TEOTWAWKI

Just called my relatively well off, white friends in the Woodlands (just north of Houston) and they have decided to stay put. They've got full tanks of gas, batteries, food, beer, and most of their neighbors are staying as well so they have some support for each other in case a tree falls on someone's house. They do NOT have flood insurance, but I'm guessing they won't get flooded - their biggest threat will probably be trees or tree branches - "The Woodlands" isn't randomly named. They decided that the disaster that has been the I-45 evacuation just wasn't worth the hassle, even though apparently right now the roads are deserted. They're going to a friend's house to play poker and hang out tonight and generally sounded completely unworried about the whole thing.

Of course, up here in Colorado all we can do is watch these disasters and feel slightly guilty for our picture perfect weather. Sure, we have wildfires and the occasional snowfall, but our number one weather related killer is lightning - not something that usually sends the general public into a panic.

So, given that I can't wrap my brain around the immediate impacts of Katrina and Rita for those down on the Gulf Coast, I keep finding myself pondering the long term effects. Certainly I'm not alone, it's all over the media that gas prices will go to $4-5/gallon, but I wish they'd start talking about some of the more long term ripples. The incremental impacts of increased prices for anything that is made of a petroleum based product or relies on petroleum for transportation is just mind blowing. If I look around, I see that I am surrounded by petroleum in my clothes, my home, my office, my car - everywhere. The roads, consumer products, healthcare (tubes, syringes, IV bags). Heating and electricity for my home, airline travel to see my far flung family. Everything.

What's going to happen? What will happen to people who can't afford to heat their stupidly oversized homes (I'm guilty of owning one myself)? What will happen to people who are upside down on car loans for SUV's and can't afford to spend $200 to fill up their 40 gallon tanks but now can't unload them? What will happen to all of those people who have created a huge investor based real estate market but can't keep tenants because of energy costs or have to take losses on their investments and don't have any bankruptcy protection anymore? What will happen to Wal-Mart?

Long term, I think this is not all bad. I will be happy to see a return to more rationally sized cars and homes. My husband would love to have a cool Jeep type car but knows that the only time he'd use its "Jeepness" would be for a very occasional trip to the mountains - most of his driving is a commute and it doesn't make sense to pay more for gas just to commute. Both of us have wanted to get out of our big house for a while but financial circumstances don't allow it, oddly enough. We have to ride things out for a while and hope for the best, but we CAN look at making sure that we tighten up the efficiency of the home. My kids will have to learn what it was like when *I* was a kid - there was no turning up the heat, there was "put on a sweater," or "get a blanket" when it was cold in the house. We'll have to spend money to save money and start looking at compact fluorescents to replace lights in our home, motion detectors for the exterior of the house so we don't leave lights on all of the time, and super efficient appliances when it comes time to replace. Of course, making those investments may mean we end up staying in the house even longer since we'll want to see the eventual savings come back to us, but we'll see. We probably have another year that we can last in one car, maybe three in the other - hopefully by the time we start looking to replace, hybrids will be much more efficient than they are now (meaning - "not really) and society will have gotten over its penis compensating need for a huge car.

Looking even longer term, I wonder what will happen to families. Will they start moving back together? If we are looking at the beginning of the end of oil, will I just expect the boys to live with us through college? There is a community college within bicycle distance, will they go there for a couple of years and then transfer to another college to finish up? Will that be a bad thing or a good thing? I probably would have been better off in the long run if I had stayed home for a year or two, actually. Will families turn away from TV and towards tending a garden and canning? Will bicycle companies have record profits? Will obesity get better or worse - if food's more expensive, then highly processed crap may become more of a part of people's diets, but on the other hand, if people skip going to movies and spend more time taking walks, getting to know neighbors, taking up hobbies, maybe they'll eat less. Speaking of movies, will they get better or worse as movie companies clamor for audiences that have to become choosier about when they're going to spend $8 a ticket. Will movie makers shift more towards indie quality flicks (probably not - those can wait until the videos come out) or even bigger budget kablowie movies (more likely)?

Will Colorado, Wyoming and Utah become the new hope for oil with our vast oil shale reserves? Will it be the new fight with environmentalists? SHOULD it be done at all or should we just start moving towards alternative energies and give up on oil as soon as possible?

Who will fill in for the United States on the world stage if our economy takes a tumble, and will we ever regain our dominance again?

Or ... does any of this matter if the avian flu washes across the planet and takes out billions of people?

We live in interesting times...