The Death of the SUV

Last night I attended a lecture at Colorado College, just a few blocks from my apartment, where economist and author, Steven Levitt was speaking. Levitt, the co-author of the bestselling book, "Freakonomics," drew a huge crowd to discuss his unique (some would say, rogue) way of looking at economics as it cross-pollinates with other disciplines such as sociology, psychology and even religion. Always fascinating and often controversial, Levitt's wide range of studies include everything from crime, politics and even sports.













Steven Levitt

Freakonomics, which has been a New York Times bestseller for over a year now, draws unbelievable (until you look at his data) economic behavior correlations between such random and diverse groups as school teachers and sumo wrestlers and the KKK and real-estate agents. It also examines the quantifiable link between legalized abortion and a drop in the crime rate, and the business model of drug dealing.

Levitt took questions at the end of his lecture but had to cut himself short long before I was ever able to ask mine—how would his economic model play with the current energy crisis? But I think I know what his answer may have been. I got clues from how he answered other current event questions, namely illegal immigration (“The more people paying into and purchasing things in an economy is always a good thing. Economically, the legality of their presence is irrelevant. Besides, I doubt so many people would be up in arms if these illegal immigrants came from Poland or some other location in Europe. This anti-immigrant anger is simply because they're Mexican.”) and the war on drugs (“You want to destroy the war on drugs, then you have two very simple options—crack down severally on the consumer instead of the distributor thus cutting off the demand or legalize drugs immediately.”)

In terms of the latter example, he admitted that legalizing drugs was a horrible idea, at least, he said, in terms of the higher class narcotics such as crack cocaine. While he is confident that legalization would do the trick, no one has the political will (or moral resolve for that matter) to deal with the fallout such a choice would incur. Legalizing drugs would obliterate their street value, remove the gang equation, negate the violence that accompanies their sale, and provide an added national income in the form of exorbitantly high taxes that could be stamped on every purchase. However, he said, what would happen first is that the initial generation who experienced legalized narcotics would become hopelessly addicted. Preceding generations would learn from their self-destruction and cast aside drugs altogether, but not before all hope was lost for the vanguard generation. So, in an economic cost/benefit analysis, while legalization would take care of the problem in the long term, it would create short term ramifications that no one is willing to endure.

The cost/benefit analysis issue brought me back to our current energy crisis. Somehow I have a feeling that, given his “short term pain for long term gain” perspective, Levitt's opinion might mirror author Thomas Friedman's...and, incidentally, my own.

You see, I have a rather unique perspective on our current energy crisis—I am happy it's here and I only want it to get worse.

Before you burn me in cyber-effigy, allow me to explain myself. I see our current energy woes not as a curse, but as a blessing in disguise—an unprecedented opportunity to make a real and lasting change for our country if our government and its citizenry has the courage and fortitude to do what it takes—short term pain for long term gain.

Right now, we're ignoring the energy crisis, slapping the national equivalent of band-aids on a patient whose body is being eaten away by leprosy and patting ourselves on the back for our phenomenal life-saving technique.

What we need to do is let the patient die.

Think about it. By doing nothing but treating the symptom instead of the root problem we are merely perpetuating the burden for future generations. What we need is what Freidman refers to as a “'geo-green' strategy that would marry geopolitics, energy policy and environmentalism.”













Thomas Friedman

What we are currently doing is financing both sides in the war on terrorism and bolstering some of the worst governments on the planet—throwing monstrous amounts of cash at both our military juggernaut and the very jihadists we seek to overthrow—through our gasoline purchases. We continue to buy vast amounts of oil from the same countries who support those with whom we are “at war” (I put war in quotations because the “War on Terrorism” is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Wars are waged against definable enemies with delineated borders through quantifiable progress to a foreseeable endgame. This “war” has none of those). Furthermore, the oil boom is entrenching the autocrats in Russia and Venezuela, to say nothing of setting up a global tug-of-war with China.

And all of this ignores what we've now known for years, that by doing nothing to reduce our county's appetite for oil, we are only hastening the impending ecological crisis. It used to be that those who cried that the environmental sky was falling were regarded as kooks. Now, with the avalanche of data we possess on our fragile planet and our surprising ability to harm it, the kooks are those who continue to deny it. The longer we wait to do something, the worse it's going to get.

Today, there are about 800 million cars on the road. In just under a half century (as China and India flex their economic muscle), that number is expected to be closer to 3.3 billion. Quadruple the cars means quadruple the devastating pollutant emissions. We have got to do something to create cleaner, less gas-hungry vehicles right now.

Which is where our current gas prices come in.

Left alone to rise, high prices (which unsubsidized Europe has had for years) will force consumers to abandon their gas-guzzling SUVs for more economical forms of transportation. It's the 70s all over again. Even if they don't adopt mass transit, it will encourage the purchasing of more energy efficient cars such as hybrids. Moreover, R&D into cleaner, alternate fuel source vehicles will become a matter of necessity rather than simply political hot air—research that will, no doubt, spill over from transportation into all areas of our country's energy needs.

Imagine a world in which America's hunger does not involve ingesting the natural resources of the Middle East, where we are not beholden to or dependent on any other country for our energy sustenance.

In the words of John Lennon, it's easy if you try.

Sure, high gas prices hurt me every time I visit the pump. But temporary pain is nothing compared to long term gain—or, in this case, long term pain. It's a price I'm willing to pay.