I used to fill the gas tank of my 1990 Isuzu Trooper for less than $20, a sum even then I considered noteworthy, but not enough to keep me from burning up the roads between the Nantahala Gorge and Asheville, balancing my need of living in the great outdoors with my need of city-culture by simply accepting the fact that it means I have to drive. Western North Carolina is, after all, a commuter culture.
At my job in the English Department of Western Carolina University, instructors drive in from all over the area - from Bryson City to Leicester, and even one from Knoxville. Besides that, I love to drive. My usually high-octane 3-year-old daughter mellows into a Buddha-like, soul-searching trance to the rhythmic hum of the engine. I use drives to clear my head, a place where I am free from the busy bustle of work and home. Sometimes I pretend I am Daisy Duke, flattenin’ the hills and straightenin’ the curves. I turn up my Rickie Lee Jones CD and sing.

And yet I consider myself an environmentally aware person. I recycle. I pick up trash. I support federal programs that protect the environment. But I drive and drive and drive.

I mean, until the last year or so, when gas prices have risen and stayed high. Now, when I stop for gas it takes 30 or more dollars to fill my tank, an amount that becomes quite substantial when the tank needs to be filled two, sometimes three, times a week. I spend more on gasoline than on groceries, a thought I find disturbing to say the least. In my struggles to make ends meet, I am more likely to go for an afternoon run on the campus’ mundane jogging path (where I constantly have to wave at my students) than to drive out to the Tsali mountain bike trails. Instead of taking my daughter on Saturdays to the Nature Center in Asheville, a long walk from our house down to the Tuckasegee River will do.

After explaining my gasoline woes to my parents, they have offered to loan me their small, compact economy car to help offset my commuting costs. I will feel like I’m driving a silly toy car, less real, less safe compared to my rugged SUV, in which I can coolly dominate the road - three dogs in back, racks for my kayak on top. My image, however, will just have to suffer, because 50 miles per gallon will easily make me swallow my pride. I will save money and burn less gas.

Maybe no matter how educated, aware, or concerned we are, we really only care enough to effect change to benefit the environment when our financial resources are threatened. I think this is sad but true. We only really think about the limited supply of natural resources when we associate it with the limited supply of cash in our bank accounts.

It’s not just gasoline. The incredible rate hikes in propane this winter have caused many people to reevaluate their habits of heating their homes. I overheard a colleague in the faculty lounge explaining how she’d love to keep her home at a constant 72 degrees if she could afford it, but that she’s been turning the heat down to 50 at night and when she goes to work. Isn’t this the type of energy conservation measures that we should be taking anyway? Does it take inflation and price-gouging to make us environmentalists?

The energy crisis in California is initiating a similar rethinking of the way we look at electricity. National Public Radio ran a segment last week on people who are living off the grid, people who generate their own power and consequently conserve as much energy as possible. All Californians, in fear of rolling blackouts and the removal of price caps on electricity, are looking for specific, local ways to conserve energy. It’s really all the stuff we’ve known all along but have been simply too lazy to do - turning off lights, buying energy efficient appliances, hanging out clothes to dry. When families are hit with four and five hundred-dollar electricity bills, people start thinking green.

The renewal of an interest in the conservation of natural resources makes me glad, even if it only comes directly through our own economic woes. In fact, I can’t help but think that a recession would be a good thing for the environment. A weak economy also means that people are buying less stuff, less plastic junk that will end up in a trash heap in six months. After paying to have my tank filled with propane to heat my home, I will not be going outlet shopping this month (which also saves the gasoline and pollution it takes to get from Pigeon Forge and back). I wish, however, that the money draining out of my wallet to Amoco, NP&L and Freeman Gas were going to environmental causes instead of lining the purses of the wealthy oil and energy barons who grow increasingly rich off the labors of others. I wish, too, that as a culture we would become true environmentalists, not just when it is economically to our advantage. Perhaps we can use the current “crisis” as an example of how we should be viewing our natural resources - as the precious luxuries they are, not as cheap, abundant necessities we can afford to burn.

(Esther Godfrey teaches in the English Department at Western Carolina University. She can be reached at egodfrey@wcu.edu)

 

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