Why We Aren't Cutting Back Like in the 80's

vision-master

The masses will pay about any price to keep driving & they ain't giving up them SUV's or 4x4's. No way Ray...............

yesplease · Fission Joined: Oct 03, 2006 Posts: 2078

firestarter · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 1006

From 1979 to 1983 I worked building Chicago's Deep Tunnel. Even though vehicles largely weren't as efficient as they are now, most of my fellow workers, and myself, drove CARS to work, for various economic and job related reasons (job related because construction workers who owned trucks were persuaded too often by their bosses to use them as unsubsidized company vehicles). In 79 and 80 I carpooled with my dad and another job superintendent in a GREMLIN! In short, the scale of things automobile wise was to my memory way smaller to begin with, and as such the hardships associated with conservation negligible.

As Monte has pointed out many times over the ramifications of conservation today are much more pronounced given the bubbles that have sprouted up with our large, unsustainable living arrangements, not to mention Jevon's Paradox influence vis a vis globalization. IMO it's likely too late for cut backs to have any positive effect. It's different this time round.

aahala · Intermediate Crude Joined: Feb 03, 2005 Posts: 954

Pixie

Monte,

Gas prices FELL in the late 80's, when gas consumption went up. Gas prices SPIKED in 1981, and gas consumption went down.

I read that same article, which said that most people believed they'd cut back on their driving at about $4.38 for gas, which is a slightly LOWER price than I was predicting when I started this thread. I feel quite supported by that article.

Look, I am not saying that people will cut back on their driving enough to stop peak oil. All I am saying is that when the gas prices rise that high, you are going to see a paradigm shift in the way people think about driving. People will be experiencing a cost for driving that we have never seen before, not even in the 70's nad 80's. Right now, as pointed out in that article you quoted, most people do see all their driving as essential. I claim that $4+ gas will cause people's brains to do some imaginative thinking that would be impossible before that point, and you will see a change in behavior sometime around that point. AGAIN, I'M NOT CLAIMING IT'LL STOP OIL DEPLETION, and I'm not claiming that bicycles will rule the streets. Wait until $10 gas for that.
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Just another tofu-munching bike-riding Rambo(/Rambette)

Tyler_JC

Here's an example.

On my street there are between 6 and 10 high school kids depending on the year.

Each one of them takes a separate car into school every day.

They could very easily carpool but they choose not to because gasoline is still very inexpensive, even for teenagers with minimum wage jobs.

Throw $6 gas into the mix and many of them will change their behavior and walk/bike/carpool instead.

No societal chaos, no riots in the streets, no food shortages, just a few kids responding to higher prices and deciding that consuming the resource isn't worth it.

There are hundreds of millions of people in the exact same situation throughout the western world. We consume lots of energy because we enjoy consuming lots of energy, not because we need to consume that much.

It's examples like that which have convinced me that the fast crash die-off by 2012 scenario is completely inaccurate. We have a tremendous amount of waste that can be removed from the system before the essentially services get cut off.
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"www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."

firestarter · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 1006

I_Like_Plants

MonteQuest

MonteQuest

Tyler_JC

Blacksmith

I forget who was the President in the 1980's

johnmarkos

firestarter · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 1006

On a side note think of all the jobs that are dependent on the Iraq war (military industrial complex in general), the drug war (prison industrial complex in general), the "schooling crisis" ("education" industrial complex in general) and other various crap-storms manufactured over the years. A contraction in any of the above would lead to serious economic dislocations, thus they don't go away without much kicking and screaming if at all. On the other hand a contraction in the way we generally consume energy (conspicuous consumption, for starters) would be downright catastrophic. We must motor on exponentially at all costs...or else...