Tramps Like Us Were Born to Run … Or Not

Reader Contribution by Cam Mather

Jimmy Fallon opened the Emmy Awards on TV last month with the cast from Glee doing “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. It’s the definitive “road” song. The CBC (Canada’s answer to PBS and NPR but without all of the fundraising drives) is sponsoring a series of road songs, written by artists in every province about the road experience. There’s just something about the road. Heading out on the highway. It’s such a North American thing. You can “head out on the highway” on your motorcycle or “get your kicks on route 66” in your RV.

So many people raved about the book “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac that I decided to read it a few years ago. I know I’ll take flak saying this, but I thought it stunk. It was just this endless series of hitch hiking from one coast to the other, and drinking a lot and smoking a lot of dope when he got there. I obviously missed something, but the one thing I got was the freedom that cheap and abundant oil has provided a number of generations. Whether it was a car, a motorcycle, truck, RV, bus – you name it, we’ve been a mobile generation. When Michelle and I got married in 1983 we jumped in to our Toyota Tercel and spent the summer driving across Canada, and down the west coast to California. We camped and stayed with friends and family along the way and I think we lived for almost two months on $500. And that included gas!

The German Military just recently leaked a document acknowledging peak oil and it’s impact. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bild-715138-123997.html

The British government has tackled this recently as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/21/peak-oil-summit

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