This NY Times article on rising shipping costs is worth a read, if only for the examples of head-scratching activity that somehow makes sense given our current energy and economic policy. When I think of the effort that is required to ship something from China to the US, it boggles my mind that it is somehow cheaper to send raw materials to Asia, manufacture a product, and then ship[ that product back to the US. What that suggests to me is that as high as energy and fuel costs have gotten lately, they may still not be high enough to accurately reflect the scarcity of fuel, the global demand for products, the environmental damage currently done by transportation, and the further diminishing of available resources that results from damage.
I have a feeling a lot of people are going to have to make a lot of lifestyle changes in the coming decades. And I have a hunch part of my job as a teacher is going to be to try to help my students understand why that’s necessary – or at least to clearly understand the problems so that they can find the solution that is far, far beyond my grasp.
