STRANDED IN WASTELAND.

It's no accident that both the USA and Australia, with Canada, emit up to more than three times the carbon dioxide per person, that France does. It's not just because these countries are huge (most of the populations are actually concentrated, and France is also pretty big, the size of Texas, and very spread out). It's not just because gasoline was kept all too long very cheap in these countries (whereas it was made voluntarily expensive in Europe, by huge taxes). It's because of a willful cultural tweak.

As they devoured entire continents (Australia, North America) the European colonists had interest to push and enjoy a culture of waste (because a wasteful culture helped in wasting the human element which was there before). Thus waste anywhere, anyhow, was favored. Thus no wonder the first rule of European urbanism was forgotten: don't sprawl!

An example. In the San Francisco Bay Area local authorities have resisted allowing the construction of high density housing, around transportation nodes (such as train stations) for no good reason whatsoever, except keeping on doing what they do best: augmenting GDP with giant traffic jams. The same authorities keep the price of operating a car with a single person on board cheaper (by at least 50%) than taking public transportation, even across the bridges they control the fares of. No matter that they have been unable, for nearly 20 years to build a replacement for the quake damaged Bay Bridge, and that cities are going bankrupt.

An economic metamorphosis is needed in the high carbon coutries, but it will not come without a philosophical one, first. Change? Yes, we should. But start with the head, not the pocketbook (that was tried before, and found wanting).

Patrice Ayme.

(The preceding observations were published on the Krugman NYT blog post of May 13, 2008, 9:17 am "Stranded in suburbia; "Stranded in suburbia" reproduced from The Oil Drum a nice picture from the Sydney Morning Herald about the percentage of income Sydney area residents will spend on fuel if the price rises substantially. The outer suburbs are, not surprisingly, hard hit. To which Krugman added, following one of our (obvious) themes (he got many comments about prior): "This is really our big problem: we’ve made long-lasting investments — in infrastructure, in housing, and to some extent in our auto fleet — based on low oil prices. Those past decisions are what make (sic) today’s high prices such a big problem.")