how many "other people" must...

[gpandas]

we the people kill to keep our getmo' oil-consuming society running? how many must we sacrifice on the altar of the suv and plastic fences? how many duers are actually willing to deprive themselves of some american so-called standards of living to stop the slaughter? i find it humorous when a country containing 5% of the worlds population and uses over 40% of the fossil fuel presents itself as a moral leader of any sort. we are all a bunch of self-righteous asses. as the oil supply shrinks, this problem will worsen. will the american people, for one time, not be the greediest of all?

[phaed]

1. This is real food for thought

I have given up all things that are not cruelty-free, so I must begin looking at ways to refrain from using petro based items. PETA has a compassionate consumer guide. Does anyone know of a guide to petro free living? It's an insidious product present in so many areas of our life we hardly think about it. I do know that recently in shopping for replacment carperting I was told there would be an industry wide price increase due to oil prices. I would like to hear some ideas on how to reduce our dependance upon oil.

[indigobusiness]

5. Good show, phaed

and welcome to DU.

I wish I was more careful in my consumption.

[lapfog_1]

8. An petroleum free existence is

pretty much impossible currently.

Its in so many objects that we use every day. Everything
made from plastic is petroleum based, including the computers,
almost all synthetic fabrics (I guess we could go back to
wearing animal skins... oops).

The list of things is so long that I won't even try to list it all.

The big things that use 99 percent of the oil and natural gas
are:

fuel to run machinery

fuel to generate electricity

fertilizer to grow things

we need to do without all three of these somehow. If we could
in the next 5 years, THEN in the next 200 or so, we could start
thinking about removing petroleum from the rest of the things we
use. If we don't, well, a lot of people will starve, lots more
will die in wars to obtain and control the supply of oil and
the planet will not be a very nice place to be.

[gpandas]

10. thanks for the reality trip, it does look bad

[CrispyQ]

2. Yesterday at the gas pump,

I heard a man, who was filling up his Yukon, complain about the price of gas. Now I don't know what a Yukon cost, but it must be at least $35K. He can afford a $35K gas-guzzling behemoth but whines about $2/gallon gas.

[cheezus]

3. i can believe that

he's barely making the $400mo payments as it is... the extra $50 a mont h in gas might make things tough

not that I have sympathy for him. get a bicycle

[CrispyQ]

4. A bicycle would do him good . . .

as he had close to 200,000 extra calories around his middle.

[indigobusiness]

6. QWelcome to DU, PNR

hypocrisy is king, and irony abounds



http://sludgereport.blogspot.com/

[seabeyond]

7. i am ready to go to electric car

anyone else ready to sacrifice. i need a lot more, they dont have the stuff here. has to be more of a demand than me, sittin in the panhandle

[gpandas]

9. but what about the energy used to generate electricity to build..

the car and keep it running? how about no car, and public trans, as the rest of the world does?

[lapfog_1]

11. There isn't any reason to "sacrifice"

there is this fallacy that somehow if we live off renew-ables, that
we can't drive big cars or SUVs, we can't drive as much, we will
operate vehicles that aren't as fast or quick or stylish.

This is all bullshit. We have the technology now to build fuel
cell cars that are everything that we have now, right down to
beating gas powered cars in the quarter mile (if you really need
that).

The problem is the fuel for fuel cells, it has to be a form of
hydrogen. The energy companies (which have a vested interest
in keeping a near monopoly on the supply of fuel) are trying very
hard to convince people that the way to power fuel cells is to
use hydrocarbon based fuels (the same crap we are using now). We
need to move to something which is produced using renew-ables and
that's a pure form of hydrogen which is safe and easy to handle.
The other problem is to convince the infrastructure folks (the
car makers, the gas stations, fuel transport, etc) to move to
this.

The real problem is that we don't have time. We may have 20 years,
tops. Starting now, it would take 20 years to migrate without
major economic impact from the disruption. I don't really see
anyone starting now.

[gpandas]

12. the miracle technology cure, eh? don't bet on it.

check out thermodynamics

[lapfog_1]

13. I'm sorry, is there something here that you know that

100s of scientists that I worked with at NASA for over 10 years
do not?

Not only technologically possible, the technology is in hand today
and will only get better as we start using it. All it takes now
is for a combination of gov and corporations to make it so.

No miracle required.

And what, specifically, is it about thermodynamics that you are
referring to?

[Ms. Clio]

14. How many Native Americans had to die

in order to make that "sea to shining sea" thing possible?

All U.S. foreign policy is just Manifest Destiny on a global scale.

[gpandas]

15. right n/t

[gpandas]

16. i don't know much about alternate fuel technology...

but what little i have read about it from sources that don't benefit either way is that it is still economically not feasable at this time. the thermo analogy is 'getting something from nothing'. btw, the post was mainly about killing other people in order to maintain our energy consumption (which is what we are doing in iraq right now). mention energy and americans immediately jump to defend their 2000 to 5000 pound personal transportation. there are many ways in which energy is needlessly used in this country, not just the ubiquitous automobile. what of all the throw away items that have us wallowing in our own garbage? what of the billions of btu's of energy used mowing and fertilizing lawns? we take consumption to new levels every day. imho that american people are out of touch with reality if they think they can morally justify our way of living.