Oil, Technology, and Obesity

Conventional wisdom tells us that skyrocketing gas prices would mostly be a bad thing for America. Leisure travel would be severely restricted, food prices would also soar (since oil is intricately linked with our industrial food system, a topic for another post), jobs would be lost, and many businesses would die out. There’s no question that $20 per gallon gasoline would be catastrophic to our current way of life, but Christopher Steiner, author of “$20 Per Gallon,” believes that this catastrophe is necessary, inevitable, and will actually make us happier and healthier. Now, for a disclaimer: I haven’t actually read the book yet. I’ve read several articles on the book, all of them favorable, but I am not comfortable making claims about what the author is trying to say. However, I would like to take Steiner’s interesting premise and pretend as though I had thought of it first. The following is my reaction to the concept of $20 per gallon.

First of all, major increases in the price of oil are bound to happen. Peak oil is a concept that refers to the point at which oil production has reached its maximum and can only decline from then on. The United States reached its own peak in the 1970s, and production has decreased at about 2% per year ever since. Now, for the first time on record, oil production in oil-rich countries has begun to decline. OPEC nations are having to work harder to produce less oil. In the short-term, this means they will pass on the costs by marking up the price of oil. In the long-term, as oil wells continue to deplete, market forces will put crude prices on a severe up-swing. Analysts have been saying that we could be looking at $6.00 per gallon very soon!

It is my hope that the following will be the storyline of how America will respond. First, most Americans will realize the implications of these changes and welcome the high prices. Higher oil prices increase the ability for alternative energy products to compete. Pickens may return to his famous plan once again (it’s my hope that the feds, who are not so worried about making a profit, will actually come up with their own plan)! Exorbitant food prices at chain grocery stores will begin to push consumers to their local markets and gardens for fresher, more nutritious, less chemically-sprayed and well-traveled food. City planners, engineers, and developers will realize the true market potential for compact, mixed-use, walkable, and transit-oriented cities. The outer suburbs will slowly waste away. Disproportionate funding for roads and highways will stop, and an influx of former road funds will be thrown into local and regional (and eventually national) public transportation projects. People will begin walking again to obtain their basic needs. People will begin to work the land again, which is truly a great form of exercise. Our collective weight will decrease, which will have an extremely positive effect on our health costs. Finally, and most importantly, veteran pedestrians, such as myself, will be looked to with reverence and given book deals.

Of course, all of this is pie-in-the-sky stuff, and while I hope it happens exactly the way I predict (for somewhat selfish reasons, as the last part of the paragraph alludes to), it is so unlikely that I’m willing to bet on it. Steiner makes a claim that for every dollar per gallon rise in the price of gasoline, obesity will fall 10%. I think he’s right, but to a point. At the $6 level, obesity will decrease quite dramatically, but any higher and alternative fuel vehicles will begin popping up all over the place, which will be the quick death of the re-urbanization movement. The people that can afford to will move back out of the cities. The suburbs will be revived, and the cities will begin to decline again. While the environment will be significantly better than it is now, our health will begin to suffer once more. Finally, we may come full-circle when demand for oil gets so low that oil producers begin to practically give it away at prices cheaper than the alternatives. And, although alternatives would likely never go away, there would always be something to fuel our insatiable appetites for personal vehicles.

As far as obesity goes, as long as we continue our love affair with cars, alternative or not, we will keep getting fatter. Our cities will keep spreading out further and further, especially when the environmental costs are reduced. We’ll develop pedestrian motorized vehicles (we’re already seeing cops using them) that are accessible to almost everyone so that we no longer have to feel the inconvenience of walking or taking public transit ever again. Worst of all, alternative fuels will allow us to segregate our places of residence from our offices and markets to such an extent that those who will still want to walk will not be able to do so. We'll be locked in!

In summary, $20 per gallon will never happen, because we are just waiting until the very last instant in which it will no longer make financial sense to withhold alternative investment. And obesity rates will continue to climb as long as we rely on technology to make our lives “better.” Does this mean that I am for abolishing cars? No, I think there needs to be a middle ground where unnecessary car use is frowned upon and even marginalized and other, more active, forms of transporation are accommodated and encouraged; but if I were in-charge and had a choice of no cars or the scenario I laid out above, for the sake of us all, I would gladly do away with them altogether.