Fritter, abandon and guzzle

Now that gasoline costs more than crack cocaine, I'm seeing a lot of TV ads for high-mileage vehicles. The same ads that they used to run for SUVs and big trucks. Ads that used to tout horsepower and size now flaunt gas mileage. They've replaced the ones where they told us that those big trucks were safer and more useful in our daily lives for the grocery safari's and running the kids back and forth to soccer practice with ads telling us how efficiently we can get to the grocery store and soccer practice. Five years ago we couldn't have shopped for food and moved children with a 4-cylinder sedan, but now it's practical. Times change.

They play on our fears. Now, we'll start buying sensible cars because gasoline is costly. Prior to that, we could afford to waste gasoline, even though the cars we were buying were no less sensible than they are now, but they're made more practical given the fact that it takes a second mortgage to fill it with gasoline.

Wastefulness is a way of life here in America. It's our birthright to buy things and discard them when they are no longer deemed useful to us, or they are replaced with "new and improved" models, which may just be a different color or contain more RAM.

We'll waste things as long as it is economically practical to do so. There isn't much conscience involved, until our wallet is involved, then we're full of purity and goodness. I think that's why Global Warming is a hard sell. It doesn't have as much to do with the practicality of preserving our planet as it does with the economic feasibility of accomplishing it. We can still afford to put things in flimsy plastic bags and throw out tons of packaging because it doesn't (yet) affect our wallet. Once it does, billions of people will be walking to work, bringing their own bags to the store and turning off the lights when they leave a room.

News articles are starting to crop up about people suddenly feeling the necessity to walk to work, ride a bicycle or shop responsibly because gasoline is expensive and they need to conserve money and resources. Three years ago when gasoline was half the price it is now, those things were both unnecessary and impractical to the same people who are now struggling to conserve.

It is both funny and sad that we have to be forced into doing the right thing. Like when we start to realize that 300 pounds is way too big for a human to be, so we decide to diet and try to exercise, failing to realize that it took 20 years to gain those extra pounds, but now we suddenly feel the need to behave sensibly. We pay attention to our vehicles when they stop running, read our children's report cards when they fail and think about wasting energy and materials when it is financially reasonable. Otherwise, we spend, discard and consume.

It's one of the worst things about us as a society.