Wednesday, May 10, 2006 (SF Gate)
Bring On The $6 Gallon Of Gas/It would revolutionize
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
No wait, not six. To hell with that. Make it 10. Ten
bucks a gallon, no
matter what the going rate for a barrel of light sweet
crude. That would
so completely, violently, brilliantly do it.
Revolutionize the country.
Firebomb our pungent stasis. Change everything. Don't
you agree?
Here's what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab
drivers (at least
initially) and metro transit systems and low-income
folks, those who have
to drive their busted-up '78 Honda Civics to their
jobs scrubbing
restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming
the residual cocaine
from the seat cushions of numb SUV owners. Everyone
else, 10 bucks a
gallon, across the board. Eleven for premium.
It would take some finessing. Maybe also give a price
break to some
truckers and trucking companies (so vital to the
overall economy), but not
so much to global delivery companies (FedEx, DSL et
al.), because not
doing so would force them to raise shipping rates and
force you (and me)
to reconsider buying everything online and hence will
encourage you to
shop locally once again, thus reviving a stagnant
local economy.
Voilá -- gas crisis, oil crisis,
warmongering agenda, pollution
issues, road rage, traffic congestion, urban decay,
oil profiteering --
all completely almost totally somewhat solved. Or at
the very least,
dramatically, gloriously shifted toward ... I don't
know what. Something
better. Something more humane, less greedy, more
sustainable. Could it
work? How outraged and indignant would you be to have
to pay that much for
gas? How long would that feeling last?
Take it one logical step further. Set up a national
system whereby if you
want to buy a vehicle that gets less than 20 mpg in
the city, you pay a
$1,000 Global Warming Surcharge and that money goes
straight to a local
organic farm, or school, or environmental think tank. And
if it gets under
12 mpg, make it three grand, plus a slap to your face
from a small, angry
child. Got yourself a shiny new Hummer? You pay five
grand extra, you can
only buy gas once a month and all the truly beautiful
women of the world
will shun you like Charlie Sheen (oh wait, that
already happens). See?
Revolution is easy.
What, too far fetched? Too implausible? Not at all.
Sure, 10 bucks a
gallon would be extremely painful for a while.
Citizens would wail.
Commuters would scream and stomp and die. But then we
would do what we
always do. We would evolve. Adapt. Systems would
quickly transform, habits
would instantly shift. It would be easier to implement
than the goddamn
mess that is Medicare reform, far easier than Lots of
Children Left
Behind, more viable and livable than the toxic
existence of Homeland
Security and the disgusting Patriot Act.
But of course such an idea is also, right now,
absolutely impossible. It
will never happen -- not 10 bucks, not six, not even a
buck more per
gallon -- and not just because no politician anywhere
on either side of
the aisle has the nerve to come out and suggest that
Americans might
actually need to drive less and conserve and make a
change in their
gluttonous habits. This is, of course, absolute death
for a politician.
Tell Americans what to do? Dare to suggest that
they're doing something
wrong, or that their behaviors are dangerous and
destructive and
irresponsible? Are you insane? This is
No, the primary reason such reform won't happen is
because, simply put, we
are the most entitled nation in the world, perhaps in
the entire galaxy.
Americans are trained from birth to believe we deserve
as much as we
desire of every exploitable resource on the planet, be
it water or natural
gas or oil, coal or salmon or steaks, Big Macs or
diapers or iPods or
bizarre varieties of blue ketchup. It is, in a word,
perilous. It is also,
in another, slightly more devastating word, our
downfall.
Look, I adore cars. I adore driving and I cherish open
roads and smooth
horsepower and a musical exhaust note and I fully
believe most German
automotive engineers should be sent gifts of candy and
Peet's coffee.
I would, like most everyone else, be absolutely
loathe to give much
of it up.
But you know what? Big freaking deal. I could learn to
live without so
much. I like to think I would be able to step back and
see the bigger
picture, realize what is and isn't absolutely
essential, what does and
does not absolutely define my identity and my life,
modify accordingly and
laugh/shrug/sigh it off in the process. In other
words, I could make it
work. And so could you.
Ever been in a citywide blackout? One that lasted for
more than a few
hours and stretched on into the night? Ever see people
suddenly shift
gears and become astoundingly helpful and polite and
sharing? Happens in a
matter of moments. Disasters do it. Katrina did it, on
a scale we haven't
seen in years. Sept. 11 did it, emotionally speaking,
before BushCo whored
that tragedy and turned it into the most vile
political poker chip in
American history. Shocking change brings people
together. Brings out the
best in humans. Or at least, makes you rethink what's
truly important in
your life.
Another example: You know what would happen if guns --
all guns,
everywhere -- were banned outright tomorrow? Well,
right off, nothing
much. Criminals would still commit crimes. Lawsuits
would skyrocket. The
NRA would shoot itself in the face in screaming
protest. Crime rates would
dance all over the map. It would be a little ugly.
But then something remarkable would happen. Over a
short blip of time --
say about 10 or 20 years, as gun manufacturing ceased
and the culture of
gun violence died down and our favorite death object
was less visible in
the news and in video games and on TV and in every
aspect of modern life,
well, guess what? Guns would begin to disappear. From
the culture, from
the drug dealers, from the streets, from public
consciousness. They would
turn into a sad relic, like eight-track tapes, like
the bubonic plague,
like the Miami Sound Machine. Think 20 years is too
long? BS. It is but an
eyeblink, a twitch, a faint toe spasm in the great
long orgasm of time.
This is the unappreciated, under-reported magic of the
human animal. We
are infinitely adaptable. We can accommodate far more
than politicians and
pundits and the morally knotted Christian right would
ever have you
believe.
Ten bucks a gallon. Imagine the mad scramble by
carmakers to invent new
ultra-gas-sipping, enviro-friendly technologies.
Imagine communities
coming together for ride-sharing and mass transit.
Bike sales would
skyrocket. Walking shoes would be the new bling item.
We would mourn the
loss of cool car culture even as we celebrated the
birth of, say, moped
culture. Telecommuting would explode. Sure, the
superrich would still tool
around in their bloated Escalades, oblivious to the
world around them,
thinkin' the world is their dumb bitch.
So what? The rest of us can simply roll our eyes and
laugh, evolve and
sharpen and sigh, and wonder what great change we can
embark upon next.
