A lot of my friends are talking about getting motorcycles. Now let me clear one thing up here and now: They aren’t the leather-wearing, ink-pushing, rowdy type. Most of them don’t have a need for speed.
It’s the $4-a-gallon gas prices that are bringing out the bikers in them.
I don’t have to tell you I’m complaining about high oil prices and the domino effect they create. I’m not going to pretend the rest of the world isn’t hurting along with (and in most cases much more than) me.
But what I don’t understand is why I don’t start picketing in the gas station parking lot after I fill up and see my wallet is empty. Why I don’t write 100 letters to politicians when I see my total on grocery bills (OK, my parents’ grocery bills) is steadily increasing even when my shopping bags are getting lighter. Why I don’t decide to major in alternative energy engineering when I read about people who can barely afford a cup of rice in other countries.
Why aren’t my friends selling their cars for a good helmet and a cheap motorcycle? Why am I not? OK, I’m afraid of motorcycles. But even so.
Instead, I turn my head away from the total displayed at the pump and drive from the gas station holding my breath. And this seems to be what the rest of the country is doing. At $4 a gallon, you’d think we’d be rioting.
I have to work 14 hours to pay for a tank of gas. And I’m not driving an SUV.
If I hadn’t realized it before, it hit me when I was driving my brother and his friend around the other night. They started talking about alternative energy. When else are you going to hear two 16-year-old boys in basketball shorts talking about solar power?
Clearly this is a sign of some kind of impending apocalypse.
My brother is always trying to fool me. He told me he heard on the radio people are turning off their cars when they turn corners to conserve gas. Well, I’m pretty sure this would cause major driving problems, but for rhetoric’s sake I’m going to believe there’s some measure of truth to it and say “This is the kind of extreme action we need to take, folks!”
When the cost of oil started to climb a few years ago, “experts” said if gas prices ever reached the $4 mark, people wouldn’t stand for it any longer. Well, here we all are, the majority of us just uttering a few complaints to our friends and then turning the ignition key. I haven’t seen the bicycling community boom. People are taking notice but most aren’t making changes.
I’ll be 61 in 2050 when the population of the world is expected to exceed 9 billion. By 2025, 79 percent of the world’s population is expected to be middle class. That means more people driving around and turning on the lights and buying Starbucks. We’re going to require more energy use than ever. Frankly, that terrifies me. If you think I sound whiny now, just wait 42 years.
We can’t just sit back and wait for the magic bullet. I don’t think it’s coming.
ALERT! I have just heard on the television that some police departments have begun campaigns to conserve gas. This includes driving less cars and more motorcycles. This is relevant for two main reasons:
1. I’ve already used the word motorcycles in this column.
2. This proves I’m wrong. Kind of. Some people are doing something.
But what we need is most people doing most everything.
Back to that magic bullet. It’s fine to keep searching, but in the meantime we need to implement everything we can to cut the burden oil is on us.
I hear a lot about everything wrong with our current alternative energy sources. Biofuels make people hungry. Wind power chops up birds as they fly south for the winter. Nuclear power gives us a lot of extra dangerous stuff we’re afraid of and we have to hide underground.
Solar power only works when it’s, well, sunny. And it’s ugly and expensive.
Wait, did I just hear that? Let’s rephrase. Oil is expensive.
We need to take all of these energy sources and use them as much as we can. If we can get 10 percent of our power from solar, use 10 percent nuclear power, and on and on and then conserve energy by 10 percent, we’ve already accomplished a lot.
My friends and I may not have the resources to build a solar farm, but we can decide to leave our cars behind when we go to college, or tell our parents they really don’t need that second home in the mountains. We can refuse to give in to buying that shiny new iPod just because it looks cooler than the ones we already have.
Now, if only I can convince my dad to fix up the motorcycle that’s been lying in the shed.
Laurelin Kruse (lbkruse@gmail.com) from Alamosa will enter Yale University this fall. This is an online-only Colorado Voices column.
