It’s rare that I agree with John McCain anymore. I used to think he was sincere about reforming campaign finance (maybe he was for a while) and about not torturing our enemies (he seems to have forgotten what he learned in those Vietnamese camps) or ending tax cuts for the rich (before he needed the rich to fund his campaign). But when he said that the solution to the energy crisis has to be widespread conservation, not simply moral acts of individual conscience, I saw a glimmer of hope that he was ready for the twenty-first century.

And then he endorsed more offshore drilling for oil.

Follow up:

So I guess his idea of conservation is different from what I had in mind—government policies that would encourage less consumption. Because at this point, it’s not just about running out of petroleum and coal, it’s that burning them is choking the planet. Right, Senator McCain?

Actually, I still favor of people acting upon their personal moral convictions. That is often all we’ve been able to rely on since Ronald Reagan took office in 1980 and proclaimed it was morning in America. He might as well have announced, “Take leave of your senses.” Global warming? Nothing certain. Oil shortage? Blame the Arabs. Deadly pollution? Here are the keys to an SUV. Scientific research? Only theories. In this, George W. Bush is his natural heir and Dick Cheney is Bush’s enabler, on speed himself.

When Jimmy Carter packed up his cardigans and moved out of the White House, denial and a sense of entitlement moved in. The Republican mentality, which Bill Clinton did nothing to quash, was that we could have it all. And some of us still do have it, and more. Since 1950, the average home has more than doubled in size to 2,495 square feet in 2006. Architect Robert Stern recently designed a 30,000 square foot private mansion in the east end of Long Island, which is not that unusual in some neighborhoods these days. It has 21 bathrooms. Three and four car garages for the family fleet are increasingly common. Hummers for fun. The cottage in the mountains or at the beach has morphed into vacation homes for each season. Personal golf courses. Your own jet. If you can afford it, why should you be denied? Who has the patience for carpooling or public transportation? Or sharing recreational space?

I’m not dismissing the Green movement, which is gradually and thoughtfully raising people’s consciousness in some quarters, but I believe it must be supported by widespread public policy that spreads the burden equally among the environmentalists and the deniers, the rich and the poor, and doesn’t leave room for notions that we are not in this together. That’s what I thought you meant, Senator. Was I wrong?

Reflecting on your choice of that somewhat dated term, conservationism, rather than any word beginning with an E, I guess you were shouting out to the hunting and fishing crowd. Maybe you’ve written off people you think of as tree-huggers and the vegans and the Gore groupies, but I hope at least that you’re listening to some scientists who will tell you what George W. Bush refuses to hear.

If rising gas prices mean we leave the family car(s) at home more or swap the Hummer for a Jeep, that’s a good thing. I’m in favor of taxing the record profits of the oil industry, but I don’t think more plentiful oil and cheap gas are the solutions to the larger issue.

We need to examine the automotive-driven patterns of development that began after World War II and have multiplied exponentially. Want to tear down that three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house and replace it with a McMansion? You might reconsider if you had to pay a surcharge on fuel and water and electrical consumption over a reasonable per capita quota. Or suppose you had to pay more highway tax for those roads you use all the time. Developers who gobble up acres of farmland for ex-urban housing should be required to set aside land for simple commercial functions; if you have to drive ten miles round trip for a gallon of milk, what is its real cost? We’ve become so casual about stocking up at malls and big box stores that we’ve forgotten the practical and social functions of old-fashioned downtowns and mom-and-pop enterprises.

Even in Manhattan where I live, small commercial operations like clothing stores, family restaurants and delis, shoe repair shops and barbershops, hardware and appliance repair stores are increasingly replaced by chain drug stores, commercial banks, and fast-food and coffee franchises. The chains are the only tenants able to pay the rent, because they can absorb the loss (at least for a while). But neighborhoods are poorly served, and people must go farther afield for services or forego them entirely. And the people who can go farther afield are those with cars, of course. Who needs to repair shoes that are rarely walked in?

I was thinking about this Friday while I waited a very long time for an M11 city bus. Our Mayor Bloomberg takes the subway regularly, which I applaud, but he’d wreck his schedule if he took the bus. (His congestion pricing tax for driving in midtown was the kind of policy I think we need, but legislators in Albany decided otherwise.)

“They tell you take public transportation, and then they make you suffer,” said a tired woman standing beside me, who announced that she was 63 years old and had been working since she was 15. She feels vulnerable on the subway steps, she said.

Meanwhile, we breathed the air polluted by commuters and folks on their way to their country houses and waited some more as the line grew longer. I can’t say it felt like a moral choice.

Here are links to a few interesting articles I read while writing this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5525283
http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/4742
http://prudential.starnewsonline.com/default.asp?item=666853
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/jun/13/house-size-limits-pass/