Re: “Too late to put the horse back in the barn” [Viewpoints, April 18], yes, it may be too late, but don’t burn the barn down – leave the door open so the horse can come back in if it wants to.
In other words, don’t make it just as expensive to convert Marion Street back to a mall again when pedestrians decide to stay away from a car-choked, polluted downtown.
Melanie Weiss, who lives just two blocks from the mall and “loves to find a spot [to park] on the street,” would be Exhibit A in any investigation into what in the world has gotten into the heads of the leaders of this community. It is this car-centric mindset, this obsession with driving everywhere that is the root of the problem.
Oak Park usually takes a lead in social trends, but in this case it is regressing. While the rest of America is making their communities greener, we are “paving paradise.”
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), this state of affairs is temporary because of two inevitable, world-changing crises that are coming at us like a slow-motion tidal wave. The first crisis, global warming, is well known by all. It is almost universally accepted that we all need to reduce CO2 emissions or face extreme climatic changes. The second is less well known, but will probably hit us much sooner and could affect our lives even more drastically. This is peak oil. If you saw the film End of Suburbia at our wonderful library recently, you know all about peak oil. The peak oil theory says either right now or in a few years – no later than 2012 – world crude oil production will peak and begin a permanent, unstoppable decline of around 8 percent per year. This means that in 10-15 years, we will have to get by with 50 percent of the oil we are using now.
Peak oil will cause an unprecedented financial crisis because so much of our economy depends on cheap oil.
Both of these trends, global warming and peak oil are inevitable, but their impact can be lessened by good planning and leadership because they can both be attacked with the same game plan: reducing the use of fossil fuels, especially oil.
To survive peak oil and global warming, we need to reduce our dependence on cars and develop renewable energy sources for generating electricity and heating our homes. We need to “localize” and go back to living more simply – instead of rushing around in our cars.
But the first step is to change this mindset that it’s necessary to drive everywhere, even when walking would do just as well.
Ted Sowinski, Oak Park
