Phoebe’s Neighborhood

you know, back when my father was alive he was a huge fan of movies.  he loves all aspects of them.  his favorites were those that i found so...absurd.

people running around in the future in little silver outfits, fighting aliens, running around spaceships with curtains instead of doors.......it never made sense.

i'd give almost anything to have a little silver jumper future right now.

i haven't been able to document my day to day life lately...but it looks like more and more people are starting to do so.  i finally am able to start myself. 

i'll be around soon...

From my walk to the train this morning.

Now wondering. Most of nyc doesn't have driveway/garage space. Higher gas prices = more cars left in the street. Street spaces become premium. How long until violence?

Also: Wither street sweeping.?

All Parked

Gothamist just linked to this Streetsblog post about the transportation recommendations PDF that's part of Bloomberg's 2030 plan.

What I found most interesting is this infographic:

Commutersbelow96th

The dark parts are percentage of to-Manhattan commuters that drive a single-passenger car.  These are the people that are going to be hit the hardest if prices keep going up or, god forbid, there's a shortage.  Far Rockaway.  Flushing.  The North end of the Bronx.  Almost all of Staten Island.

The tall parts are sheer number of commuters.  These are the people who are already facing congested commutes - I can't imagine this situation making things any better.  And these are really popular areas: almost all of Manhattan, central Queens, DUMBO. 

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Just in case anyone else is using Vox and writing about the crisis - I made a group for us to share posts and the like on.

http://worldwithoutoil.groups.vox.com/

A few days ago, I was talking to a friend about catastrophies in NYC.  They seem to come one a year.

Two years ago, we had the transit strike.  For three days, the city was paralyzed - but life went on.

Last year, we had the Astoria blackout.  For eight days, 250,000 people lived in poor conditions in the middle of a blazing hot summer.  Eventually, life went on.

I made some remark to that same friend about how I wondered what we were going to face this year.

Last night I ended up at two gas stations - neither for a fill-up, but to buy gum and a drink, respectively.  Something struck me about the depression on the faces of the cabbies at the one in the East Village.  And I remember looking at the DIESEL sign as I was walking up to the station by my house and only seeing the word DIES.  But I didn't think anything of it.

Now I'm looking a little deeper - reading the news, hearing about the gas prices.  Maybe I should've been paying some more attention last night.

I have to wonder if I didn't already jinx myself when I made that comment about the what we'd be facing next.

I'm starting this blog just to be sure.  Just in case.

Here's to hoping this is paranoia.

I know I haven't updated in a bit - I apologize. I'm in the middle of finals and swimming in work. Luckily for me, this upcoming week is the last in the semester *yay* - I'll be able to devote much more time to my journals once finals are out of the way.

Although I haven't been writing a lot lately, I have been reading quite a bit. I learned something about a bell curve. Apparently oil production runs on a bell curve (or something like that) and productive can "peak". After production peaks, it obviously begins to decline - and production has, indeed, already peaked. If the oil becomes sparse and we (as a nation/society/people) cannot depend on it anymore, we are in major trouble. Technology will halt and move in reverse. Society will halt and move in reverse..

So what do we do? When everything that my generation has known ends, how do we cope? No one is teaching us the skills we need to survive.

Come on everyone - if we learn how to live independent of oil/fossil fuels, &ct, we won't be in as much trouble when the future becomes the present.

/rant

something is happening in the undercurrent.

the world is always awash with activity, with uncertainties, events that seem to form a pattern, but peter out to nothing. but right now I can feel a nascency, a swell, a tide - relentless. given humen ingenuity I would have hoped that the change was for the better, but we've run out of time. the future is here and I don't think we're prepared for it.

there will be a space for human ingenuity after all, but it could have been so much better. we could have been proactive rather than responsive.

I say 'we' of course, understanding the irony. knowing that while the cause is not my doing, the suffering not my problem, but that the cure is, ultimately, my responsibility. as it is yours.

foreknowledge is one cure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_energy_crisis

innovation and coorperation, another

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cooperative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_green_environmentalism

but, look deeper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist

and there are two sides to every dichotomy

http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/wiki/Environmentalism

http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/peak_oil/index.htm

I better put on a sweater.  It's getting cold soon.

I had a weird dream last night. I know what caused it, Ive been seeing and reading alot in the news recently about oil crisis, increasing prices, and the dramatic effects of such things.

Imagine what would happen if noone could afford oil, or worse - there was no oil! There would be no cars, no boats, no planes! NOONE could travel large distances. There would be no trade between countries. No imports! The economy would die, maybe even people as a long term result!!

This was the part of my dream when I started to panic. It was like the world was crashing down around everyone. The world just STOPPED.

It made me wonder how we have taken things for granted, how dependant on everything we are.

And more importantly, how we are so very unprepared.

We need to prepare. It could happen anytime soon...

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