Gasoline prices rise, energy conservation thinking declines

socrates1fan · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 04, 2008 Posts: 284

Your choice I suppose.
Drill in everyone's backyard and keeping consuming so you can maintain your lazy lifestyle
OR
don't drill everywhere, deal with the gas problems by conserving and cutting consumption and then JUST maybe you can have some fresh air to breath into your tar-covered lungs.
Who needs fresh air when you can get an SUV?

Fishman

Hogan
Does this surprise you? I have numerous relatives who are spit-spewing liberals, whine relentlessly about human based global warming. I'm not so sure about the idea but had the lowest carbon footprint in my daughter's AP Environmental Science course. When challenged said relatives have no garden, no fl lights, no extra insulation, no nothing. "Its inconvenient". They want "others"" to change, not themselves. Classic liberal thinking.

Ludi

Just goes to show how shallow most "environmentalists" are.

Mad

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ROCKMAN

ludi et al,

And that brings us back to all the worn analogies: no atheists in fox holes, etc. Just last night I pondered this thread. It appears to me the whole conversation is loosing certain subgroups fairly quickly now: liberal/conservative, conservation/drill more, fuel efficiency/alternatives, etc. One of the clearest signs of this new growing (and potentially dominating) subgroup was the poll showing liberals were swinging faster to the supply side then the conservatives moving in the same direction.

Perhaps a light hearted contest to name this growing subgroup. Maybe in reference to a crying baby we can call them the FMN's: "Feed Me Now!". Essential it doesn't matter how you do, just do it NOW!.

Any suggestions? Remember, this is for fun...just a little stress relief for a bit.

anagami

Avarage joes and janes are starting to realize that they're oil junkies...
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TheDude

In years to come it'll probably be a sure way to get your ass kicked to admit being an environmentalist, and an even worse idea to let on that you knew about declining oil supplies beforehand.

Liberal radio hosts are of course spinning high oil prices as some dark conspiracy from the IOCs - all those leases they purposely didn't use. Haven't done their homework, doubt they will. Blaming speculators is popular too, as if the situation with petroleum is a precise analogue to what Enron did in California. Wonder what they'll think when President O Bomb announces massive CTL projects for his lignite buddies, and damn the environmental impacts. Remember what Orlov says: You have your choice of either Capitalist Party.
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ClassicSpiderman

Jupidu

Wait a minute.
Is this research center trustful? The news came from AP. AP is a mean stream media complex.

Is it good for MSM if people get separated? If they work against each other instead of working together?

The best thing to make a better world is to do it right now and by everybody as good as he can.
What about building small windmills, about insulating homes with natural materials (straw and mud), about building solar thermal heatings?
What about install an internet project: Regional market on the net.
You can offer things you are able to produce (vegetables, tarts, windmills, jam, meat, pickled cucumber, baskets from willows, cookies for Christmas etc.) or things you can do (baby-sitting, care for home work of pupils, etc.) together with the price.

A few weeks ago i saw a report about such a project in switzerland. It's called Eccofood (only in german: www.eccofood.ch).
Today it's only a project for farmers (especially for those which don't produce GMOs), but it's a beginning.

There is a central point where a delivery car is stationed. Within a maximal radius of about 50km (in the states perhaps up to 50 miles or more) customers can order things from local producers. The price for the products is about 15-20% higher than in the supermarket and for each delivery they have to pay 5 swiss Francs extra.
Tins and glasses for conserved food in the supermarket do need a lot of energy to be produced. Why shouldn't it be possible to build
up a deposit-system not only for bottles but also for glasses?

At the central point this glasses can be washed and delivered to the producers.
Orders can be made via internet or by phone. In every village there is also a notice board with a list of the actual offers which are renewed every week. This list can be printed and fixed by everyone who has an internet pc.

Advantages:
- the money of the habitants stays in the region and isn't diverted to the big companys.
- with more money more jobs can be created
- less traffic on the streets caused by big trucks (onions from Californa to Chicago e.g.)
- less garbage is produced (no packing, only baskets are transferred)
- fresh vegetables
- producers aren't anonymous, they have to look at their quality
- fuel can be saved because it is better that one car brings the products to the customers than a lot of empty or half empty cars drive to a supermarket (at least all the cars do have a cold motor and therefore a high consumption on the first kilometers).

Problems:
- at the beginning only few people are able to afford these prices, but nevertheless they can produce things and are able to get money
- handling of complaints
- level of quality (people do have a different view towards level of quality)
- you need a certain amount of money to buy a car and to survive the first months till this new system is accepted and there is a sufficient amount of customers

ROCKMAN

Jupidu,

All your points are valid and could make a real dent in the problem. The hitch in these alternatives is scalability and time factor.
What works well in small communities often fails when applied to larger popuations. But even for broarder solutions, like raising milage standards, cannot have a meaningful effect in less than 5 or even 10 years. The economy cannot withstand the cost of a significantly rapid vehicle replacement. That doesn't mean we shouldn't start heading that direction ASAP but it's dishonest to represent any of these needed adjustments to our consumption profile as a "fix" for the current situation.

Jupidu

Perhaps i described it as THE FIX or perhaps i even meant it, but your right it isn't THE FIX. But nevertheless it's A WAY to fix a bit coming food security and income problems.

In the moment i live in a rural region of germany. It's the least populated state in Germany. A lot of people are producing their own vegetables, fruits (apples, strawberrys), eggs, chickens, gooses, pigs (bacon), etc.
There are some signs along the streets in the small villages which offer fresh eggs (i think about 20Ct per egg).

There is a "bigger" city nearby (15km) with about 60.000 inhabitant. The people here in the rural country can more or less produce their own food. So there will be few customers for food here. But a surplus of food can be sold in the city.

Yesterday i saw an aurugula salad (125g) in a supermarket, completely cleaned, in a transparent plastic box and everything wrapped with a plastic foil: 99 Ct.
And according to the sign the origin is Germany. I don't believe that anymore. Not with that high prices of diesel and with the maut each truck has to pay on our highways (about 13 Ct per kilometer with at least 12 tons gross vehicle weight).
Last week i saw a documentary about hired men working on fields in Italy. Some years ago this work was done by refugees from North Africa and now people from eastern Europe are working like slaves there. They were attracted with the promise of good jobs with good payment. But soon they noticed that they rather have to pay for their work than they would get some money. They had to live from their rations they had in their luggage.
I think thats more the origin of such a salad.

With such a price it's almost not possible to compete with. So people have to be informed better. Perhaps we need some spreadsheets were all the work and all the investments for different food products are listed so that the customers get a feeling what is a real price and what seems to be a product of slavery.

Now the absolute opposite to a rural region: Manhattan
It's almost impossible to produce some food here - perhaps in the Central Park, but this idea i will hide very well 'cause i don't want to get lynched. Wink

I think that a lot of people in Manhattan, which even never had a garden or ever produced some food, would like to be a peasant.
Even in Manhattan there should be some roofs which are still unused (no penthouses, helicopter parking, etc.) that can be transformed - e.g. older houses or even on the roofs of factorys.
I'm sure the garden areas would have to be alotted.
The best thing would be if the new "peasants" would be allowed to sell their products so that they really have an incitement to care for "their" garden.
The static shouldn't be that problem at least not on skyscrapers.
The best thing would be that
Okay that looks more like a end game scenario. But doesn't Mr. Bloomberg encourages in the moment projects to make roofs more green?
FIRST-EVER “GREEN” ROCKEFELLER CENTER CHRISTMAS TREE

Nevertheless in L.A. it would be a bit easier. Last time i was there (Summer 1985) there were only a few skyscrapers but a lot of buildings with only two or three floors. Green roofs or better a lot of trees would reduce smog a lot.

Cuba is for me a good example how to do things like that.
A lot of people already produce a lot of things which are really useful and nice but these are only made as presents or something like that.
The wife of a friend of mine makes a jelly out of apples which i never ate before. It is only made for themselves, their relatives and good friends.

Almost everybody nowadays knows how to use PC and internet or at least there are enough people to do it for the rest.
So scalability shouldn't be the problem.
The problem is to spread the idea fast enough.