Economic indicators continue to point to brighter things ahead. The question, as I see it, is, brighter for who? House values are starting to stabilize. Detroit is seeing speculators and investors buying up their houses in hard-hit neighborhoods. The Dow Jones is back in the black for the first time this year. People, in other words, are getting hopeful about things getting 'back to normal.' The President and his pals are doing everything they can to foster this feeling, delusional as it may be. I understand why they're doing it. It's hard to change; and it's especially hard to change when you have no viable alternative to the energy sources that have powered our existence for the last 150 years or so.
The question we need to ask ourselves is, where does it end? How long will we continue to allow ourselves to dance on down this treacherous pathway? I'm headed to a seminar on Wednesday about transportation and climate change in South Florida put on by FDOT. Part of me feels this is akin to a chicken going to a survival training course put on by Col. Sanders. In this seminar, I fully expect to be told I need to be impressed by all of the magical, wonderful things people in FDOT and places around the country are doing to prepare to mitigate climate change by improving urban design, concentrating on infill, and building more transit/transit-oriented development. To be fair, in the papers they put out to show their thought processes, it looks like they're at least acknowledging the problem. Sooner or later, though, we need to stop talking and start acting. Meanwhile, we get to sit and listen to the fools in the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation tell us how awful it would be for us to put any money at all into transit and light rail. Ugh!
Sustainable development, as far as I'm concerned at this point in time, is a difficult line to walk. This is especially true considering the problems that are headed our way if we don't change our reckless pattern of consumption and wasting resources. There is a part of me that dreads the way that we operate in this country. As Schlesinger, our first Energy Secretary, pointed out so deftly, we Americans have two types of energy policy: Complacency and panic. The fact that we need panic in order to affect change speaks volumes about what it's going to take to get us moving in the right direction. Without some big panic-inducing event, Americans will not give up their SUV's, Trucks, and V-8 sedans, even if they now have to purchase them from foreign manufacturers. Living in South Florida, I can attest to the all too common sight of Mercedes-Benz S Class monsters, BMW 7 Series, Range Rovers, Bentley Coupes, Ferrari's, etc. All of them get horrid gas mileage; and I'm willing to bet that many of them are piloted by people who won't give them up until the last drop of gas is squeezed out of the last oil well.
As previously mentioned, without a sustained panic, we will not see any change. What's worse is that with every little uptick in the economy, it delays our realization and acceptance of the utter lack of sustainability of our current lifestyles. I am just as guilty of this as the next person, although I'm trying hard to correct this. But one person does not a revolution make. Even now, I have my doubts about the Obama Administration's reluctance to push harder for healthcare, energy, and transportation reform in the midst of the lobbyists. The question must be answered, At what point in time do you stop worrying about getting re-elected and start worrying about doing what's right? When that question is answered, for better or worse, we might start to see real change.
