Who cares about greenhouse gases when we can have space shades?

And when we can simply mimic a major volcanic eruption (which cools the earth with all the junk in the air) by releasing sulphur?

WE MAY HAVE GONE PAST THE TIPPING POINT, but there’s still time to save our lives!

NEW YORK—Millions of eyewitnesses watched in stunned horror Tuesday as light emptied from the sky, plunging the U.S. and neighboring countries into darkness. As the hours progressed, conditions only worsened.

At approximately 4:20 p.m. EST, the sun began to lower from its position in the sky in a westward trajectory, eventually disappearing below the horizon. Reports of this global emergency continued to file in from across the continent until 5:46 p.m. PST, when the entire North American mainland was officially declared dark.

As the phenomenon hit New York, millions of motorists were forced to use their headlights to navigate through the blackness. Highways flooded with commuters who had left work to hurry home to their families. Traffic was bottlenecked for more than two hours in many major metropolitan areas.

The great City vs. Country debate has been streaming through my mind more and more lately as the Mrs. & I consider the future of the Jórge clan. In our (my) attempt to get further and further away from the ills of civilization and the grid, I have inadvertantly distanced myself further from the kind of community I’d hoped to create and the kind of independence I perceived I’d be gaining. Natural beauty and simplicity aside, I am beginning to recognize that living in a retreat-like setting may be just that, a retreat. And in the event of a failed state scenario or any other sort of major social disruption, I wonder if our isolation would prove a disadvantage despite a natural water source, plenty of firewood, and an ample supply of grilled squirrel.

In a less serious crisis scenario, it appears that New York City would fare best among U.S. cities if oil prices topped $100 a barrel.

We looked at the areas most directly impacted: how people get around, where their food comes from, and how they work.

New York City is the city most prepared to cope with a $100+ tank of gas. With its strong city and regional public transportation system, New York stands out above the rest. From New York City’s subways to the Tri State area’s suburban train lines, New York is truly the only American city where people are committed to riding over driving.

“As the largest city in the country and the business capital of the world New York City must be prepared for what comes our way, and we are,” said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “That New York City has been recognized by SustainLane as the best prepared city to face a nation-wide oil crisis is testament to the resiliency and strength of our infrastructure.”

Infrastructure indeed, whose definition is the heart of the “what if” question and the meat of much more in-depth conversations around sustainability, permaculture, and the future of how communities can and will survive. For more on that, I highly recommend following this discussion over at Anthropik. Here’s the article that prompted that discussion and got my wheels turning just a little faster:

We cherished our decade-plus in the country, but eventually the realities began to pile up. There wasn’t a local market for the work we did. Community events left us saddened by the gulf between our way of life and theirs. And we were still tethered to the fossil-fuel beast, just by a much longer lifeline of wire, pipe, and pavement. That the beast looked smaller by being farther away no longer fooled us.