Fresh Loaf

In the new book $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better, Christopher Steiner predicts that the roller coaster ride of petrol prices will eventually become one long, cash-gobbling incline. (If this premise sounds eerily familiar, then you might have listened to Marketplace last night. Steiner was a guest.)

The change will be painful, he says. Big-box stores that rely on inexpensive goods shipped from afar will lose their grip on the marketplace. Residents will return to live in dense cities, turning the suburbs into what the cities were during white flight. Regional air travel? Too expensive and inefficient. Interstates will…well, who knows. I remember hearing something like “will become overgrown with weeds,” but I think that’s already happening.

But growing pains and another economic collapse aside, the shift won’t be all that bad. Fuel prices will become so unbearable, Steiner writes, that we’ll walk and bike more, plan more dense communities, and know our neighbors. We’ll be healthier and happier and live in a cleaner environment.

Forbes Magazine has adapted some chapters of the book. After the jump, some excerpts I noticed about Atlanta.

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The person who gave the most help to Atlantans struggling to find gas in recent weeks wasn’t a governor, a mayor, or even a reporter.

Tessa Horehled is a marketing consultant and author of the popular local culture blog Drive A Faster Car.

While tracking down gas for her mother two weeks ago, Horehled used her mobile phone to post the location of stations that did (and didn’t) have gas to her micro-blog hosted on Twitter.com.

“I was trying to help people not run out of gas while they were driving around [looking for it],” she says.

Horehled included the characters #atlgas in her gas-related posts, and asked people who follow her on Twitter who spotted gas to do the same. The characters, called hashmarks, allow anyone with a computer or a mobile phone to view an up-to-the minute list of metro Atlanta gas sightings.

By the weekend, #atlgas went viral. Horehled’s online friends began posting to #atlgas, followed by their friends, etc. By Monday morning, gas-starved, web-enabled Atlantans turned #atlgas into the fourth most commonly searched phrase on Twitter.

“We beat ‘Sarah Palin’ at one point,” she says. “I consider that a success.”

Though proud her simple idea has proven so popular and so useful to so many people, she’s disappointed that neither city nor state officials have harnessed Twitter to either gather or spread information about gas availability to the community.

“It’s free and you can use it with almost any cell phone,” she says, adding that she’d be happy to give the Mayor and the Governor a quick tutorial.

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Here’s a welcome sight — a gas station with gas, but no lines.

I hope this means the gas shortage is easing.

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In an exclusive interview with Creative Loafing, God asked gasoline-starved Georgians to make up their minds already.

“You prayed for rain, so I gave unto you an exceptionally active Atlantic hurricane season,” the Almighty said today. “Now you’re nagging because my wind-borne servants, Gustav and Ike, slowed your gasoline production. I swear there’s no pleasing some people.”

The Lord added that He’s going to be pretty busy with the nation’s financial crisis for a few days and would be grateful if Georgians didn’t bug him with any more liquid-based prayers this week.

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I’ll start this off by saying I’m not exactly sure what price gouging is. I’m under the impression that charging as much for something as you can is capitalism. I don’t quite understand when and how a price hike for a scarce product becomes crime.

With that in mind, I’d like to request the state lift price gouging restrictions on gasoline immediately. I’d rather pay $10/gallon for a couple weeks than spend four hours on Friday and Saturday hunting for gasoline.

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I drive a 1973 Mercedes that runs on petro-diesel, biodiesel, or any combination of the two.

This means I do not have to wait in long lines to fill up my tank as there is plenty of diesel around town.

Unfortunately, this also means I can’t use “I don’t have gas” as an excuse to work from home this week.

Doh!

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Searching for gasoline in Atlanta is one of the most popular uses of the micro-blogging service Twitter this morning, according to Twitter’s list of most-searched topics.

Note: #atlgas is the only non-national topic on the list.

If you have no clue what I’m talking about — web-enabled Atlantans are blogging the location of stations with gasoline by blogging it to Twitter along with the characters #atlgas. Including #atlgas in the message allows people to find up-to-minute gasoline sightings simply by searching for the characters #atlgas.

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Gov. Sonny Perdue has rehashed some tips as to how Georgians can conserve fuel in these gas-strapped times. It’s just that something’s missing from the list:

· Drive sensibly: Speeding, rapid acceleration (jackrabbit starts), and rapid braking lowers gas mileage.

· Choose the right vehicle: If you own more than one vehicle, drive the one that gets better gas mileage whenever possible.

· Decrease speed: Gas mileage decreases rapidly when driving more than 60 miles-per-hour.

· Avoid idling: Idling gets zero miles per gallon. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas while idling than cars with smaller engines.

· Commute alternatives are also a useful way to conserve fuel, including telework, carpool and transit options, and flexible work schedules. More information is available about commute alternatives at www.CleanAirCampaign.com.

After straying from the talking points and getting called out for it by bloggers and the AJC’s Jim Galloway, it seems like the governor got the memo this go-round. It’d sure be bad to repeat Barack Obama’s advice to the country hours before a much-anticipated presidential debate. Especially when that advice makes sense.

Politics aside, here’s the rundown on fuel: The gas shortage is expected to ease in the middle of next week, according to U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who when not soliciting endorsements from barbers and funeral directors, talks to the folks in the know. State officials are asking residents to conserve so stations can get a chance to replenish their supplies. (Topping off and filling up prior to running low keeps supply at a minimum.) If possible, hit up public transit, ride a bicycle or carpool. If you’re looking for stations that have gas, SpaceyG points you to the TwitterNetz.

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— Ah, a fresh “Morning Wooten” from DriftGrift, this time on how Johnny Mac has demonstrated that he is on top of our economic crisis and how he loves us so much that he’s suspended his campaign in order to take personal care of us. DriftGrift, of course, is a little cynical of that explanation. He’s shocked, SHOCKED, that gamesmanship is going on in here.

— At Politits, Dcup isn’t shocked, she’s angry and going all dominatrix on poor J-Mac. She wants a debate tonight and tells him: “You should be spanked so hard your teeth fly out of your mouth and land in the next state. That, my friend, is not the good kind of spanking.” Well, no, it’s certainly not.

— Left On Lanier takes a different, more bemused approach to deliver the same message: Get your butt to Mississippi and talk to people.

— The world may be falling apart, but that isn’t stopping Gov. Perdue from going on vacation … oops … going on a taxpayer-funded junket … oops … going on a fact-finding mission to Europe. As Lucid Idiocy notes, get ready for toll roads everywhere. Except they’ll be empty because no one will be able to find any gasoline.

— The crisis-here-crisis-there-everywhere-a-crisis of the past couple of weeks has Reporter-Cub frightened. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and he doesn’t feel fine.

— Even Duane Moody throws aside his habit of posting lists of favorite songs to go political today. He’s amazed, as are we all, at how many people embrace candidates without even having a clue about what they stand for. He’s so upset that he disses his own mother.

— Perspective, people, perspective! Don’t be so cranky. As Disposable Income reminds us, it’s National Pancake Day. Go find a gas station, sit in line for hours, then go have some yummy pancakes this weekend. You’ll feel better on a full stomach.

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