Americans are gas guzzling pigs. Too bad if the prices are high.

[devilgrrl]

The only thing that bothers me about the high prices is that Bush Crime Family cronies are raking in the $$$$$$$$. Other than that, got a problem with prices? Ride your bicycle!

[DavidDvorkin]

1. What an idiotic post

Not everyone can ride a bike to work.

[Deja Q]

54. Blame our corporate and political leaders. Not the original post!!!!!!!!!

THEY made the system. THEY are responsible.

She's only reacting the best way she knows how while remaining sane... or trying to.

:shrug:

[redwitch]

2. Um. I am a sales rep covering all of upstate NY- with sample cases

Thanks for your compassion.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MsTryska]

48. Hey me too!

I was just having this discussion with one of our Land Use guys - he doesn't think prices are going to have an affect on sprawl anytime soon or even have people begging for Mass transit - but it might get soem carpooling and buyign more fuel efficient cars.



prices have to stay high, with income staying the same (that's not that difficult) for people to really start clamoring i think.

we're so spoiled and lazy soemtimes.


where are you located? I'm in Atlanta.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. How can my husband transport computers on a bike?

[Hobarticus]

5. Yes, we need to be punished for using oil...

Whatever.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. No, it's our grandchildren who will be punished.

Having to live on a fucked up, overheated planet.

[ronnykmarshall]

6. I wish I could.

But on the weekends, we park our cars and walk 99% of the time.

One of the great reasons of living in West Hollywood. Everything is within walking distance.

[countingbluecars]

7. You must be young

and/or live close to your place of employment. Lucky you.

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. There is nothing sadder than a bunch of Bush supporters

Bragging about their super poswer trucks and cars and then shift the conversation to blaming high gas prices on Clinton.

[jsamuel]

9. spoken like a person with no money problems

tell that to the person with 3 kids and not enough money to drive to work

[havocmom]

10. Riding my bike won't keep the cost of food from going up.

We are at harvest time. Bumper crops. Everybody weighing what the grain will fetch with what it costs in diesel to bring it in. The farmers don't get to set the price at what it costs to grow and harvest but everybody will pay dearly for the food delivered to a store near them.

Hits the poor the hardest and they use the least fuel. But the energy companies are setting record profits and got even more tax breaks. the top 1% is doing great. Everybody else can enlist when they get hungry enough.

[B Calm]

11. Bush should release oil from the oil reserves, if only to bring

down the cost of truckers fuel. He could care less what the costs are in shipping products or how bad it's hurting the economy, just as long as his buddies in the oil industry are making money hand over fist!

[imperialismispasse]

12. It's not that simple.

In some areas of the country (more rural areas) there isn't sidewalks or even shoulders on the road. They weren't designed for people to walk or ride a bike. I'm grateful to be in a city where I don't have to drive if I don't want to but I still have sympathy for people who don't have that option. People are trying to feed their families. This country wasn't designed right to try to conserve gas.

[getmeouttahere]

23. Nail, meet head...

many suburbs were purposely designed to consign Americans to their vehicles for everything. Just keep looking for ways around it, and we should all be willing to PAY for more and better mass transit. We can take some pain now, or a LOT MORE pain later.

[Big Kahuna]

13. I feel the same way.

My family lived for 8 years without a car. We walked and biked everywhere. I feel like we sold-out when we bought a car last year.. now we have two. The last thing I'm going to do is bitch about the gas prices.

[Big Kahuna]

19. heh..

and everyone "ripped me a new one" (as seen the above responses), when I suggested they do the same. The truth hurts I guess. :)

[ultraist]

25. How did you transport a sick child to the doctor, in the winter...

without a car?

[Big Kahuna]

40. Easy.

I bundled them up, and hiked to the doctor's office. As a matter of fact, my daughter's pediatrician was amazed at how her chronic ear-infections cleared up when we adopted the new lifestyle.

[Ron Green]

14. Both positions are true.

Yes, it's a real hardship on people who have to use a car for work or livelihood, and aren't wealthy enough to just fill it up without hurting. Also, it's true that fossil fuels have been artificially cheap for so many years that our entire society has designed itself around an addiction to oil, and high prices are part of what will wake people up about consumption, infrastructure and long-term planning.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

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[devilgrrl]

28. ciao ciao

:hi:

[havocmom]

30. with that attitude, we best not hear about you EATING anything you didn't

grow yourself.

Hungry? BooHoo to you. Not all fuel is used by mindless dolts in hummers heading to the mall. Try a little empathy. You might make friends and influence people.

[MadHound]

16. Oh yeah, that's the ticket

Ride your bike:eyes: Trouble is that even if you don't have a car, high gas prices are going to effect you. High gas prices mean high food prices, means high commodity prices, means inflation and higher prices all around. Means that tens of thousands of poor and middle class people are going to go under. Means that you might go under.

Rather than copping a smarmy know-it-all, holier than thou attitude, why don't you try doing something constructive about the problem, like working for renewable energy use in your area. Or start making biodiesel for yourself and others(hey, it's going to be a growth industry). Or getting your state to adapt renewable energy mandates for state vehicles and office buildings.

But noooo, it is much easier to sit behind a computer and cop a smug attitude so that you can get your supioriority fix for the day. You don't even grasp the kind of hardship that such gas prices are and will cause the poor and less well off, you just think they should get a bike. Real compassion and empathy there, not:eyes:

Tell you what, just get out of the way, and let the rest of us try to solve the problem. The is no room for smarminess and smugness and attitude right now.

[havocmom]

31. What MadHound said ^^^^

:thumbsup:

[Jim Sagle]

17. Elitist rubbish.

[ultraist]

27. agree. It's the low income people that are really suffering over prices

I'm not happy about the increase in prices, but honestly, it's not breaking our budget nor have we made any lifestyle changes. I have talked with many people though, that are really feeling the pinch.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Sad.

[getmeouttahere]

18. I don't blame you for feeling that way, but...

we should be working for more and better mass transit, everywhere, especially the large urban centers. We're at least 30 years behind on this.

I'm walking to work now (1.2 miles, fortunately) and I consolidate all errands that require a car as much as possible. I also take the train whenever possible, which is limited here in L.A.

[Lugnut]

20. Yeah right

I assume by your short-sighted post that you haven't given much thought to the fuel that's used by the trucks that haul produce and all grocery products. Those trucks also haul raw products for manufacturing as well as finished goods of all kinds. How about heating oil and the trucks that deliver it? You didn't think about that either, huh?

You can ride your bike until you wear out your legs and you will still pay somewhere for something you need for the privelege of being gouged.

[havocmom]

36. And there had better not be any PLASTIC on her bike or helmet

People need to wake up to how much oil their choices really use ;)

And people need to wake up to the fact that too many people have no choices before they get uppity whild wearing their legs out on their bikes.

High five, Lugnut!

[name not needed]

21. I guess if I have a problem with the price of food,

I should starve to death.

[ultraist]

22. You obviously don't have a family

It's not so easy to take your child to the doctor on a bike, or buy groceries to feed an entire family on a bike. :eyes:

Many families are suffering due to the rising costs of gas and not just because of transportation. Their heat bills are going to be outrageous. Sad, that some children may be living without heat this winter.

[Big Kahuna]

35. Actually...

We had a 2-seater bike-trailer / stroller that could carry 8 or 9 grocery bags. And I have bundled up my kids and hiked to the doctor's office many a time. :)

[ultraist]

38. You had your sick children walk to the doctor?

Wow. I don't think I'd want my child walking, several miles, with a fever, particularly in the winter months.

[Big Kahuna]

41. I made the same reply earlier..

I bundled them up, and hiked to the doctor's office. As a matter of fact, my daughter's pediatrician was amazed at how her chronic ear-infections cleared up when we adopted the new lifestyle. Contrary to popular belief... fresh air is good for you. :)

[dsc]

43. You live in Hawaii

How bad could winter possibly be?

[Big Kahuna]

46. I live in central Massachusetts

It's not Siberia, but winters can get pretty bad.

[ultraist]

52. When my children have high fevers or are vomiting...

I don't encourage them to go outdoors during the winter and exercise. Nor would I expect them to hike miles to the doctor. My children are healthy and get a lot of outdoor exercise but not because they hike to their doctor appointments.

[Name removed]

57. Deleted message

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[MercutioATC]

24. I'm 100% in agreement.

For practical reasons, though...


We're the innovators of the world but we only innovate when it's profitable. Gas is STILL too damn cheap to justify any major advances.

I'm thinking $5-$6/gallon should do it.

[bpilgrim]

29. if our 'leaders' would give us a public trans system worthy of Japan...

you'd have a point :hi:


http://media.globalfreepress.com

peace

[dsc]

32. Not everyone is able bodied

I have a version of vertigo that makes me dizzy standing on even a chair if I am not careful. I never was able to learn to ride a bike. And of course, that doesn't count those who have lost arms or legs and the like.

Oh, and I have to presentable when I get to work and it has been close to a hundred degrees for about a week. Just what should I do?

BTW I drive a car which gets around 30 miles to the gallon which is around triple what I got with my old car. I live about as close to my school as I can. It is literally on a very long road with no rental property whatsoever. I live about 2 miles from that road.

Oh and I do have to eat food which has been transported. When I lived in a city I didn't have a car.

[troubleinwinter]

33. What a site that will be...

...to see my husband, who suffers with rheumatoid arthritis, riding a bicycle 65 miles each way, with 40 lbs. of blueprints!

I will mention to him that you said he is a "pig". How progressive of you.

[maxsolomon]

34. America is built to disallow your solution

from VJ day on, sprawl prevents bicycle usage.

[Warren DeMontague]

37. It doesn't matter what ANYONE says about this; oil is a FINITE resource.

People bitch and moan about it like it's supposed to rain from the damn sky like manna from heaven. It doesn't, you have to pump it out of the ground, and since the earth is a round sphere, that means there's only so much ground... and thus, only so much oil.

The excessive consumption of fossil fuels is also royally screwing up the environment, but I'm not even gonna go there.

Bottom line? It will run out, and that's not the OP's fault. Suggesting that people start to think about how to deal with that fact is doing them a favor.

[Book Lover]

39. When did you go to the last Metro public meeting?

Just curious - why not sign up to solve the problem?

http://www.mta.net/board/mtgsched.htm

http://www.mta.net/board/committees/cac_members.htm

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

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[depakid]

44. Welp, People are going to have to get used to it

The fact is that Americans are gas guzzling and extraordinarily wasteful. They've created an unsustainable lifesyle, relying on cheap petroleum inputs in myriad systems that they've come to accept as "normal" living patterns- and those are going to change as the moving average for petroleum prices steadily rises.

AND IT WILL RISE STEADILY.

Anyone who doesn't believe that is either in uniformed, in denial or simply delusional. It matters not a lick whether one person feels sorry for people who are going to suffer or not.

When the tipping points in the subsystems with smaller margins will come to pass is anyone's guess- just as their collective effect on larger economic systems in cities and communities is anyone's guess. But they will happen. And probably sooner rather than later.

Reading the responses in this thread, I'm not terribly optimistic that even reasonably well informed people have come to accept that in the next decade or two, their drive in utopia is headed for a collision course with an apparantly little known (and even less respected) concept called entropy.

[Warren DeMontague]

45. not to mention the concept called "Peak Oil". nt

[depakid]

53. In many ways, a considerable amount of pain now-

including major economic disruption- and its attendant suffering is actually beneficial. Looking at it from a longer term perspective, it'll prevent much greater hardship down the road if people wise up (the hard way- which is the only way Americans learn these days) because the sooner ordinary people clue in to the seriousness and enormity of the problem, the sooner we'll actually be able to start the massive restructuring of communities and the neccessary support systems that'll be required in the post peak oil era.

Better some relatively small suffering now than even more massive suffering in the coming decades.

And I have news for some of the folks on this thread- 20 somethings in, say- 2020- are going to look back at many of us with similar sentiments as devilgrrl just expressed....

[Left Is Write]

49. Well, I'd love to ride my bicycle, if there was ample safe space

and bike lanes for me to do so.

I live in an area that has lousy public transportation and few safe places for bicyclists.

Aside from that, how do I bicycle home from the grocery store with two young children and a week's worth of groceries?

My husband's job involves overseeing offsite sales reps. He combines his trips as much as possible, but he often has to drive to the sales rep's office or to visit directly with clients. I wish he had a job that enabled him to go to his office and stay there all day, but it doesn't work that way.

I don't drive any more than is necessary these days. I walk when possible and combine trips whenever possible.

Rarely is a solution as simple as "Ride your bicycle!"

What my area needs is a decent public transportation system for starters.

[Name removed]

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[The Flaming Red Head]

51. do I eat or buy gas to go to work (what I asked myself this morning)

It's a damn good thing they're nice enough to feed me at work.

I beg for scraps just to buy gas.

[QC]

55. What a stupid fucking thread. n/t

[GoneOffShore]

56. I already posted something about this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2024608&mesg_id=2025310

But you might want to read about how we have no one to blame for the present oil crisis but ourselves.
Time to check out alternative energy.

[Technowitch]

58. Locking

This is utter flamebait.

-Technowitch
DU Moderator