Changes coming

As I have wandered from one end of Virginia to the other, it has occurred to me that at some point energy costs are really going to change the way we live.

Our society is based on cheap energy.  Many of us are packed into condominiums and apartments which create high density population areas.  These high density areas produce no food.  All food has to be transported into these huge cities.

Of course even small cities like Roanoke end up with food from thousands of miles away.  We have gone from small farms to huge farms and a very intricate supply web that brings us food from all over the world.

The open road is a big part of our food supply.  Higher energy costs will have an impact.  I doubt we'll get back to tiny farms where farmers use horses instead of tractors, but we will see changes. The majority of the east coast has gone from being cleared to being forested.  Perhaps we will see a small farm revival and a return of some of the old fields to cultivation.

It will be interesting to see the dynamics that play out over time.  It would be nice to think that small local farms might have a better chance again corporate farms.  We could even dream that cities might have fewer people since it might make sense for people to live closer to their food sources.

Yet those are things that I would love to see, not things that  are backed up by any evidence.  Who knows, we may find that renewable energy source that lets us continuing driving as much as we want and importing our food from the other side of the world when it is convenient.