By Carla Blackmar

I feel like I’m hearing more about Earth Day this year than in years past; on NPR, in the newspapers, on the trolley, and even from my University’s business club. Earth Day seems to have become mainstream, and I think the primary forces we have to thank for this are OPEC, geopolitics, and the higher-than-usual gas prices the US has experienced over the past year. Nothing says “Earth Day” like $3+/gallon at the pump.

Now I’m sure some readers will find it unbecoming of me to gloat about the high price of oil, given the very tragic reasons why the world oil supply is getting caught up on the way to our cars. But these tragedies associated with the oil trade have been going on for a very long time; it’s just that they are rarely so forcefully expressed in real dollar prices. The injustice in Iraq is not new (though through our interference, that nation has become a slow-hemorrhaging bloodbath.) The dictatorships and political inequities throughout the oil producing world, and US complicity in these regimes is a story as old as the Federal Highway Administration.

Others may further condemn my celebration of high oil prices on the grounds that the economic burden of high prices is inequitably borne on the backs of the poor. I readily acknowledge that this is true. But I also have to ask: what hurts the poor more? Higher oil prices today, or the catastrophic consequences of keeping the prices artificially low? Though it might seem like a stretch, I don’t think it’s wholly unreasonable to say that the rise in damaging storms like Hurricane Katrina has some connection to many decades of artificially low oil prices in our nation. And Hurricane Katrina certainly hurt the poor.

The other thing that will hurt the poor, and everyone else, is not seeking realistic solutions to our dependence on oil as soon as possible. Oil prices will drop again, and we will all breathe a temporary sigh of relief, but we are living on borrowed time; something which even George W. Bush acknowledges. So what do we do to find solutions to our reliance on oil?

In the last year, I feel like I’ve heard innumerable answers to this question. For those of you who believe in technological solutions to the problem, I encourage you to put your money where your mouth is. Sign up for the New American Dream’s Green Cars Now! campaign, donate money to your State Technical institute, and, whenever it is necessary that you buy a new car or technology, spend the extra money required to buy the best, greenest technology you can find. Be sure to tell people why you spent the extra money while you’re at it.

For those of us who are not yet established enough to vote for sustainable transit with our wallets, we can do so with our actions. Despite Tom Freidman’s insufferable smugness, I believe that the analogy he draws in “The World is Flat” between the Cold War space-race, and today’s race for sustainable transport and energy is a good one. He argues that our challenge today in finding a solution to our fossil fuel use, and to the ravages of global warming, should be the intellectual and financial rallying-point of our generation. We need to dedicate our educations, brain power, time, and energy to this problem with an earnestness to which we are not generally accustomed. While we fritter away our time on MySpace, our cause is staring us in the face. Things will go much better for us if we confront it sooner than later.

And for everybody, the time to do something about our transport and energy needs is now. We can do it every day, by walking, skateboarding, scooting to the places we usually drive. We can help support our local public transit by using it. If there’s one thing you should commit to do for Earth Day, it should be this.

So it seems wrong that $3/gallon gasoline is the best promotion for Earth Day available. It’s not like all that money goes to a good cause. But the social dynamics created by that price have a positive component. My advice to myself, and to all of us this year is to seize this moment to actually do something. Get on the bus, get out of your car, and let other people know you’re doing it.
Happy Earth Day, from Sparrowpost.net