Here in SA fuel is almost at epidemic prices. Yet we have the same problem as America-go into a wealthy suburb and you will see large bakkies(pick up trucks) being driven by woman to do the shopping. And the Hummer H2 landed on our shores a few months ago. Some people have too much money and not enough education.

This has been a soapbox of mine for a long time.  There are so many individual things that could be done, but just one of them wouldn't really help much.  The scope of the change necessary to actually reduce (not reduce the growth of) our emissions is virtually impossible.  It is certainly depressing.

In a country that was actually trying to help the environment, not only would hummers be illegal, but only with a relevant business permit would you be allowed to buy any kind of full sized truck.  Cars would have a maximum of 60mph.  All cars.  Auto racing would be illegal.  If you didn't have a family, you'd only be allowed to buy a compact, and drivers' licenses would cost several thousand dollars.  Public transit would be the standard way to get around for anyone who needed to go farther than they could bicycle. 

Sadly, businesses would not be able to afford the kind of delivery schedule they can now, so places like Walmart wouldn't be able to keep anything you wanted in stock at 4AM on Sunday.  We might have to eat more regional produce, and forgo our passion fruit shipped in from the tropics.  The economy would be in shambles. 

It's a bad mess.  It's actually a shame there isn't a god.  It'll take one to fix what we've done.

Wait until gas gets really expensive. You're going to see a lot of bike riding and local community action. Also, fewer highways. Suburbia is ready for a fall anyway - what has it been, 60 years? C'mon. Suburbia can't live forever, it's too much of a terrible monster.

It isn't just laziness. Our whole infrastructure's built around suburbia now. How do you realistically change that? My area is a good example. I'm 5 miles from a decent shopping center and many areas have no sidewalks or bike lanes or street lights. It would be dangerous to ride a bike or walk on many of our streets, especially at night. No, I can't afford to move to the city, and all of suburbia can't fit there anyway. I don't know how you could change the way existing communities work. It's not like you can just raze our whole city and redesign it for pedestrian living. The best we can do at this point is to stop building more suburbs like this and make everyone drive small cars. Outlaw gas guzzlers!

America builds out, while most countries build up. The consequences of this are multifaceted, but the major one is that driving 20 miles to work and 5 miles to the store is normal. There has to be a redefinition of the coming impact that fossil fuel consumption will unleash in not only economical or environmental terms, but overreaching cultural terms.

I saw this thing on the science channel the other day about the future of oil shortages and the reactions to our culture. It would require a fundamental change of how people plan cities, suburbs, etc.  Growing up with consumer freedom and ideas of individualism, there are a few things that it is hard for me to wrap my head around. The ideas that we can start banning cars that consume more gas than others, along with all forms of auto racing makes me reject them from a gut level. I fully comprehend the effects of oil dependence, fossil fuel pollution, and its contribution to global climate change are harming our world, but these ideas are anathema to most Americans, even left leaning progressives. I am not saying they wouldn't result in first steps to addressing a ubiquitous problem, but rather I think things such as the implementation of banning auto racing or hummers are literally impossible until oil is consumed for only subsistence(ie Heating your home). Hopefully, large scale green energy programs will have been instituted before we get to that point.

The funniest thing about it is that I'm suggesting that this will be the only problem I can think of that will actually solve itself.

Consider America operating on $300 a barrel for oil, like a lot of the world does right now. That's what, $10 a gallon for gasoline? Good luck with that, everyone. What about when it hits $400?

Suburbia will die based on resource prices, not a desire for change. Our own turbo-foolishness is actually going to save us from sprawl, overfishing, polluting, and mechanized war. But I have a feeling it's going to get a lot uglier before it calms down, since it's often difficult for individuals to suddenly be faced with their own impotence.

The Amish! Hahahaha, too true.

BUT, if the suburbanites built their own self-sustaining communities, they'd be fine. There's plenty of land out there to farm, right? I think those enclaves would then be called villages. They're all over Europe.

Uh-huh. When was the last time you saw a suburbanite on a farm? Also, since chemical-based fertilizers will rise in price along with the gasoline/diesel that's used in tractors, the only reference we have to old-school farming is organic farmers. Oh, and the Amish.

I personally don't expect people to adapt very quickly. We already know that Saudi Arabia can't increase production of oil, and most of the countries in the world can't produce any more light crude. So the phrase "peak oil" is now even being used by Shell executives (of course, in their case, it's a great way to explain the price hikes - cha-ching!).

Denial is powerful. It may take four or five years for people to figure out they can't afford their lifestyle any more.

What is it with you and the Amish?

Frankly, I'm hoping that I can sell both my businesses in the next five years before shipping gets prohibitively expensive.  At that point, I'll probably figure out a way to relocate to someplace less... um... American.

Even though the air pollution here is sometimes appalling, I will stick up for my city (Hong Kong). We have the best public transport in the world. No-one drives their own car. I've lived in Hong Kong for twelve years and have never driven a single mile. Then when I went to the US for six days I drove 4,260km. Unbelievable. I've really got to tell you, the American lifestyle is completely unsustainable. Suburban areas are completely unsustainable. People who live in the "exburbs" should be shot. We often criticize big cities for their environmental impact, but its really the suburbs that are the worst and most unsustainable areas. In the future (if there is to be a future), instead of having massive cities which have tentacles of conurban and suburban outreaches for hundreds of square miles, there will be smaller communities which link up with each other, high-tech versions of villages, so to speak. If it were up to me, Zoning laws would not permit conurban environments or highway commuting culture. There is no God. We did this to ourselves. Nonetheless, I disagree with the extreme nature of Hamby's pessimism. I understand it, because he is American, and lives in the US. Hell, if I lived in the US, I'd probably share it (4,260km...un-fucking-believable), but I don't. It does seem the Americans are as a nation, slow to catch up since they are used to SUVs and suburban houses, just the amount of consumption that occurs in the US is nothing short of mind-blowing, and the per-capita is horrifying. The only reason I so enjoyed my visit to the US was that I was staying at some of the best tertiary institutes for science on the face of the earth.

Unfortunately I don't have to wait.  My old '82 Mercedes sits in my driveway because diesel is already in excess of $4.00 a gallon.  

Perhaps I should try and purchase a used Space Shuttle from NASA, the operating costs are probably cheaper ! 

I think the thing that keeps me from getting any hopes up is the number of ways we can potentially fuck ourselves.  I just watched an episode of Mythbusters, and one of the commercials was asking for donations to a fund for scientists studying the growing number of honeybee deaths in the U.S.  If honeybees go extinct... wow.  That would fuck up a LOT of things. 

In the DC area, there's a fish from your part of the world, the snakehead, that has no natural predators here, and is taking over the Potomac.  It's also been spotted in California.  It's just one of hundreds of animals and plants that are being introduced and killing off native species.

Water pollution is a big, big problem.  Not only are we overfishing the oceans, we're polluting them so that the creatures who don't get caught are developing lesions and growing third eyes.

Basically, I don't think that any one problem is completely beyond hope of solution, but every time I start researching one ecological threat, I discover five more I didn't even know existed.

I am so excited!  IAGAY, your coherency level has been on the rise of late.  Are you drinking less?

Assuming I understand your point, I'd just like to point out that the manufacture of humvees will not last long if people can own them but aren't allowed to drive them.  Kind of defeats the whole purpose. 

I really don't get this. What is the purpose of this strange regulation?