San Jose Mercury: Driving us back to the way we were

[Coastie for Truth]

Livin' large. It's the American way. And the American crisis.

Consider: Since 1950 the American family has shrunk -- but the National Association of Home Builders says the average size of a new house in the United States has more than doubled, from 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,330 square feet today. Although 119 years old, the car remains very inefficient, with only 13 percent of its fuel energy reaching the wheels. And the average fuel economy of a new American car has actually fallen slightly from 1987 (22.1 miles per gallon) to today (21).

Oil is the great example of how Americans chafe at limits. We use 18 percent more oil than we did in 1973, the year of the first oil crunch. Yet new discoveries of oil are not growing as fast as our appetite. Waste much, want more.

Where'd this heedless appetite come from? From our roots. We're a country suckled on 18th-century Enlightenment and mercantilist values. Our forebears saw the New World as a bottomless warehouse with infinite resources. That worldview, fresh when our founding documents were inked, has been branded in our collective identities ever since.

Somewhere, somehow, we simply don't believe that our resources can ever run out. And the trouble is that we've built much of our country, our lifestyles and our sense of self around the notion of infinite supply. Your family lives in New York but you want to pursue the California Dream? No problem. Move and just jump on a plane a couple of times a year. We in America don't have to make choices. Cheap oil fueled not just our coast-to-coast expansion but also our worship of individual choice.

Will Katrina-inspired pump prices last forever? Who knows? Experts disagree about how many ``years of oil'' we have left. But no matter how much oil we find, the fact remains: Our livin' large will hasten the day we have to live smaller.

Oil may be the first resource to bring us face to face with finitude. And unless we can invent a way around our dependence on oil, we, with our SUV souls and Hummer hearts, idling with all windows up and the AC on, we (or if not we, our children) are going to have to change the way we live.

The big question is: Will we change not only how we live, but also who we are? One or more of the following could be in our future:

Smaller house and car.

--edit--

[still_one]

1. It is time we learned a little humility

[getmeouttahere]

2. You just said a mouthful, with one small sentence, still_one!

Humility. Demonstrated daily by....

Can't think of anyone in power in this country.