The Cheap-Energy Mind
Stephen Levitt's Freakonomics created such a nationwide brouhaha in both popular and academic circles namely for its counter-intuitive, cunning spin on what we considered classical cases of cause-and-effect. True, some of his correlative exercises may be a bit of a stretch, but it does pause one to wonder...could that really be true?
Such is the effect of a relatively new study (2007) from Washington University in St. Louis. The apples and oranges in question today? Gas prices and obesity.
Charles Courtemanche, an economics professor at Washington U, found a 13% increase in obesity between 1979 and 2004, which he attributes to the overall falling price of gas during that time. His conclusions are based on a comparison of average fuel prices at the state level with their subsequent health behavior trends as documented in surveys spanning 1984 - 2004.
The most radical conclusion to his findings: Courtemanche projects that, for every additional $1 tacked onto the price of a gallon of a gas, the American obesity rate would fall by 9% subsequently. You know, raise a buck--get the nip and tuck.
But how?
Consider this: if a quarter of all car trips are now shorter than a mile, that would mean people are walking / biking more to curb the extra fuel expenditure, giving their bodies the extra metabolic boost. In addition, going out to eat as a means of entertainment or staple mealtime would theoretically decrease, meaning people would rather save money by cooking meals at home, which are generally speaking much more healthier than the preservative-ridden foods of the fast-food industry. All this would create a scenario where walking is as commonplace as driving, irregardless of access to big-city public transportation, thus collectively shaving (according to an estimate put out by the American Meteorological Society) a hefty 3 billions pounds of the national waistline.
A personal example to tag along this study. Madison Market Co-op is 1.2 miles from our apartment, which is that watershed distance between too far to walk but too close to drive. But, considering the extra weight in carrying home a few bags of groceries, it'd be much easier to drive to the market rather than 'waste all that time and energy' in hauling groceries by hand, not to mention the 2.5 mile roundtrip full of those West Coast hills. Thus, guilty as charged, I confess my guilt, echoing the same choice of millions of Americans who choose to burn fossil fuels in the name of their personal efficiency.
Yet, this mindset, this ethic in which we value time management and convenience over its environmental and post-generational fallout is not a novel idea. In fact, it started over a hundred years ago with the advent of specialization (also known as the division of labor). By specialization, I don't wish to conjure images of assembly line workers in the first Ford factory, each having their specific role to tighten a nut, install a wheel, etc. Take a step even a few years prior to the assembly line era, when refined oil started to become a mass-produced commodity for use in combustion engines. Suddenly, where communities previously had to rely on one another to provide food, services, and goods for day-to-day existence, now communities could travel beyond their quaint set of homesteads, knowing that we could now summon the specialties of other individuals to meet our growing wants and needs. I'm hungry and would like a bowl of cereal...so, I open up my refrigerator (powered by a coal-burning plant), grab a gallon of organic milk (shipped from rural Washington), and make a bowl of cereal (from a grain mill in Minnesota). If I'm lucky, at any given meal, I might have depended on goods from at least four other states, most of them located in the Midwest. But do I worry myself in trying to find a local farmer to buy pasteurized milk, or grind my own garden-raised grain to make cereal, or dine by candlelight to save on electricity? Of course not...because I have never had to.
This is the bane of what Wendell Berry calls the 'cheap-energy mind.' Cheap, available, deliverable energy infuses our collective consciousness as water is to a fish. Every conceivable commodity or past-time is inextricably linked to the convenience of cheap power, to imagine a life otherwise is nearly impossible. Thus, the cheap-energy mind is the one that asks, 'Why bother?' in response to topics such as climate change or a post-petroleum planet. The cheap-energy mind is the one that translates every discussion of value into a discussion of money. The cheap-energy mind is the one that puts faith in the 'specialized,' namely, our planet's economists and innovators, who hope a few shifts in market strategy and investment opportunities will properly align an economy based on self-interest to therein place its value on the right things, and therefore reality as we know it now will resume 'normalcy' once again. But this isn't revolutionized thinking...it is merely, as one author states, 'a greener version of the old invisible hand.' Same hand, same tricks, same death-hold grasp on cheap energy to sustain our lifestyles and existence.
But back to the Washington University study on gas prices and obesity...how does this, the excess pounds and the cheap energy mind, all tie together?
Quite frankly, if there is something proper to be done in response to the climate crisis, the oil crisis, or the fill-in-the-blank crisis, we as a people cannot rely on legislation alone. In fact, is not relying on our legislators a mere fall-back to specialization, where we confer all the hope (as well as blame) on individuals we assign the role of meeting a certain need? Or, as the more textbook argument, are not our politicians representatives of the beliefs and desires of the people that voted them into office? As Michael Pollan of the NY Times wrote,
Yikes, and isn't this the longest argument I've ever read for walking to the grocery store.
Such is the effect of a relatively new study (2007) from Washington University in St. Louis. The apples and oranges in question today? Gas prices and obesity.
Charles Courtemanche, an economics professor at Washington U, found a 13% increase in obesity between 1979 and 2004, which he attributes to the overall falling price of gas during that time. His conclusions are based on a comparison of average fuel prices at the state level with their subsequent health behavior trends as documented in surveys spanning 1984 - 2004.
The most radical conclusion to his findings: Courtemanche projects that, for every additional $1 tacked onto the price of a gallon of a gas, the American obesity rate would fall by 9% subsequently. You know, raise a buck--get the nip and tuck.
But how?
Consider this: if a quarter of all car trips are now shorter than a mile, that would mean people are walking / biking more to curb the extra fuel expenditure, giving their bodies the extra metabolic boost. In addition, going out to eat as a means of entertainment or staple mealtime would theoretically decrease, meaning people would rather save money by cooking meals at home, which are generally speaking much more healthier than the preservative-ridden foods of the fast-food industry. All this would create a scenario where walking is as commonplace as driving, irregardless of access to big-city public transportation, thus collectively shaving (according to an estimate put out by the American Meteorological Society) a hefty 3 billions pounds of the national waistline.
A personal example to tag along this study. Madison Market Co-op is 1.2 miles from our apartment, which is that watershed distance between too far to walk but too close to drive. But, considering the extra weight in carrying home a few bags of groceries, it'd be much easier to drive to the market rather than 'waste all that time and energy' in hauling groceries by hand, not to mention the 2.5 mile roundtrip full of those West Coast hills. Thus, guilty as charged, I confess my guilt, echoing the same choice of millions of Americans who choose to burn fossil fuels in the name of their personal efficiency.
Yet, this mindset, this ethic in which we value time management and convenience over its environmental and post-generational fallout is not a novel idea. In fact, it started over a hundred years ago with the advent of specialization (also known as the division of labor). By specialization, I don't wish to conjure images of assembly line workers in the first Ford factory, each having their specific role to tighten a nut, install a wheel, etc. Take a step even a few years prior to the assembly line era, when refined oil started to become a mass-produced commodity for use in combustion engines. Suddenly, where communities previously had to rely on one another to provide food, services, and goods for day-to-day existence, now communities could travel beyond their quaint set of homesteads, knowing that we could now summon the specialties of other individuals to meet our growing wants and needs. I'm hungry and would like a bowl of cereal...so, I open up my refrigerator (powered by a coal-burning plant), grab a gallon of organic milk (shipped from rural Washington), and make a bowl of cereal (from a grain mill in Minnesota). If I'm lucky, at any given meal, I might have depended on goods from at least four other states, most of them located in the Midwest. But do I worry myself in trying to find a local farmer to buy pasteurized milk, or grind my own garden-raised grain to make cereal, or dine by candlelight to save on electricity? Of course not...because I have never had to.
This is the bane of what Wendell Berry calls the 'cheap-energy mind.' Cheap, available, deliverable energy infuses our collective consciousness as water is to a fish. Every conceivable commodity or past-time is inextricably linked to the convenience of cheap power, to imagine a life otherwise is nearly impossible. Thus, the cheap-energy mind is the one that asks, 'Why bother?' in response to topics such as climate change or a post-petroleum planet. The cheap-energy mind is the one that translates every discussion of value into a discussion of money. The cheap-energy mind is the one that puts faith in the 'specialized,' namely, our planet's economists and innovators, who hope a few shifts in market strategy and investment opportunities will properly align an economy based on self-interest to therein place its value on the right things, and therefore reality as we know it now will resume 'normalcy' once again. But this isn't revolutionized thinking...it is merely, as one author states, 'a greener version of the old invisible hand.' Same hand, same tricks, same death-hold grasp on cheap energy to sustain our lifestyles and existence.
But back to the Washington University study on gas prices and obesity...how does this, the excess pounds and the cheap energy mind, all tie together?
Quite frankly, if there is something proper to be done in response to the climate crisis, the oil crisis, or the fill-in-the-blank crisis, we as a people cannot rely on legislation alone. In fact, is not relying on our legislators a mere fall-back to specialization, where we confer all the hope (as well as blame) on individuals we assign the role of meeting a certain need? Or, as the more textbook argument, are not our politicians representatives of the beliefs and desires of the people that voted them into office? As Michael Pollan of the NY Times wrote,
'For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we're living our lives suggests we're not really serious about changing--something our politicians cannot fail to noice. They will not move until we do.'Personal lifestyle change, while the most rudimentary and close-at-hand change scheme as it may be, is the key to reversing not only the national obesity rate but our cheap-energy mind. The predictability of success is much more difficult to measure, but such viral social movement is how some of the world's most sustainable revolutions have been achieved. Consistency has to start somewhere, and it starts with...well, me, before I can effectively spread such a compelling message.
Yikes, and isn't this the longest argument I've ever read for walking to the grocery store.
posted by Steve Pratt at 6:58 AM
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