Do you remember the 1970's oil crisis?
I don't. (I wasn't even born yet.) Yet, a similar anomaly is occurring that is vastly affecting our two wheel friends once again. Thats right, two wheel: the bicycle. When I read about the 1970's oil crisis I didn't find signficance in the long lines at gas pumps or the "Sorry No Petrol" signs blanketing the land echoing a message of rejection. No, I found significance that a large portion of those workers put down their steering wheel and picked up handle bars to commute to their jobs. Suddenly the bicycle was a tool, a utility of purpose and not simply a childrens toy of play.
Today, $100 fill-ups have arrived in the United States. While this spills disaster for the many lives that use the automobile, it can also spill an outcry for better more efficient means of travel. Ethanol, natural gas and electric are all being hoisted up as the solution to our problem, however, the final problem is in the source, not the means. Automobiles, no matter what you take to run them create sprawl and place a large burden on the environment that they are rolling over. Of course, nothing that I say of environmental concerns will dramatically convert the masses. That would take the likes of Al Gore. Like the 1970's oil crisis lines of old, the numbers on the gas pump billboards will be the conversationalist and hopefully in that conversation the bicycle will be found once again.
I had a beautiful conversation today... I live across the street from a Concrete pump truck garage, and have made friends with the night mechanics (they even let me use a huge steel press to straighten a bent fork!). These guys are your prototypical american red voters, they all have several children, are actively religious, they commute from suburb homes in bountiful or even ogden in trucks and sometimes question my roommate's sexuality because he rides a scooter.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I was talking with one of these guys after work and politics come up. Not only has this guy switched from being a Romney supporter to being an Obama supporter, but HE was telling ME how useful the frontrunner was going to be, and how he was considering dusting off his brother's Gitane and bringing it down to get some help fixing it up. I was in shock! It was so great! I think economic shifts make for great paradigm shifts, where people stop seeing things as so politicized and marginalized. Bring on those gas prices!