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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
‘Cause the times, they are a changin’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At first, the evidence was purely anecdotal: Daily commuters reporting that traffic seemed lighter than it should be this time of year; my local MARTA parking lot full of more pickup trucks and SUVs than usual; friends from other parts of the country reporting that the highways were less packed than usual.
Then the statistical evidence began to trickle in, backing up eyewitness accounts. The Federal Highway Administration reported that Americans drove 11 billion miles less in March than the previous March, a 4.3 percent decline. Drilling a little deeper into that data, the decline of vehicular travel was even more dramatic here in Georgia, falling 5.8 percent in March.
Looking a little deeper still, travel on rural roads in Georgia fell by 6.5 percent over the previous March, confirming the analysis that rural parts of the state — where distances are longer, alternatives fewer and paychecks slimmer — are being hit hardest by the gasoline crunch.
And now, the state Dep’t of Revenue reports Monday that Georgians bought 175 million fewer gallons of gas this fiscal year than they did last year, a number that will surely rise significantly in the new fiscal year. I bet that’s the first time in modern history that has happened.
These are the short-term effects. The longer term effects on how and where we live, work, play and do business will be significant and at this point unpredictable. If shoppers start to constrict the distance that they’re willing to travel, for example, it could lead to the return of smaller, community-based retailers and the relative decline of big-box stores.
Anybody else have predictions or possibilities on the type of cultural and societal-level changes something like this could produce?
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First the corn, now the tomatoes?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It has always been one of the highlights of summer, the piles of fresh corn on the cob at the grocery store. When corn was at its cheapest, you knew it was at its best, because it meant that the local crop was coming in and flooding the market.
Fresh corn on the cob, dripping with butter, salt and pepper… yes, ma’am, nothing better. Back in an earlier time, when I had enough property to grow it myself, corn picked right off the stalk was a revelation.
But in the summer of ‘08, things are different. For a variety of reasons, the bounties of fresh corn are gone, and the corn that has made it to market so far has fallen well short of the perfection of earlier years. It’s as if something fundamental had gone awry in the universe.
And now they’re pulling tomatoes off the market too. An American summer without corn and tomatoes? What next, a baseball strike?
A few weeks from now, corn from the Midwest’s corn belt would ordinarily start coming into the market. But apparently this year’s crop is likely to be stunted by too much rain, and a poor harvest is predicted. And unfortunately, what the American consumer experiences as an inconvenience may mean starvation in other parts of the world, where life is closer to the edge and paying for food is difficult.
It’s all adds to the sense that the world has gotten a bit out of plumb, economically as well as ecologically. Somehow, I suspect it’s George Bush’s fault.
(That’s a joke, people. Actually, I blame Dick Cheney).
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