Oceans of Garbage

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have publicly referred to their goals of reducing US dependence on foreign oil.  Yet neither of them has bothered to say what (if anything) that might actually mean.  Probably, they’re talking about oil shale, drilling in the Arctic, and colonization of Iraq and Iran (just kidding - or am I?).  The goal is presumably to reduce foreign oil by increasing domestic oil, mostly via methods that have been abandoned in the past as being too costly, inefficient, and unpopular.

But wouldn’t it be so much easier and cheaper to just reduce our oil consumption, to the point where current US production is enough to cover us?  I’m not going to tell you how much oil the US uses each year, you should be able to look that up for yourself (hint: try an almanac), but I will tell you that 55% of our oil is imported.  Mathematically speaking, if we reduced oil consumption by 55%, our dependence on foreign oil would instantly be over.  Problem solved.  So how do we do that?  The biggest use of oil by far is for energy.  69% of oil energy is devoted to transportation.  It seems clear to me that planes, trains, and automobiles are the best place to start cutbacks.  Here are a few ideas:

1. HOV Lanes: Currently, most city freeways have a single lane dedicated to carpools, buses, and other multi-passenger vehicles, and 3-6 lanes for everyone else.  The basic idea is to reward those who don’t drive alone.  That’s nice, but it’s not enough - to reduce oil dependence, we need to punish those who do drive alone.  So switch the lanes.  Carpools and buses get 4 lanes all to themselves, and those who are too good for mass transit all have to cram into a single lane.  When a half-hour commute turns into a 6-hour commute overnight, people will be begging to join carpools, and complaining about the lack of mass transit options to city officials.  I bet we could get half the cars off the road during rush hour that way, making commuting safer and less stressful.  Cost of this idea - basically free, as sign maintenance and line-painting are already accounted for in city, state, and federal transportation budgets.

2. Fuel economy: set a minimum of 20 miles per gallon, and get rid of all vehicles that don’t cut it (excluding military vehicles).  Oh sure, there’s plenty of people who think they need a 6mpg SUV to get up their driveway or haul their boat to the lake, and we’ll let them have their vehicles - at an additional licensing fee of at least $500 per year.  That licensing fee helps pay tax credits to those who buy economic vehicles - 40mpg gets you 1 point, 60mpg gets you 2 points, 80 gets you 3, etc., with each point being assigned a dollar value.  After 5 years, the minimum goes up to 25, and the credit scale will adjust along with it.  With the right incentives, automakers will jump over themselves to make more efficient cars for us to leave in the garage while commuting.  Cost - fees and payouts will lead to a cash surplus in the beginning, but will hopefully balance over time, making this another no-cost proposal.

3. Electric trains: our stuff has to be shipped across the country, but we don’t need to use diesel fuel (aka foreign oil) to do it.  We have plenty of sunshine and wind right here, let’s power our trains with it.  Electric trains can be found all over the world, and they are just as able as their diesel cousins to pull a heavy load.  Wire up all the tracks, and attach the wires to the national power grid.  We can use wind and solar power to enhance the output of the grid, and battery technology to store excess for times of need.  Hey, why not put little windmills next to the train tracks, so that the trains can create electricity just by driving by?  Eventually, the electric trains would be so efficient and cheap that many long-haul trucks can be replaced, saving even more diesel fuel (and getting those menaces off the highways).  Cost - enormous, but electrical technology will have so many great side effects that it will be worth it in the long run.

4. End auto-racing: the dumbest thing you can do with a precious product like gasoline is burn it up driving around in a circle.  Seriously, do the math - the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series includes 41 races, totalling 17,160 miles of track.  There’s about 50 drivers, but not all of them qualify, and not all of them finish the whole race, so I’ll be fair and say that there are 45 cars in each race.  And the official word on Google is that NASCAR vehicles average about 4.5 miles per gallon.  Meaning that the 2008 Sprint Cup Series will eat up 171,600 gallons of gasoline.  That doesn’t even account for practice runs, qualifying races, transporting the cars from venue to venue, and the gas guzzled by spectators, the crews, and other race personnel.  And that’s just one racing series!  There’s a couple other NASCAR series, Formula-1, and hosts of others to deal with.  Not to mention top-fuel dragsters, monster truck madness, and all the other gas-hogging arena and speedway events.  Cost to end organized auto-racing - zero dollars and zero cents.

That’s four ideas that we could get started on today.  Hell, we could have started on it 20 years ago.  But the last few administrations haven’t been interested in reducing oil consumption, and I see no indications that the administration of the next four years will be any better.  Oil is such a big business that even if their profit margins were less than one percent, oil companies could still make trillions of dollars collectively.  It’s in their best interest to increase our consumption, and it’s also in their best interest to make sure the president works in their best interest, which is why they spend so much money on lobbying and electioneering.

So don’t get your hopes up for a sane energy or foreign trade policy from the next president.  Instead, prepare yourself for endless hype about fuel efficient cars (which get worse mileage than a ‘78 Volkswagen), endless hype about how oil companies aren’t the bad guys, and endless hype about how Iran, another oil-rich nation, is doing something wrong.  But all hope is not lost.  You can still reduce your own fuel consumption.  Not because you made a hollow campaign promise, but because it’s the right thing to do for our society, our future, and our environment.

But it’s nice to know that I could.  The State of California has legalized gay marriage, and the state courts have upheld it.  So starting later this month, it is an option.  That’s great, a giant step forward in the fight for social justice for people of all sexual orientations.  Unfortunately, it’s not the end of the fight.  In point of fact, it may be a hollow victory.

As I see it, there are 3 main reasons to get married.  The first is to prove and document two persons’ love for one another.  Which is mostly a symbolic thing, because the vows of marriage aren’t any sort of guarantee against infedelity.  Plus, you can express a permanent commitment to another person in the privacy of your own home - a minister and a license are not necessary.  However, the symbolism is important to some people, and the fact that I don’t give a crap doesn’t mean I have the right to deny such a gesture to anyone else.  If the sole intent of legalization was to formalize the gesture of gay marriage, then I’d say the California decision is a decisive win.

The second reason is to take advantage of state and federal tax breaks for married couples.  I don’t know what sort of provisos are riding on the California legalization for state taxes.  But I do know that the IRS isn’t ready to recognize gay marriage.  That would take a federal ruling, something that is still many, many years down the road.  Of course there’s always the option of modifying the tax code - yeah, right.  The California decision proves that legalizing gay marriage is easier (and offends less people) than federal tax reform.

And the third reason to get married is to capitalize on insurance benefits.  Marriage is the foundation of the family unit, and under current medical insurance scams, er, policies, families get benefits at reduced rates.  Most people currently get their medical insurance through their employer, and the benefits available include some sort of family inclusion plan.  Meaning that since you are automatically insured just by joining the company, your spouse and kids can also be bootstrapped into guaranteed coverage.  This avoids a lot of hassles, like admissions essays, pre-insurance exams, and pre-existing condition denials.  The thing is, though, that the insurance companies themselves are responsible for deciding what constitutes a family.  A California marriage license may not mean shit when there is a sexual orientation question on your insurance application.  The State of California cannot force insurance providers to recognize its definition of marriage.  The good news, though, is that I strongly believe that health insurance reform is coming soon, probably within the next 2 years.  Certainly, we will see some sort of reform before gay marriage is federally accepted.  Although the specific character of those reforms is yet to be seen, I’m hoping they will alleviate many of the concerns people have about coverage and hassles.

The victory in California is largely a symbolic one.  The State of California has sent a message to the American people that change is inevitable, and it is coming, perhaps sooner than anyone thought.  But this is, to turn a phrase, one giant leap for man, one small step for mankind.  There’s a lot more work to be done - minds to change, hearts to enlighten, and policies to be hammered out.

Hey, at least we’re moving in the right direction!