Gas shortages leave people “trapped at home” and “unable to do anything.”
I have been paying attention to news stories about what happens when a community either truly runs out of gas or when rumors cause people to believe their community will run out of gas.
It isn’t pretty. Typically things fall apart pretty fast. It shocks me how little it takes for people to resort to panic and violence over a few gallons of gas. But, on the other hand, people are so desperately reliant on this stuff that maybe I should not be so surprised. Of course, I too am desperately reliant on petroleum to grow and ship my food, pump water out of the diminishing aquifer beneath Tucson, and move the coal to fire the turbines to keep this computer running and my cooling system going. (I also need small amounts of it to lubricate my many bike chains and bearings.)
But one thing I don’t seem to need at all is a full gas tank.
The story linked above describes the helplessness so many people feel when they cannot buy gas. I feel for them: they have constructed lives for themselves that cannot be sustained without a daily infusion of the stuff. They live far from anyplace they might ever want to go or be, and their very identities are built upon oil.
When oil really does become scarce and not just our convenience but our food supply is at stake, I fear the fistfights at the gas pump are going to be very least of our worries. Maybe the Mad Max movies were not so far off the mark.
–Erik Ryberg
September 28th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Without fuel they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed.
Except for one man armed with an AK-47, and a Honda full of silver.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
From the Road warrior? For some reason I just flashed on a mental picture of Wez and his blonde buddy furiosly pedaling a tandem.