There's this person who lives in my neighborhood. Not on my street,
but not far away. I have seen this person many times over the past
three years, just as I have seen many people in the neighborhood,
performing the daily rituals we all choose to perform.
This able-bodied person chose last week to drive to the market to
get a small bag of groceries. The market is about a half a mile away,
perhaps a little more, but not much. Let's say three-quarters.
I was able to notice this, as I have noticed many other people and
activities over the past three years, because I try as much as
possible to run similar errands on my bike. Doing so gives me the
luxury of noticing what others miss as they speed by in the comfort
of their automobiles.
I was able to notice the trip, as you may already have guessed,
because the ride to the supermarket and back took me the same amount
of time that it took to drive it.
Plus, I got some exercise instead of fouling the air and using a
finite resource to get an onion for the stew for dinner.
This story came to mind as I read that President Bush is urging
fuel conservation. In 2005, after decades of encouraging consumption,
this oil man is now telling us to take it easy.
Bush's conservation plan is a short-term one that includes
releasing oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserves in order to meet
demand and reduce price increases that were caused by hurricanes
Katrina and Rita.
Am I the only one who noticed that oil prices shot up long before
the hurricanes hit?
Oh, you noticed that, too?
As soon as there is more production, which the president will
encourage by giving tax breaks to his oil friends so they can build
more refineries, and as soon as the gulf facilities are back on line,
and as soon as we're burning the oil that was set aside for national
defense, he will once again be telling us all is well.
He will do that in order to protect the interests of some major
U.S. corporations, such as the oil industry, the automobile
manufacturers, tire companies and so on.
In short, Bush is doing what any ordinary politician is doing: He
is protecting the status quo. This is not a conservation plan; it's a
consumption plan -- a political move to trick us into believing that
pumping more oil out of the ground will solve all our problems.
A conservation plan offers tax breaks across a wide spectrum of
the development of alternative fuels. It encourages people to walk or
to ride bikes or scooters for short trips, such as the one my
