Transportation For America » Ending a Vicious Cycle

Ending a Vicious Cycle

December 1, 2008
By Andrew Bielak

In an interview last month, President-elect Barack Obama described America’s addiction to oil as a ‘shock and trance‘ cycle, in which increasing oil consumption creates skyrocketing energy prices, leading to calls to for bold solutions and energy independence — that is, until prices temporarily drop and our political leaders conveniently avoid tough issues like energy security and climate change.

After oil prices hovered at record levels throughout the summer, it’s not altogether surprising that as the price of oil has plummeted alongside our economy, some are looking for new excuses to avoid our most pressing global issues. For influential players in this debate, it’s an easy time to argue that an economic recessions give us little leverage to create bold alternative energy plans or fight climate change with investment in new technologies.

As president Obama indicated, we have to break down the illogical notion that our efforts on energy security and climate change should come to a halt in order to rebuild our economy. Fortunately, the most obvious answer here is also the simplest: We can do both.

Policy insiders, political pundits, and top administration members have all argued that making the right investments in modern, green infrastructure — repaired highways and bridges, expanded mass transit capacity, new bicycle and pedestrians paths, improved freight and passenger rail –- would support millions of sustainable jobs and help us transition to a more sustainable, energy independent, 21^st-century economy. If we can absorb that lesson, we might be able get something big done with an economic recovery package next year — and help kill our ‘shock and trance’ mentality for good.

Filed under: Campaign Blog
Tags: climate change, economic recovery, energy security, infrastructure, obama

http://austinbikeblog.org/2008/12/03/bicycle-blog-roundup-12308/ Bicycle Blog Roundup, 12/3/08 | Austin Bike Blog

[...] Ending a Vicious Cycle, Transportation for America After oil prices hovered at record levels throughout the summer, it’s not altogether surprising that as the price of oil has plummeted alongside our economy, some are looking for new excuses to avoid our most pressing global issues. [...]
http://www.setenergy.org Dennis Markatos-Soriano

Great post-
Combining economic recovery and climate mitigation efforts is crucial! The good news is people are driving less with the vehicles they have – sending US oil consumption down more than 5% in 2008 and driving an overall GHG emissions cut of ~2.5% this year. EIA data suggest a further emission drop in 2009. Now it’s our job to plan the future when emissions fall even when the economy is growing quickly (kicking low-carbon energy sources into a higher gear). See details of the ‘08 emissions drop at
http://setenergy.org/2008/11/13/a-banner-year-for-us-climate-research-sees-sharp-emissions-drop/

And if you find SET’s daily blog at http://www.setenergy.org on energy and climate developments useful, please add it to your blogroll.
Onwards to sustainability,
Dennis
http://marketurbanism.com/2008/12/08/urbanism-legend-creating-jobs-with-infrastructure/ Urbanism Legend: Creating Jobs With Infrastructure | Market Urbanism

[...] job creation myth were true, and could stimulate the economy immediately, you would think urbanists would not sacrifice urbanist ideals for the sake of short-term recovery through so-called progressive [...]