We got through it in 2022. We can get through it again.

Though unfortunately Americans will learn the wrong lesson from this which should be to reduce dependency on oil for every day life. We should be aiming to have fewer cars and abandon car-only transportation as policy, and more sidewalks, trams, bike lanes, and better medium density mixed-use development. But if folks want to have Ford F-250s and drive 15 miles for a loaf of bread, you have to care about the Straight of Hormuz which Iran could threaten to shut down anytime and as they continued to strengthen their military capabilities increasingly likely to shut down in the future.

-edit-

Also to be clear EVs aren't the answer either. Can't be dependent on China for rare earth mineral processing, still doesn't solve c02 emissions, still have traffic and all the negative externalities.

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nostrademons 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The rare earth dependency on China is very much overblown. The U.S. has very significant natural reserves of rare earth minerals. The problem is the same with all mining - it's uneconomic to mine minerals in the U.S. because the job of "miner" is unattractive to Americans (both the laborers and the governments that sign environmental permits) when there are cleaner, safer, and more highly paid jobs available.

They're also just as much of a CO2 solution as electric trains are, i.e. it depends on the fuel source for the local electric grid (which today is overwhelmingly solar in most of the places where EVs are popular).

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ericmay 7 hours ago | parent [-]

We're dependent on processing and refining, not the minerals themselves. Takes, from what I understand, 10-15 years to stand up that capability.

Overall EVs are great and all and that's what I have, but they're not addressing the underlying concerns and sticking with car-only or car-based infrastructure whether that's ICE or EV is a losing proposition.

> They're also just as much of a CO2 solution as electric trains are,

No, you need fewer electric trains to move much more people plus you don't replace the trains as often, &c, and then add in all the miles and miles of paved roads you need, parking lots, you name it. There's no way around this, if you care about the environment or care about human wellbeing you have to move away from car-only infrastructure like the US has and move toward more European models. And no, the geography isn't a challenge, most people live in urban areas in the United States, China is big too, and so forth.

	▲	bijowo1676 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		10-15 years to stand up legacy refining capability, which is heavy in pollution. China invested decades into research and has made significant progress in extra refined, four nines purity rare earth minerals, required for advanced industries. They may be two decades+ ahead of US at least, plus the talent pipeline

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Arubis 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Another good lesson could potentially be that going to war as a sideshow to distract from a news cycle that threatened people in power is not the best choice for the world at large.

	▲	fhdkweig 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The people who are benefiting from that distraction are not the same who are being harmed by the distraction. The leaders seem to be quite okay with these turn of events.

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solid_fuel 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree that we should abandon car-only transportation and instead move cars much further down the transit hierarchy. Ideally we would be relying on trains, bikes, and buses for most daily movement, using cars as needed instead of by default. But,

> still doesn't solve c02 [sic] emissions

This is incorrect. It doesn't magically make the entire grid carbon neutral but it does let us use much more efficient forms of power generation to make the electricity, and electric cars themselves do not emit CO2 (Carbon with 2 Oxygen). Effectively, switching to electric cars would remove cars themselves as a source of CO2 and make decarbonization much much easier.

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slackfan 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I remember 4 dollar gas in 2011.... So that was nearly 6 dollars in modern money.