You’re right–it’s not easy. Many people in this area made the choice to go work in a textile or paper mill right after high school. At the time, this was a completely rational choice. They could make good money, live very close to the work, support a family and live in the area where their family had been for hundreds of years. Most of those mills are closed now, through no fault of the workers. So many people made the rational and admirable choice of going back to school to get trained in a new field. Community college enrollment is booming around here. But to get to school, most people have to drive, sometime from several counties away. The new jobs that people can get aren’t in the little mill towns they used to work in and can still afford to live in. As long as gas was affordable, this was a good choice. Now things are changing pretty damn rapidly. It’s going to take people awhile to catch up. And in the meantime, people still have to get to work, pay the mortgage and put food on the table.
I know this probably isn’t your intention, but you make it sound like the people who choose to work middling jobs and live in homes they can afford are stupid. For the most part, these are folks who are doing things “right,” though–they (we) are working, going to school, buying homes, and paying the bills on time. It’s just that, as pmat points out, the ability to live that lifestyle in this area depends on affordable gas. Will things have to change? Yes, absolutely. But change is going to be slow, and you can’t ignore the fact that it’s going to hurt a lot of people who’ve made what at the time seemed to be rational choices.
Five miles on wide, straight roads wouldn’t be a problem. I don’t know what route **pmat **would need to take to school, but lots of the roads here are extremely curvy with plenty of blindspots and no bike paths. They’re really not safe to bike on, especially if you’re not an experienced biker who’s already very familiar with the route.
By the way, pmat, I was able to fill up at 7:00 this morning, with only a short line. I’m working from home today and still trying to conserve however possible. Hopefully, things will ease up for you soon, too.
Um, no, not really. A typical freezer of the type you mention isn’t nearly big enough to produce the volume of ice we needed when my wife was recovering from her knee replacement. We needed at least a couple of bags of ice a day, but fortunately, the nearest market is only a few doors away, so we had no trouble.
I’m with you 100% on the principle of organizing your life geographically and socially to provide the necessary support structure. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I grew up in a neighborhood that was in the city limits, but still completely car dependent. As a kid you don’t mind those things so much but when I got older I hated it. I’m not letting that happen again.
But “hit the road in a wheelchair”? Really, I can’t believe people sometimes.
I admit I was being provincial, but I thinking more of the developed world about 100 years ago, before everyone had cars.
It has to be an older city. The cities that have grown tremendously in the last thirty years, like Las Vegas and Phoenix, tend to be even more sprawling and car-dependent than L.A. Orlando is a pretty good example. According to a National Geographic article a few years ago, there’s really not any city there; just a mass of populated area like the OC in California, where everyplace seems to be four or seven miles from every other place, and you get there by driving along a main drag street lined with the same chain restaurants and businesses.
Oh no, my intention was not to make people feel stupid. My intention is to get people thinking about things differently, because like it or not, this is the way the world is going. We are all going to get very familiar with the concept of choices.
I think a big part of bringing about a sustainable lifestyle for most of us will be to re-examine how much we need commute physically. Commuting to work is another imperative for most of us; but many jobs could be done just as well from home. We shouldn’t be asking only how we can make people carpool to work, or take the bus or whatever, but also whether everyone needs to be “at work”, physically, every day. It used to be only programmers and certain other kinds of IT workers who could, if allowed, do much of their work at home. These days, however, just about any office job can be feasibly done from home. Meeting with the boss? Yahoo with webcam. Need a secretary to type up a note you rough-drafted in longhand? Scan it to the secretary in an email, who will return it as a Word document. Staff conference? Yahoo chat.
We could elminate 50% of this problem by doing this.
hah! where I am, the nearest stream big enough to turn a wheel is hundreds of miles away.
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I understand solar power is being used quite a bit in Germany, and even Scandinavia. If you can do it there, then it should be even more feasible for us.
For whatever reason, Western NC is served by two pipe lines out of the Gulf, while the rest of the State is served by a couple of pipelines out of Wilmington. The Western Lines were shut down last week [del]to increase demand[/del] because of the hurricane.
We are supposed to be getting more gasoline this weekend.
That’s one of the mysteries of modern life - why damned near everyone still has to be a physical presence at work, when all or most of your work is done on a computer. Well, actually I guess it isn’t a big mystery - people not physically at work can’t be easily controlled. And lord knows, you don’t want the peons thinking they deserve any kind of respect or consideration.
One reason commonly given out is that having everyone normally onsite makes it easier to collaborate. There is some truth in this, but these issues could be addressed by technology which continues to improve.
This also raises the whole issue of outsourcing, because if the technology is that good, then they might as well send your job to a low-wage country. But the longer I have been in IT, the more of a shibboleth outsourcing has seemed to be. The communication, cultural, and logistical issues raised when you try to collaborate between several business partners and several continents often prove to be more trouble than they are worth.
If everyone who does back office work was allowed to telecommute three or four days a week, and did so, the demand-side impact on the petrofuels market would be huge. That’s the thing. What it really comes down to for most of the driving we do and the gas we consume, is driving to work. And driving home from work. Five days a week. It’s not like we’re out there zooming up PCH in a sports car just for fun.
But even that’s not a logical reason. You can control people just fine by computer, by expecting them to answer you if you open a chat window (indicating that they are there). Or by calling them, or whatever.
But you can’t control when they arrive at work, and when they take their breaks, and what they wear, and when they come back from lunch…I’m not talking logic here, I’m talking about petty micro-managers who need physical bodies to micro-manage.
I had to drive from Chattanooga, TN, it Chapel Hill, NC last week for a conference and then back again. When I left, there was no gas in Chattanooga; I started out, hopeful, and found gas (regular unleaded only) 50 miles away in a small town, 45 minute wait in line, $25 limit. That was enough to get me to Chapel Hill, where I immediately gassed up.
Two days later, no gas in Chapel Hill. I drove to my sister’s in Charlotte, and then I had a problem: I had about 3/4 of a tank, but that would not be enough to get me home. There was no gas in Charlotte, anywhere. I called my brother in Mooresivlle (north of Charlotte); any gas there? No. We were discussing siphoning gas out of my sister’s car to get me home when my brother called back – quick! Gas at the Mooresville Shell Station! I leaped in the car and drove up there – 30 miles – and, after another 45 minute wait, was able to gas up. That got me home.
Now I’m back in Chattanooga and – no gas. I just talked to my sister in Charlotte, and no gas there either, although they are saying they should be getting it in over this weekend. None in Atlanta and, last I heard, none in Nashville.
We are all being assured that the crisis is over and gas is on its way. But we’ve been hearing that for days.
Yeah, they kept saying that. Relief is just around the corner!
But now they’re saying this problem could linger for at least another month.
Hasn’t been a huge problem for me, as I work from home. But I have business near Chattanooga next week that I must tend to. So I am distressed to hear you say they are out of gas too.
You need temporary rationing in the region. All the news we’re hearing is that there’s enough gas getting through to meet everyone’s needs at least on a modest level. They did this once or twice in the 1970s and the lines vanished overnight.
They should restrict sales to people whose license plates end one way or another, and do it so as to give everybody one or two chances to fill up over the course of one week.
Sometimes we can’t control the supply but we can control our reaction to it.
I ride 12 miles each way to work 2-3 days a week. I carry in clothes on hangers, and hang them the employee changing room/bathroom. I shower in the AM and use body powder and deodorant. I wear bike clothes to ride in, and change when I get to work. I hang my bike clothes up and they are ready to go when I get off and ride home. I hang my clothes up for the next day. I get 2 days out of a pair of pants and wear a fresh shirt each day. I bring new underwear and socks each day. It takes me under an hour each way.
My riding is part of the reason I have lost over 25 lbs since Memorial Day.
