Oil companies say price rises resulting from the American war with Iran could force the government to protect supplies for hospitals and essential services
The thing that scares me about a 1973 scenario is that you’ll be driving further to find fuel you can’t afford anyway, waiting in line during a heatwave with everyone else who didn’t or couldn’t make the transition before the crisis. A car commute beyond ebike distances is going to become really impractical from that input alone. The same crisis is also going to impact car components and all the other costs of ownership. It seems like it will be disruptive enough that it forces change because we can’t live like we did before.
After COVID I’m not willing to trust that my current lifestyle is secure. It’s built on too many complex supply chains under too much chaotic stress. All the crises since COVID have only compounded those stressors. My car commute had to be the first thing to go because they didn’t pay me enough to afford the repairs I couldn’t get parts for in 2020. If I crashed on that commute they’d fire me and I wouldn’t have a replacement for my most expensive possession. That’s too much vulnerability when the only certainty is that things will get worse. I can’t get 550km out of a battery charge like I can with my car, but I can at least get to a neighbouring city more comfortably than walking and quicker than public transit. The degrowth lifestyle it forced me into is much more collapse-proof since everyone will eventually get forced into something resembling it.
The thing that scares me about a 1973 scenario is that you’ll be driving further to find fuel you can’t afford anyway, waiting in line during a heatwave with everyone else who didn’t or couldn’t make the transition before the crisis. A car commute beyond ebike distances is going to become really impractical from that input alone. The same crisis is also going to impact car components and all the other costs of ownership. It seems like it will be disruptive enough that it forces change because we can’t live like we did before.
That’s a very fair point, especially because I’m already in a rural area and my commute is such because I drive back to the suburbs for work.
In a 1973 scenario, my life is probably being upheaved and I’ll be ebiking locally for my gig job…
After COVID I’m not willing to trust that my current lifestyle is secure. It’s built on too many complex supply chains under too much chaotic stress. All the crises since COVID have only compounded those stressors. My car commute had to be the first thing to go because they didn’t pay me enough to afford the repairs I couldn’t get parts for in 2020. If I crashed on that commute they’d fire me and I wouldn’t have a replacement for my most expensive possession. That’s too much vulnerability when the only certainty is that things will get worse. I can’t get 550km out of a battery charge like I can with my car, but I can at least get to a neighbouring city more comfortably than walking and quicker than public transit. The degrowth lifestyle it forced me into is much more collapse-proof since everyone will eventually get forced into something resembling it.