Welcome To Tomorrowland - The Golden State In A Destabilized Age - Resilience.org
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I was back in the Golden State in pursuit of yet another dream – a carbon dream – for a book I hoped to write. I had heard that a mere 2% increase in the carbon content of the planet’s soils could offset 100% of all greenhouse gas emissions via plant photosynthesis and related land-based carbon sequestration activities. That’s because soil is a huge natural sink for carbon dioxide. If we can draw increasing amounts of it from the atmosphere and store it safely in the soil via green plants, then we might make a dent in climate change. The key is carbon. That’s because it is everywhere – it’s the soil beneath our feet, the plants that grow, the land we walk, the wildlife we watch, the livestock we raise, the food we eat, the energy we use, and the air we breathe. Carbon is the essential element of life. A highly efficient carbon cycle captures, stores, releases and recaptures biochemical energy, making everything go and grow from the soil up, including plants, animals and people. It’s all carbon. Climate change is carbon, hunger is carbon, money is carbon, politics is carbon, land is carbon, we are carbon.
California is carbon. Is it ever. No state in the nation burns up more hydrocarbons. Californians drive over 350 billion miles each year, consuming 18 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel in their vehicles, according to government data. That translates into 4.25 million barrels of oil a year, approximately one-fifth of America’s entire annual consumption. That’s a whole lot of carbon going up into the air. In fact, California’s transportation sector alone accounts for roughly one-third of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. There are good reasons why: the average one-way commute is thirty minutes (and getting longer); 70% of all cars on the road at any one moment have only a single occupant; and the average speed on a Los Angeles highway during rush hour has dropped to 11mph from a whopping 21mph when I lived there.
None of this was quite the Autotopia that Walt Disney had in mind when he sketched out his benevolent vision of Tomorrowland at his famous amusement park.
Finally free of the traffic jam, I pushed the rental car over the speed limit, letting a rush of cool air work its magic as I rolled effortlessly through past oak-studded hills and garlic-filled farm fields near Gilroy under a glorious sky of sunshine. “This is what ol’ Walt had in mind,” I said aloud to no one. “This is the promise of California.” It still exists – just not in Los Angeles anymore. Somewhere along the line, Autotopia slipped from the Future to the Past, crossing a threshold between hopeful dream and sober reality. When did it happen? 1970? 1980? The trouble with thresholds is that they are often perceived only in hindsight. When does a drought begin, for example? The first day it stops raining? The day the water level in a reservoir drops to a certain level? When a scientist says so? The afternoon when lightning ignites tinder-dry vegetation in a residential development? It’s the same with cars and gridlock. One day, utopia; the next, dystopia. ‘Hey! Where did all these cars come from and why are they going so slow?!’ As for Autotopia itself, I think the good burghers of neighboring Fantasyland should annex the track, perhaps as part of an expansion plan. They’d have a strong case for a boundary change. Clearly, the Future ain’t what it used to be.
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http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-02-07/tomorrowland
