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Danny Westneat has 50 percent of a good column in the Seattle Times about adapting our hyperconsumptive ways to something we can all live with. But he tries to hang it on the "hypermiler" hook, a buzzword which "means going to extremes—in changing your habits as well as your technology—so you can max out your gas mileage."
Going to extremes is what's got us in the mess we're in. What we want is incremental shifts toward sustainable behavior that you don't need to have OCD tendencies to support. Extremes create overshoot and blowback; sustainable behavior may turn out to be transformative, but it's largely about identifying wasteful gaps and filling them.
Westneat says: "Invest if it makes the country work better. By building mass transit. Solar arrays. Wind farms. Natural-gas cars. New energy grids. Anything that transforms the economy as it boosts it." That first line is the best. Invest in what works better. The Al Gore-ish, magic bullet stuff that comes after...who knows. We'd love solar jetpacks, too, but right now the best way to save gas is not through hypermiling, but by eliminating the gas-guzzlers through fuel efficiency requirements.
Visual illustration thanks to ChrisB, a valued member of the Seattlest Flickr pool.
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I was just talking about Jetpacks yesterday. Soon, Michael. Soon we will soar.
I've got mine on layaway, Troy!
There's another term for hypermiling - dangerous, aggressive driving.
I read the column and while I get the idea of what Westneat is saying, I think he's done a VERY poor job of expressing it.
I'm taking a pass on the jetpack, but I still want my flying car.
Where can I get a fixed-gear jetpack?
"by eliminating the gas-guzzlers through fuel efficiency requirements."
Or if you don't like bureaucratic regulations, a Pigovian gas tax. (or really, just taking away gas subsidies...)
And to LarryB, it is aggressive.
But I'll take aggressive over lackadaisical and inefficient any day.
(you really don't need to take turns at 5 mph...)
@BigGreenFrank: yeah, absolutely, there's more than one way to skin the gas-guzzling cat. In fact, I'd be more supportive of gov't encouragement of fuel efficiency, rather than tell car co.'s what they can and can't make.