Sri Lanka Has Literally Run Out Of Gas

My country has (involuntarily) stopped importing fossil fuels

I won’t post pictures of us looking fucked up. These are meals that went out to people in the fuel queues, by Community Meal Share

Sri Lanka has dramatically cut its fossil fuel emissions, completely involuntarily. We don’t use diesel, petrol, or natural gas simply because we can’t import any. We have no natural reserves and no credit to buy. The country has literally run out of gas.

Transport For The Rich

For a sense of what that’s like, my family has a diesel jeep which is now an expensive lawn ornament. It has a quarter tank of gas and the only time I touched it was to move an appliance. Instead of taking the kids to school in that car, I now take the bus. This also runs on diesel but carries 40+ people and is vastly more efficient.

Taking the bus used to suck because there was so much traffic, but now there are dramatically fewer cars on the road and the trip takes about 15 minutes as compared to a sweaty 30 before. The cost has, however, doubled. There are also far fewer people on the bus because economic activity (ie going to work) has generally collapsed.

Our extended family has a plug-in hybrid with about 18km of electric range and we use that sometimes, but mostly we actually just don’t go anywhere at all. The school run is our only essential travel and beyond that we just don’t…