Burner Trouble- global warming and climate change from a personal perspective

“Forever is composed of nows”

Emily Dickinson

Honda thinks my new Civic will be worth $12,000 three years from now. I don’t think so. Here’s why.

Gas is inevitably going up up up because of emerging, energy-hungry markets in Asia and the rest of the world.

Higher Demand+ Limited Supply= Higher Prices.

A car that gets ‘only’ 25/36 MPG won’t be in demand.

New car technology, including plug-in hybrids, will be the standard because the demand will be intense and the technology exists now.

As the Car Lady pointed out in a recent comment, leasing is definitely the way to go right now because of these factors. Things are changing so fast that you can’t risk owning an expensive piece of equipment that will become outdated before it is even paid for.

Welcome to the future.

Franke has a nice visual rant about people who don’t shovel the public sidewalks in front of their homes. Now that winter appears to have finally left us this is not an issue but it’s entertaining.

I live in a neighborhood of large, turn of the century (1900 not 2000) homes, most converted into apartments. From my kitchen window I can see down the backyards of my neighbors and each has its own large garage at the rear of their yards. There is a two story brick garage with a green tile roof, a stucco garage with diamond-paned leaded glass windows and a 1.5 story, three car garage with a loft. Not carriage houses exactly but very nice small buildings. In practically any other country these would be desireable buildings to live in. Here they are occupied by cars.

Yesterday I leased a new car in spite of my earlier stated plan to avoid doing so. I’m on a tighter budget these days and the nature of my last lease deal made it a financial no-brainer to just get another car and continue my plan. I drove an Accord (bigger, more boring and less mileage than my 2005 Accord), a Fit (cool little van-like Euro-Honda, 25/35 MPG) and a Civic which I liked best and which, surprisingly, got the best mileage (25/36).

The nature of leasing is that the estimated value of the car at the end of the lease or the ‘residual’ value determines how good a deal you get. The Civic had the best residual, cost about the same, after haggling, as the Fit and was the nicest to drive between the two more efficient cars. The Fit was underpowered but had tons of space. I liked the Civic’s car-ness better.

I’ve never been less excited about buying a new car. Nothing against the cars but it was a choice made for purely financial reasons. I would have just as soon kept driving the Accord but it would have cost me too much in the short term to do so. These are the choices I have to make these days.

So I’m driving the new car home from the dealer which is out there in one of those automall strips you find all over the country. About 1pm on a Monday. Traffic is bumper to bumper and I can’t see a single vehicle with more than one occupant. Our dependence on oil couldn’t be more pronounced. One person per car and each car gets its own nice house. That’s America for you.

And I was alone in my car too. No nice house, just a parking space…

Americans are some of the lowest consumers of rice but for most of the rest of the world it is the staple crop that keeps poorer consumers alive. The doubling of rice prices, coupled with rising prices for virtually all grains, is a major concern. While the US is an exporter of rice, many countries are now restricting exports to try to control prices. In a global economy this won’t work because you cannot have a commodity priced differently in two or more places- sellers in the cheaper country will find a way to sell in the more expensive one (one exception to this is the price of sugar in the US, held artificially high and protected from cheaper exports to the benefit of a few wealthy US sugar producers- a rant for another place!).

Rice, as a crop, is exceptionally sensitive to climate changes. Even a slight warming trend will kill off a crop and this is happening in traditional rice-growing areas worldwide. Because of the unique growing conditions needed for rice (water paddies) you cannot simply replant at a more suitable location. Combined with exploding energy and fuel costs, this forces prices up. It is not a small matter- people will starve.

The climate is a closed system. Changes have wide-reaching and sometimes unpredictable affects. Starvation will be one of them and it could change geo-politics very rapidly as hungry people are angry people.