> We live further from work and that is not something that will
> change in the short run.
That's exactly what needs to change in the United States, and it has to change soon, or else humanity won't have "a long run" to look forward to.
How do we change that? By moving businesses as well as workers back to cities. How do we move them? There are essentially two ways:
The government will move them, by employing eminent domain.
or
Businesses and workers will move on their own, motivated by higher transportation costs.
Neither way is painless.
> Ten dollar a gallon gas will save energy in the short run mainly
> by hurting poor and working people.
The higher gas price will hurt a majority of workers in the short run -- there is no doubt about it. They will have to make a trade-off: one one hand, their standard of living will go down in the short term; on the other hand, their short-term sacrifice will buy time, so that they, their children, and other people's children will have "a long term" on earth, and so that they will be in a better bargaining position vis-a-vis capital, which, too, will get less mobile due to higher transportation costs.
There is one silver lining. The poorest of the poor, already carless and stuck in cities (which was graphically demonstrated by Katrina), can stay put and welcome back businesses and their fellow workers.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>