Monday, June 09, 2008

Another World Without Oil photo essay (sort of)

As prices at the petrol pumps climb to record highs in Hawaii, and elsewhere, tongue-in-cheek images from a future "If gas prices continue to rise" are making the rounds...






It's interesting to see this issue handled humorously. Not that these are uproariously funny, but they certainly contrast in tone with the sombre harbingers of post-gas culture seen in the (unphotoshopped) series of images posted here a few months ago. I'm also reminded of World Without Oil writer Ken Eklund's comment to that photo essay: "the future objects that hit me in the gut are the repurposed ones: The Hummer car dealership that's now a refugee camp, the gutted Honda that now uses its alternator as a windmill..." Here, the improvised product life-extensions represented by the sail-car, and the vehicles pulled by horses and dogs, come across as a sort of satirical variation on that repurposing strategy.

(Christine Hansen sent these to the HRCFS listserv two days ago, and although plenty of blogs featured these in April and May [example], I haven't found an original source.)

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