I have a belief, that only time will reveal as accurate or far-fetched, that our lives will get better as the price of gas increases. Maybe not initially. There will be a lot of resistance to change, as there always is. We feel entitled to our lifestyles. We don’t want anyone to tell us that we don’t have a right to drive a Hummer or consume as much as is humanly possible. But there might be (there is!) an upside to high gas. Before I get too far into this discussion, let me clarify that I exclude those already at the bottom of the economic ladder from “better,” though I think they may eventually benefit too.

Before I get into the potential benefits we may derive, let’s start with why Americans are angry over the price of gas. It’s something I find remarkable. Is it really a brand new concept that oil is not an infinite resource? Are we really that short-sighted? Can we really be that naive as to assume that we can behave however we wish and the earth’s resources will bow to our insatiable will? We lived through gas shortages in the 70s. Scientists have been sounding the warning for fifty years (yes, [1] fifty) that oil would [2] peak in the 90s. Even heads of oil corporations acknowledge that time is limited. But, we’re angry. “Drill! Drill! Drill” is the demand. No matter that it will take 10 or 20 years to see the fruits of the drilling, if there are any. It doesn’t matter that more drilling will likely produce very little. Do it now!

I ask, “And then what?” What happens if we do find more oil? Will we heed the advice of scientists to move to other energy sources? Will we change our ways? To find the answer, we only have to look at our behavior after the 70 gas shortage. Did our cars get smaller and more gas efficient or larger and more gas guzzling? Have all the warnings of the past been enough to motivate people to buy small, gas efficient cars? No, only an economic pinch, only a tight squeeze on the pocketbooks speaks to us. Even now, there are those at the top of the economic ladder who are unconcerned with how much gas they’re using. As long as there is money, they will never see a reason to change. Not even in the interest of providing a better world for their offspring.

It appears to be our human nature to live to the fullest extremes that we can muster and to live in denial about our behavior.

More often I hear and see news stories profiling good, hard-working citizens impacted by the cost of rising gas. These stories are meant to tug on your heart-strings, evoke your pity or outrage at how someone, whoever that someone was, allowed gas to get so expensive. Just once I would like to hear the people profiled in these stories to own some responsibility for their choices, “Yes, I know I should have been more informed, but I liked the look of the Hummer, and since I have no personality of my own, I use my possessions to serve as a substitute and to make a statement about my absence of character, shallow waste of oxygen that I am. If I were to use the matter contained within my cranium, and mind you, I won’t, but if I did, I suppose I’d realize that it’s my own fault that I spent an utterly foolish amount of money on a car meant to consume every last drop of oil left on earth so that I can show everyone what an utter selfish asshole I am, money that could easily have fed a village in Africa or India for a year if I could be interested in anything beyond that which exists several feet beyond my own self-absorbed nose. Yes, I brought this on myself.” Okay, I’ll concede that they wouldn’t likely allow the word “asshole” on the news. Fine. Call me harsh, but it’s true.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let me turn to the potential upside of high gas prices.
1) Finally, people are becoming aware of the possibility that resources are not infinite. We are at last waking up.
2) As oil becomes less of an option for meeting our energy needs, it will cripple the powerful lobbyists who currently control Congress (car and oil industry). Perhaps instead of heavily subsidizing oil, our tax dollars can heavily subsidize renewable energy research and implementation.
3) Cities will (re)establish the clean, safe, reliable public transportation infrastructure destroyed by GM, enabling Americans the choice to reduce the large portion of their budget spent on car related expenses: gas, insurance, maintenance, purchasing and repurchasing cars, interest paid on car loans… With a good public transportation system, perhaps families could be connected to distant parks and spend a Saturday with a picnic, playing games, telling stories, facing each other on a fun train ride. Commuters could relax on the way to work, reading, listening to podcasts, thinking, instead of sitting in traffic inhaling fumes and getting irate at the morons on cellphones in the fast lane who are oblivious to the world around them.
4) We might live closer to work, have a shorter commute and more time for more important things.
5) We might carpool and develop friendships with our carpool mates.
6) We might finally have the excuse we needed to eliminate some of the unnecessary activities that aren’t really adding to our quality of life.
7) We might walk more, and eventually, our suburbs might become neighborhoods again, where we know each other, talk to one another, and have each other over for tea or lemonade, or even a stiff drink now and then.
8 ) We might stop and rest. Instead of always looking to “upgrade” our home to find something that is bigger, we might decide to stay where we are, trading quantity for quality and take an interest in building communities, and loving, nurturing, and taking care of what we have.
9) The neighborhood grocery might return as a locally-owned shop, with an owner who has an interest in the health of the community.
10) We’ll drive less. Our roads will be quieter and the air will be cleaner.
11) Without our car independence, we might become interdependent on each other to share driving chores (”Sandy can you pick up the kids today? I’ll get them tomorrow”) thereby simplifying our lives.
12) Employers will be more supportive of telecommuting. While we’re working at home, we can throw in a load of laundry and check on the pot roast. We might have more time for home-cooked meals.
13) We won’t have as much disposable income to waste on junk food and fast food, so we’ll get healthier from eating less garbage.
14) We’ll have to use our legs more to get where we’re going, getting more exercise and thereby improving the health of our hearts and our brains.
15) Perhaps cities will be designed with more of an eye towards bike paths and bike friendly byways.
16) We’ll start growing our food locally, giving us more nutritious options (the further food is transported the more nutritional value it loses) with less adverse environmental impact.
17) We’ll have less sprawl, so we’ll all live closer together, making a night together with friends less complicated to plan.

Yes, in order to accomplish these things, we’ll have to change our culture and how we think. Many are hard hit right now because they didn’t have room in their budgets for the extra cost of gas, and they have my sympathy. My hope is that the future is brighter, that we will become less dependent on our cars, that we will have more options, that after we adjust, we find that our lives are better and less complicated. Yes, it’s a dream.

Update: I shared part of this list with some friends last night and they suggested that I am on crack and might want to consider rehab. Particularly considering my overly-optimistic point that the current power structure might ever be ousted. I concede it’s a dream, but I continue to hope nonetheless that we begin to embrace some changes that can result in a stronger community-oriented way of life.

Alright, alright, I’ll look into rehab.