Impermanence

I guess you're right--over the next few months, the power of the disaster will begin to fade as the water is pumped away, infrastructure is restored, refugees settle down in their new locations. The effects of having a major American city more or less obliterated will be more far-reaching, but much less visible than the fires and looters. In fact, with the deployment of more military forces to New Orleans, the fully political aspect of the disaster ("Who lost New Orleans"!) will have more scope to unfold its long, hideous length.

What shock will be enough to get us to reduce our dependence on oil for individual transportation purposes? I was in North Carolina last weekend; gas prices rose by a dollar and for a while there seemed an open question as to whether I would be able to get gas before heading home.

Of course, there was enough gas and I didn't have a problem. More hard-nosed individuals would no doubt scoff at the very shadow of that particular fear and dismiss any further discussion as vaporing. But for someone like me who believes that it would be a good thing if we began to look for alternative energy sources, it begs the question: what would it take for our political leadership to announce that we would begin that process? Gas is more expensive now than any other time since I was alive; more people seem willing to switch, if only to wipe the Saudis in the eye, more people are willing to look at transportation options like hybrid cars and light rail. And yet there has been no government initiative to find less politically problematic energy alternatives (solar and wind can't cut it now), no government declaration of intent to reduce our energy vulnerabilities, let alone a tax on forms of transportation that consume gasoline inefficiently. Okay, so maybe we aren't bitter enough to tax all SUVs. But surely we can get behind, say, a tax on stretch SUVs.

But, fundamentally, I suppose my dilemma is: if not now, when? And what magnitude of catastrophe will have to occur in order to propel us towards that switch?