If some aspiring Ph.D. candidate needs a worthy topic, here’s a suggestion: American land-use patterns and their contribution to global terrorism.
In 1960, the average American’s commute to work was 5 miles one way. By 1980, it had stretched to 12 miles. In 2005, it was 16 miles. About 88 percent of Americans drive to and from work.
These numbers offer a start on some back-of-an-envelope calculations. The civilian labor force comprised 69.6 million Americans in 1960, and 149.2 million in 2005. Estimate the average commuting car got 15 miles per gallon in 1960, and a generous 30 mpg in 2005. Work the numbers, and you get 1.8 billion gallons of gasoline burned for commuting to and from jobs in 1960, and in 2005, 35 billion gallons — nearly 20 times as much.
So for 45 years the population and work force grew, and people moved farther from their workplaces. They also moved farther from stores, churches and schools, and in the process, built an economy and a society utterly dependent on the automobile and gasoline.
On an average day in January of this year, America imported 1,479,000 barrels of crude oil from Saudi Arabia, about 14 percent of total imports.
If crude oil sells for $100 a barrel, how much of that goes to Saudi Arabia? The price we generally see is the New York Mercantile Exchange rate for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude delivered to Cushing, Okla., which has extensive pipeline connections to seaports and refineries. Saudi Oil follows the “OPEC basket price,” which is a little lower on account of more sulfur in the oil, which makes it more expensive to refine. And you have to reckon on transportation costs.
As nearly as I can figure, we inject about $103 million of profit into the Saudi economy every day — about $20 million of this from Americans just routinely commuting.
Where does this $5 billion a year go?
Stuart A. Levey is the U.S. Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial assistance. He testified before a U.S. Senate committee last week, and said that “Saudi Arabia today remains the location where more money is going to terrorists, to Sunni terror groups and to the Taliban, than any other place in the world.”
It would seem reasonable that if we’re going to fight terrorists and the Taliban, we could start by not giving them money.
But even if we perfected domestic switchgrass ethanol or some other pipe dream, there would remain the need to build, expand and maintain roads and to supply parking.
We need to look at ways to rebuild our constructed landscape to reduce the need to commute, to change our zoning laws so that corner stores return, to make driving less necessary and walking and cycling easier, and to ignore oil-apologist propaganda about “social engineering.”
This could not be done overnight, of course, but we could start reconstructing our auto-dominated landscape. Or we could continue to finance the terrorists while supposedly fighting a “war on terror.”
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Last Sunday, I erred in writing that the 20th Amendment gave women the vote in all states. Actually it was the 19th. I blame wretched handwriting, as the “XIX” in my notes looked like “XX.” Fourth- graders, you should pay better attention in penmanship class than I did.
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At 7 p.m. Friday, Tom Noel and I will debate “Who Needs Denver?” at the Salida Steam Plant Theater. Tickets are $10 at the door; it’s a fundraiser for Historic Salida, Inc.
Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) is a freelance writer, history buff, publisher of Colorado Central Magazine in Salida and frequent contributor to The Post.
