Clivewrites on the price of oil dependency in Australia, at relocalize, one of many websites about local transitioning efforts. (I partly post this for C., who is starting to get involved over here)
Ideal scenario: The truckies strike, the public takes notice and discusses things openly, pressures the government to help out the truckies over the short term and really hammer the government on ramping up the railway infrastructure. A few people get caught short on food and petrol, this causes inconvenience for a few days, and international shipping continues to arrive at the major ports. Two weeks pass by and the backlog is cleared at the ports. It scares some people in the right places in government. Victory gardens return, railways get approval for a major upgrade, truckies go back to work, and everyone pays their fair share of the rise in petrol prices. That means you, food retailers. Here in the Torres Strait we go without milk and eggs for a few days, and begin a focus on energy conservation in all aspects of daily life. Fishers still fish.
Worst scenario: the strike gets ugly and is extended past two weeks. Up here, people’s larders go empty, outboard engines don’t get filled, no internet, no blogging, no refrigeration, no conventional cooking, no airplanes to Cairns. A day or two of that…a scare. A week or two of that…I go fishing.
The reality as I see it is that the trucks can’t be on the roads for more than 30 years from now, at best. We absolutely, positively, have got to get our national electric rail system ramped up ASAP. Electric road vehicles are not going to solve long-haul freight carriage. I don’t know what the transportation solution is going to be for the Torres Strait.