Rethinking our oil-drenched lifestyles

Changing that culture will be tough, because it inevitably means sacrifice. “No politician wants to stand up in front of his constituency and say look, fossil fuel should be more expensive, we should be traveling less and so on. He’d be hooted off the stage,’’ Heinberg told me.

But he paints a dire portrait of contraction if no one acts, a time when oil is so costly that it limits economic expansion, when big houses are a liability and cars hard to afford. (His institute is developing ways to facilitate carpools, a sort of post-petroleum Zipcar by necessity.) The trick, he says, will be to put a positive spin on the change: We’ll get used to having smaller houses and less stuff. We’ll spend more time outdoors with our families.

Black’s vision is less dramatic. He imagines a slow weaning process that begins with reducing our dependence on foreign oil; he supported the president’s call for more offshore drilling before the BP disaster struck. He calls for policies such as cap and trade that put a price on oil’s long-term implications. And because transportation takes up the bulk of oil consumption, he believes that if we all convert quickly to fuel-efficient vehicles, we’ll still have enough petroleum available for the little things we rely on, the pharmacutical ingredients, diapers, and toothpaste tubes.

Boston Globe