long may you rust

So we’ve got a big problem.

We were reading about Neil’s latest project called Linc-Volt. He's currently having the engine in his '59 Lincoln Mark IV converted to bio-diesel and electric and he's documenting it all on film:

"The car, which will boast 100 mpg plus with diesel fuel, will utilize an electric engine and cross the country on less than 2 fill-ups. Linc Volt will also be a V2G (vehicle to grid) plug-in car that allows an easy commute to work and back without the need for any diesel fuel at all. Road tests begin in December.

"The vehicle will not have to stop to recharge on long journeys, said Shakey Pictures' Bernard Shakey. CNN is releasing an interview with Johnathan Goodwin and Neil Young, documenting the historic removal of the huge car's internal combustion engine. This is the first stage in the re-powering of the American dream, according to the interview."

Then Randy L. explained to us:
"I hate to break Neil's bubble but the days of "Happy Motoring" (J.H.Kunstler's phrase) are fading quickly and will soon be gone. There will be no way to "grow" enough fuel or to charge enough batteries to keep this nation's fleet of cars happy and on the road. Plus the car is mostly responsible for the suburban sprawl that has paved over so much farmland, created the trashy landscape of strip malls and Jiffy Lubes, and destroyed the heart of so many small towns across the country.

"All the cool rock and roll car songs notwithstanding, the sooner we wean ourselves off of them, the better. Automobiles will once again be the toys of the very wealthy, as will any airplane travel. This land's vast and extensive network of asphalt and concrete will be too expensive to repair and maintain.

"Trains, on the other hand, can run on just about anything and they can carry a few more folks per trip than a car. I'm not sure why Neil's pouring so much of his time and money into a dying horse(-less carriage) when he already has a fond spot in his heart for the very mode of transportation we desperately need to be working as a society to reclaim.

"[…] go pick up a copy of Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" or "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg, or visit Life After the Oil Crash if you want to get serious about what's about to go down."

I responded:
And then we can watch their entire related infrastructure go to ruin. We won't be able to reverse all it's done and bring back the small town and farmland though, will we?

What then?

To which Randy replied:
"sigh.

"Wondering how the cheap-energy-less future unfolds has got me all tied up in emotional knots too. Especially for our kids. The basic scenario that there will be less oil to meet an ever-growing demand, and that we missed the curve for developing other sources of energy so that we might make a smooth transition while we wean ourselves off cheap oil, well, it strikes me as being pretty realistic and inevitable now.

"All of the suggestions for preparing for what will now be a fairly rough and traumatic transition focus on returning to as locally-centered way of life as possible, which of course is what we should never have let get away from us, but hopefully isn't so far from our grasp as to be impossible to recover. I'm doubtful that we'll have the necessary fuel to run the big machines to break up the parking lots and the big box stores and return the land to fertility. I wonder how long it will take Mother Earth to do that work for us? It's crazy just thinking about it.

"When you think about the era in which we have lived as an "anomaly" in human history, a bubble in which we were allowed to let ourselves go wild with no thought of consequences, it is really sobering. Makes the wisdom of the First Americans rich and deep indeed. Of course, if the Christians who emigrated from Europe had been listening to their Lord and Savior a little more closely and faithfully, a different history may have been written. Alas, it was not to be.

"All right. Enough sermonizing. I have a "real" one to go preach now!! 8>) Thanks for listening."

I can only add:
Thank you, Randy, for your wisdom.

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth. --chief seattle