Best Video Ever
Via Wired, the best YouTube video since Chocolate Rain: an animated look at 24 hours of global air travel, compressed into 72 seconds. Behold:
That's a heck of a lot of flying, no?
Fuel's Regress
Dagnabbit!
On the very next post after Eric gives you the good news on transit ridership holding steady, I have the bad fortune of bringing you the disappointing news. Via The New York Times, MasterCard tells us that US gas consumption went up last week, apparently the first weekly increase in the last 8 months. Despite an increasingly rocky economy, falling gas prices are making it a bit easier to fill up the tank. And though I have no direct evidence of this, I imagine that some folks are filling up quick, before prices spike again. (That's what I did.)
Still, the annual trends are clear: because of high gas prices and a souring economy, analysts are projecting that US gas consumption will have fallen by about 6 percent in 2008. Whoopee, I guess.
Of course, none of this contradicts Eric's point. Contrary to popular opinion from about 1985 to 2005, gas consumption isn't an imperturbable, universal constant. Rather, fuel consumption is a function of gas prices and income trends, as well as the longer-term choices we make when we buy cars or design our cities. Some of these forces take effect quickly; some act more slowly and more profoundly. But they all lead to the same conclusion: there many levers, both in our daily lives and in public policy, that affect how much fuel we consume.
So when it comes to gasoline, almost nothing is inevitable -- except that, sooner or later, we'll have no choice but to wean ourselves from it.
