are becoming dwindling resources, and the cost of our consumption is paid by the air and water that is forced to absorb our pollution. This one has the greatest potential for divine justice in that we are, ultimately, consuming our own waste, but then it's rarely 'us' that is consuming it. Poor and minority communities are disproportionately affected by toxic pollution, both because their homes are more likely to be polluted by industry since they can't afford to live anywhere else, and because they don't have access to the healthcare that would help reduce the effects of living in a toxic cloud.
America curretly lives on foreign abundances, namely foreign labor to build what we buy and foreign money to finance our national debt. Ahnold wants to cure us of depending on the abundance of foreign oil by moving us to biodiesel, which is far superior to petroleum based fuels but is anything but a magic bullet.
Depending on what you drive, you probably burn about ten to fifteen gallons of fuel each week. Do you know anyone that eats ten to fifteen gallons of vegetable oil a week? Of course not. This isn't a quick and easy move-production-from-here to there issue, we're going to need tons upon tons of corn, soy, canola etc to be turned into fuel for our cars. The increase in ethanol production has already impacted the price of food: in Mexico, the price of corn tortillas has quadrupled as a result of the increased demand for corn for fuel. Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel make up not even 5% of our total fuel consumption. What would happen to global food supplies, and prices, if we increased that amount to even 25%?
We have an abundance of food and grow fat. Having grown so fat we can't eat any more, we decide to turn food into gasoline for our cars while 25 million people die of hunger each year.
I'm a vocal advocate of using technology to solve problems, but we invite further disaster by using technology to prop up false abundances rather than using it to reduce the cost of our consumption. Instead of investing in city designs that make driving unnecessary, we build ten story high streets to fit more cars into our cities. Instead of building cars that use less fuel we are still using an engine that was invented over a hundred years ago. Instead of living where the climate can support human habitation, we expend precious power and water to live in the most hostile environments possible. Instead finding ways to share the abundances we've created we hoard and increase the gulf between rich and poor.
We have to draw the line between wanting more and having enough. Using technology to allow a few people to consume without limit while people in our own country, and especially across the world, fight to be able to consume enough to survive isn't just crazy. It's wrong.
