In July 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner told an academic symposium that the American frontier was closed - a shocking notion for a people who'd defined themselves by their steady expansion across the continent. This spring, something just as profound and defining has happened: Pulled back by the inescapable gravity of higher prices and the growing scarcity of fossil fuels, we're starting a slow recoil into more dense and compact regions and localities. The frontier of endless mobility that we've known our entire lives is closing.
Consider:
• For the first time in decades, the average number of vehicle miles driven by Americans is falling, down 1 percent for the year and more than 6 percent in May alone. The percentage of Americans planning a driving vacation in the next six months is at an all-time low.
• The airlines are fighting hard to contract, slashing the number of planes they fly and the number of routes they serve. United was supposed to begin service this month between San Francisco and Guangzhou, China, but just announced it would take a pass, at least for now.
• As the rising price of fuel makes it harder to truck and fly food around the globe, and as the search for more energy from sources such as ethanol contributes to higher food prices, new gardeners are sprouting up. Burpee Seeds, the nation's largest seed company, reported that its sales doubled this spring compared with last year; Seed Savers Exchange sold more packets in the first third of this year than in all of 2007.
One might argue that this is a momentary blip - that soon the price of oil will fall or we'll discover some easy substitute and resume our steady expansion. But even if we're living through a temporary super-spike in petroleum prices, the trend is clearly toward scarcity. And replacement fuels, such as those from the sun and the wind, are by their nature better suited for dispersed, local use. Think about the kind of long-term investments people are making: You can't find buyers for the big pile with the three-car garage at the outer fringe of suburbia, but small and close-in homes are holding their value. One recent Texas study found that a house is worth $4,700 more for each minute it saves in commuting.
Still, there was something lovely about the dream of a seamless world. Which is why it's good that there's one major countervailing trend: the rise of the Internet and, with it, the ease of vital communication.
We can still share the Earth, in other words. But recipes, not ingredients. Ideas, not cargo containers. From the keyboard, not the driver's seat.
• For the first time in decades, the average number of vehicle miles driven by Americans is falling, down 1 percent for the year and more than 6 percent in May alone. The percentage of Americans planning a driving vacation in the next six months is at an all-time low.
• The airlines are fighting hard to contract, slashing the number of planes they fly and the number of routes they serve. United was supposed to begin service this month between San Francisco and Guangzhou, China, but just announced it would take a pass, at least for now.
• As the rising price of fuel makes it harder to truck and fly food around the globe, and as the search for more energy from sources such as ethanol contributes to higher food prices, new gardeners are sprouting up. Burpee Seeds, the nation's largest seed company, reported that its sales doubled this spring compared with last year; Seed Savers Exchange sold more packets in the first third of this year than in all of 2007.
One might argue that this is a momentary blip - that soon the price of oil will fall or we'll discover some easy substitute and resume our steady expansion. But even if we're living through a temporary super-spike in petroleum prices, the trend is clearly toward scarcity. And replacement fuels, such as those from the sun and the wind, are by their nature better suited for dispersed, local use. Think about the kind of long-term investments people are making: You can't find buyers for the big pile with the three-car garage at the outer fringe of suburbia, but small and close-in homes are holding their value. One recent Texas study found that a house is worth $4,700 more for each minute it saves in commuting.
Still, there was something lovely about the dream of a seamless world. Which is why it's good that there's one major countervailing trend: the rise of the Internet and, with it, the ease of vital communication.
We can still share the Earth, in other words. But recipes, not ingredients. Ideas, not cargo containers. From the keyboard, not the driver's seat.
Citizen
Hot Jobs
New! Off the Menu
The Citizens' Say
Post your comment - click hereThere are 1 comment(s)
Farmer's Gal wrote on Jun 27, 2008 1:52 PM:
If we used trains to do the majority of cross-country shipping, we could save a lot more.
If we only shipped things across the country which we COULDN'T grow locally, we'd save even more -- and get fresher, healthier produce which wouldn't NEED to be gassed or genetically engineered to give it longer shelf life during the shipping.
Growing as much of your own as you can is good too -- more power to seed companies, and let's see more local seed companies and less power to national giants like Burpee.
I do see a point in that in the Middle Ages, ordinary people could not travel (much less relocate/move) out of their communities without the permission of their lord and master -- the nobility were better able to control the population this way. That's certainly not good.
But being forced to use fuel more efficiently is NOT A BAD THING.
People were forced to leave the countryside because cities sucked up all the jobs and production moved to the cities -- which were overcrowded, noisy, polluted and unhealthy -- still are. Once it was chamberpots emptied into streets already overflowing with horse droppings; now it's fumes from trucks and busses and noise pollution from so many people living practically on top of each other -- humans were not meant to live this way.
But since the advent of industrialized farming, it's not healthy to live in the countryside either, where your air is full of the toxic fumes from the spreading of liquid manure and the water supply is full of e-coli. Just heard today of a corporate agribusiness which shall remain nameless where they had out their heavy earth movers to fill in the channel where they had a thick spill of manure headed for a tributary of Salmon Creek -- for not the first time either. Now that they've filled it in so fast before it could be properly inspected, we'll never know if it actually reached the creek or not.
No sir, we are surrounded on all sides by toxins, carcinogens and other forms of pollution. Cutting back on driving to decease emissions can only be good. "