1. The age of oil is drawing to a close. Crude oil will continue to be available long after it has stopped being viable to use it.

2. Combustion of crude is trashing our planet, and although I’m irked by the fact that the windfall is winding up in the hands of the filthy rich who use a slice of it to keep things just as they are, the fundamental problem is that the true costs of oil are not being paid by the users. How much per gallon, do you suppose, would it cost if *all* the costs to the commons associated with running an oil-intensive economy were applied to it? A lot more than $140 per barrel that’s for sure. Cheap oil produced massive urban sprawl, stole billions of hours from the lives of people sitting in tailbacks on crowded roads and underpinned the era of fast food and obesity. By driving people into autos, it was responsible and is still responsible for millions of road deaths and even more road trauma, especially in the developing world.

Fuel is too cheap, even now.

The very first thing that must be done is to reinvigorate mass transit. Years ago GM and the Fossil fuel morlochs bought up the trolley bus systems and closed them down, forcing people into cars. Reversing this environmental vandalism by rebuilding public transport and encouraging car pooling, more than any other single measure, would begin to allow people to reclaim their lives AND free them from soaring costs. We need cities designed around much higher population densities precisely so that each of us can get what we need with less travel. This would force down the effective cost of housing and commuting massively and reduce both stationary and transport energy demand per capita — and we could then begin to return whole swathes of the cities to greenspace or something like the original ecology of the place.

All of that is far more sensible than contemplating how to keep living as we did when we had access to fuel that was cheap to buy precisely because the bulk of the human and environmental costs were not accounted for.

While this process is in full swing, let us by all means use low carbon footprint energy sources to meet our needs, but let’s not delude ourselves into pining for the lifestyle that “cheap” oil made possible.

Fran

Reduce your personal consumption by any means possible.

Here’s the plan of action…
1 Round up and arrest all of the Wall Street Speculators who are responsible for 50 to 75% of the increase in prices.

2 Nationalize the oil industry.

3 Require all new autos to get at least 50 MPG

4 End the ethanol scam which has created food shortages.

5 The Dems/repubs are beholden to the corporate world. Vote for Nader.

6 End the obscene waste of energy by the military. Cut the military budget by 98%. It will save a lot of fuel (and a lot of lives).

7 Show national respect for Chavez. Venezuela has been donating oil to the homeless and poor in New England for the past 2 winters.

8 Develop a system of rail and public transportation. Many places in rural US have none – you can’t get there from here.

9 Take farm subsidies from the large factory farms and instead subsidize small, organic family farms. It would save oil to not transport food across the country.

10 If all else fails – think a bloodless revolution. Maye the time has come.

I’m a single father of two teenage kids 14yr and 17yr old boys, and I’ve been in traveling sales for over 20 years now.

I work pretty much the entire southern part of my state for the company I’m employed with. And for the past 7 months, since they have not found a replacement for the previous individual who held that territory, yours truly has gotten that load 2x’s per week, which equates to an extra 3000 miles per month on my car.

Right now of course my company is paying my mileage, yet even they are feeling the pinch at the pump and are in the process of “restructuring” their comp plan, so I’m left with 1 or 2 options….Quit or Use an alternative fuel on my 2005 Range Rover.

I’ve been surfing the net reading about hybrids, vegetable oil fuels, water, and even sand!

What should I do?

This one site I visited hypermiling,com had some pretty good tips, but some folks have told me that this technique is very risky and jeopardizing to myself and other drivers.

Another site I Googled was water4fuel,info and they had this water conversion kit and manual for about $90-$100 which claimed to increase my mileage as much as 30-50% without any modifications to my engine or warranty.

Veggy oil I was told worked on diesel, and I do not have diesel, so I won’t go there, and sand??? I think this concept is not only risky, yet way off base to even consider unless someone qualified could show me otherwise.

Please Help!