A $200 Dollar Barrel of Oil Probably Won't Affect Me That Much -- Why? I Live in Europe

Let's see, I walk about an half hour to work, then jump in the metro for the last fifteen minutes. A yearly metro pass costs approximately $400 per year and my employer pays for it. If I feel like it, I can take a "Velib", a "free" bicycle, the yearly pass, a mere forty US bucks. When I head down to the Mediterranean for summer break with my daughter, the train, with my "enfant-plus" child reduction card (obtaining us a 50% reduction) is less than 200 euros roundtrip for a fur hour ride each way on a very nice fast speed train. I got rid of my car, saving myself thousands which I put to good use elsewhere (like all the vacation time here!)...jealous yet?

Friends are talking me into joining an organic cooperative which supports a farmer near Paris, and the price of food I have to say, have not really changed all that much. I almost always buy locally because I prefer organic produce and I buy fresh a few times a week, in small amounts. The strawberries and plums travel about an hour tops from a farm outside the city and it actually tastes like real food. We buy things that are in season (in fact, try ordering artichokes or asparagus at any restaurant in my neighborhood the wrong time of year and watch the eyebrows rise up.

My daughter and I walk to her free public elementary school (about seven minutes away), where she also attends a homework program which allows me to pick her up by 6 p.m. after work. The lunches served at the cafeteria at her school are posted weekly, and I am always amazed at how varied and seasonal the selection is each time. Her public preschool was completely organic. At the school, they have a free teacher exchange with a school in Italy so every child is also learning Italian! There is one class per year, and they average about one cultural outing a week which takes them to farms, the Louvre, Picasso's former studio, or the High Court.

Prior to this, I lived for many years in Seattle, where I actually (gasp!) owned a car! But I did not need it that often as I lived halfway between the university (where I taught) and the office where I worked. I could walk to each in around thirty minutes. Bicycling is easy in Seattle, buses run often and are clean. I had a garden and friend with gardens and liked to fish, so in the summer I was set...almost no trips to the grocery store except for wine! More and more inner city urban living centers in the US are making this kind of lifestyle possible. Think about it!

I spoke to a leader in the biofuel industry this past week and he talked about how biofuel was NOT the answer, but rather how we should all be focusing on the fact that, because grains and food prices were so low for so long, countries did not plant for their own agricultural needs, but switched to biofuel related production. This is simply wrong. Corn tortillas in Mexico should be made with locally grown corn. There was revolution in France when the price of a baguette soared. It is a primary foodstuff. There will be a push towards genetically modified plants in order to speed up production, especially in poorer parts of the world, which virtually means, we are all going to end up with genetically modified foods whether we like it or not! Next thing you know they will be feeding us vaccines in our genetically modified vegetables even ones we have not decided to take, like for the flu...just get the flu, get chicken pox...unless you have a severely impaired immune system those things do not kill you!

Take back control of your life! Live in a place which has sidewalks! And walk instead of paying a trainer or going to a gym or paying a gazillion dollars to heat your pool. Plant an urban garden patch. Trade surplus with your friends. Eat and home, throw dinner parties, learn to take the time to cook and have a great conversation with your kids.

And instead of driving to the mall, read a book, buy a hammock, make a kite, date women (and men) who don't need you to spoil them with sushi and imported Norwegian mineral water (how stupid is that?)! Meet your neighbors, invite them over, talk about what in the hell has been going on in our country for a very very long time. So long that we think that we are entitled to misuse energy in amounts which could support entire countries.

So I am glad I made this choice to live in a way I find to be sane..and you can do it in the US as well, but not by living in a McMansion and driving an SUV. That was never sustainable even when it appeared to be...was no one thinking?

The only thing cheaper for us right now... is visiting the US! Which we plan to do soon, because the one thing you cannot find enough of in Europe, are Americans talking about the upcoming election. And if you want to know who I am voting for and why, talk to my nine-year old!

Follow Vivian Norris de Montaigu on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive

Comments

[ndem]

Everyone on this planet needs to learn it is time to share!!!! That means all of us! Or there won't be an US anymore...­people living in cities and in densely populated places like Europe know this so they organize themsleves and their lifestyles accordingly. It is simply less wasteful and a more visionary way to live. Yes....go ahead everyone..­.choose your own lifestyle, but then don't complain when the price goes up. (And by the way, living in the city when there are cheap fast trains to take you to the country ain't so bad!)

[KillTheMessenger]

I live in the US, take the bus and train to work, which costs me $120/month, a small fraction of what I would pay for a decent car. We have a Prius for our driving needs, which means that we get by on 10 cents/mile, less than 5 Eurocents/km. A single dinner with a friend costs more than what we spend on gasoline a month, which again, is a tiny fraction of our income.

It's not as bad as most Americans paint it. Many families made a mistake when they purchased their last car, which "had to be" an SUV or truck. Now they are paying for that mistake. Apart from that gasoline prices are not such a big deal. Certainly nowhere near as important as the housing crisis. But then, again, that one is home-made, as well. People around here do not know how to calculate interest and risks, which is the result of a failed school system.

So if I had to arrange the problems the US faces in order or real world importance, I would say:

1) Education.
2) Health care.
3) Housing and credit crisis.
4) Major league baseball doping.
5) The war in Afghanistan.
6) The war in Iraq.
7) Soccer practice for the kids.
8) Gas prices.

That many Americans will see it otherwise is a function of 1), having received a failed education.

[RoloTomassi]

"That many Americans will see it otherwise is a function of 1), having received a failed education.­"

Yet you have listed MLB doping as the #4 issue ABOVE the war in Afghanista­n....

[jrockbg]

You big city folks truly just do not understand that a large percentage of Americans do not live in a big city!

Commuting to work for almost anyone in my city of Omaha, Nebraska is not possible via public transportation. I must travel by personal automobile. On top of that if you have kids, they need to get to school, soccer practice, piano lessons, school functions etc, etc. This also takes a personal auto. The good grocery stores and restaurants aren't near me, neither are the department stores. It is next to impossible to get everything I need close to home.

I am not knocking big city lifestyle. I almost moved to Chicago myself at one time. But why is it that you big city folks simply don't understand that most Americans do not live that way? Gas prices are huge to us. It directly affects how much we spend on energy usage. It indirectly affects our food costs and the cost of other goods. I know there is a bit of humor in your list but gas prices need to be a little higher up there if you even pretend to speculate what MOST Americans think.

[jrockbg]

Vivian,

I agree with many things you say. I agree that America has become WalMart-ed and we bail out and get whats easy. We should go to local farmers markets like I do and seek out local vendors. But I live in Omaha, Nebraska. We have a very nice progressive downtown are but its mostly suburban. Public transportation is simply not an option for getting around town except in lower income areas. Many options that are available to a metro lifestyle are not for us.

And I don't think that's a tragedy. Living in the 'burbs and rural areas is a lifestyle. We always knock the "keeping up with the Jones" aspect of it but it has redeeming value. I enjoy seeing my neighbors on MY terms. I like a yard, a deck, my dogs and actually enjoy living outside the hustle and bustle. I think these things are forgotten by people who enjoy living in metro areas.

It's a little elitist to preach one lifestyle (when you advise people to live where there are sidewalks that's touting your lifestyle over another) over another. Usually the case is there are drawbacks and benefits to each one. I suggest choosing which lifestyle works for you, THEN modify it to suit you and your personal sense of societal responsibility.

[overtheedge]

Great post! I got so annoyed by this anti-suburban attitude that seems to be all the rage today. I get that there's too much reliance on personal transportation. But I like having a backyard. And I don't have a McMansion with a huge area of land. Many people live outside of the city because it's cheaper and there's less crime.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

America's worship of the automobile has prevented us from making any progress on energy independence, will prevent any progress on global warming.

Back in the Nineties whenever the argument came up 'we need a gas tax to support alternative fuels and mass transit and Amtrak' the immediate reaction was mock horror 'why that would make the poor pay $1.80 for gas"! Well now the poor are paying $4+ for gas!.

We need to start the discussion NOW about what a post car dependent society is going to look like , the time for quarter measures like battery cars is past.

[mpkirby]

Oil affects you in ways you probably can't imagine.

The electricity for you public transportation? The food and car bills for your daughter's teacher. The bicycle seat cover that you ride.

Ultimately the inflation will seep into salaries. Wealthier people who live in McMansions will move to cities like yours and you will be forced into more affordable (read: farther away).

Think about it. If during an era of cheap energy, desirable locations were in the suburbs, and undesirable locations were in the City centers, what is expensive energy likely to look like? Or worse -- rationed energy?

Mike

[apoyo]

It all sounds so ideal and so real. Having lived in the same house for 20 years I have noted that the only time that neighbors act neighborly is after we have had a hurricane and we have no electricity. The windows stay open and people come out to their back yards to barbecue and share their food while they commiserate with their neighbors over the back yard fence. Once things return to normal, everyone goes back into their little enclosed spaces, home or car, and the only contact made with others is a wave of the hand to your neighbor as you drive off or they drive off.

And it's true that all I see around me are giant houses and giant cars. I can't help but wonder how the builders and buyers of such huge homes planned to heat and cool such an expanse of space. And all the huge SUV's on the road are carrying one person, the driver.

When you stop to think about it you realize how wrong that is. As wrong as the practice of flying food all over the place so you can choose whatever you want whenever you want. The irony is most people choose fast and fattening food at the nearest fast food place, judging by current waistlines.

This gasoline problem is going to affect more than we realize even now. But it may not all be bad.
Maybe we'll all get more exercise.

[ToeJamSam]

Yeah, and your stuck in a city, aren't you?

[Thorn]

And your economy is somewhat bolstered because you don't have to pay so much for defense. Can you guess why that is? Can you guess who's footing that bill?

[bbrecht]

Did you mean offense? That's what we are paying for-- the right to go into sovereign countries and wage war, so a very small number of people who own oil companies (like the Bushies) can make a killing-- and to heck with the rest of us, we are stupid enough to pay for it.

[Thorn]

You're giving Brecht a bad name.