As difficult as it may seem, there is a great deal of good news when it comes to rising gas prices — there is also a great deal of pain. But this post is all about the good news. Happy Easter.

Gas prices approaching $5 a gallon in April 2011 -- Time to start thinking about what $10 gasoline will do to your lifestyle.

First of all, let’s talk about food. Our book, this entire blog and all of my speeches are aimed at one thing – helping people take charge of their health by making much better choices in what they eat…simply moving back to the natural diet for our species. It would be great if the prospect of vibrant health, avoidance of chronic disease and a host of other environmental and sustainability factors would be enough incentive for humankind to change what they eat.

Sadly, I don’t think that the vast majority of the people will make such a change of their own free will. They will need to be forced. And that is exactly what expensive fuel is going to do for them. For many, the very high gas prices in our future may very well save their lives.

High energy costs will lead to more heathy things like organic farming, local produce and a great deal more nutritious whole plant foods on our plates.

How so? High energy prices will make plant-based foods much more desirable. As we learned from research for our book, on average it takes twenty times more energy to produce one calorie of beef than it does to produce one calorie of plant foods like potatoes, beans, rice, etc. What does this mean? It means that your Big Mac is going to start costing a whole lot more and that nutritious plate of grains and fresh vegetables is going to start looking much more attractive. Then, while saving money, you’ll also be saving your life. How convenient is that?

Destined to be a thing of the past, this kind of housing layout is one of the many products of cheap energy that will be a part of a "brief period of history" -- about 100 years when mankind used up all of the easily accessible fossil fuels.

Where is that land for the local farms going to come from? With $10 gasoline, there’s going to be a lot of people moving out of the suburban sprawl to smaller, denser, more efficient housing near shopping, schools and public transportation.

No longer viable for housing, that former “sprawl” will be taken over by small farms — that will be able to deliver fresh vegetables to a market near you — and you’ll be able to walk there from your home.

A neighborhood market in Paris, France. Ultimately, you'll be living in a neighborhood where you can walk to a market like this one.

While the “quality of our lives” will ultimately change for the better, as you can imagine, there is going to be an adjustment period when humankind must learn to consume far less energy than we are consuming today. That adjustment period is going to be very painful for a lot of people. And if it happens too quickly, there’s likely to be widespread unrest, chaos, riots, violence, and fighting as seven billion people around the world do whatever it takes to feed their families.

But if we handle it right, ultimately, the quality of life will be better for humans. The era of cheap energy has not been a bargain for our health, our environment, or our overall quality of life. We built huge homes far from public transportation and drove giant vehicles because we “could.” But it didn’t necessarily make us any happier. Like it or not, $10 gasoline is going to change all of that.

Walking down the street to buy some fresh flowers -- in Paris

The good news is that we can start moving in the direction of that richer “quality of life” now. We can eat healthier while saving energy and we might want to think about moving to a much more efficient home in a place where you can walk to schools, banks, markets, restaurants, parks, cultural events, friends’ homes and public transportation. Still not sure about this “quality of life thing?”

Let me ask you one question, “Where would you rather spend your vacation, Paris or Houston?

Paris or Houston? Where would you like to vacation? So far, the answer to my question has been unanimous.

For a closer look at what’s going to be driving the higher gas prices, you might want to take a look at an earlier post Worried about gas prices? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.