time to make the point, WE'RE NOT ADDICTED TO OIL, WE'RE HELD HOSTAGE BY THE OIL COMPANIES

[sam sarrha]

[librechik]

1. Absolutely right.

bastards stole our trolley cars and steam cars and electric cars and force us to buy their crappy gas engines whether we want to or not!

[cliffordu]

2. Sorry, not being able to function normally without your auto is addiction.

[JANdad]

8. And what pray tell oh enlightened one

is your most benevolent suggestion for us mere mortals?

[cliffordu]

10. Change your entire life to live without oil as much as you can.

Buy a cargo bicycle.

Get off your ass and walk the talk.

I did.

[JANdad]

17. Good for you!

Now take that sanctimonious attitude and shove it straight up your skinny ass (I assume it's skinny from all the walking)

[cliffordu]

20. Nope - 20-40 miles a day on the bicycle.

Fill your car. Kill a Marine.

You don't really think we're in Iraq for any reason other than so you don't have to give up your auto, do ya??

The car is a 100 year abberation in the history of humans. It could very well be the end of us.

I'll have as little of it as possible. I have no sympathy for 4 bucks a gallon. Fuck it, I hope it goes to 10 bucks per.

[JANdad]

23. You sir...

Are an asshole...no question about it.

your lack of empathy for those that DEPEND on their cars for their very LIVING are doomed to a life not worth living if you had your way. Instead of wishing for the ill-will of your fellow county-men...oh fuck it...common sense is lost on a 7k count poster with less than 6 months here?

BTW...do you have a job or do you get paid to post here?

[cliffordu]

28. I'm an asshole....

Be sure to resort to ad hominum attacks when confronted with someone who changed everything about his life to get out from under the thumb of corporations that - just today- posted the biggest quarterly profit margin in the history of the US.

When the time comes will you sell the future of your children for your addiction to oil???

Oh, wait, you already have.



You could learn to live another way if you wanted to, but I'm afraid that even the most 'progressive' within the Democratic party aren't willing to progress at all if it means any discomfort.

[JANdad]

29. Ok oh progressive one...

How do I get 3 kids and a wife on a bicycle and ride the four miles into town to get to wherever it is that I need to go?

And BTW...Do you HAVE a JOB...or is posting on line it?

[cliffordu]

31. Xtracycle dot com, Stokemonkey dot com, kentsbike.blogspot dot com,

The metal cowboy (google dat).


Why is it so important for you to know whether I work or not? will it make my points any less valid if I don't??

I live on almost nothing. I have absolutely no debt. Wait - I owe 15 dollars to my coffee roaster.

I own the old airstream my wife and I live in. No credit cards. No car insurance. Propane heat.

I work when I want to, from home. I picked up skills to do this at a community college.

This means I get to post here as much as I want.

The middle class lifestyle built around cheap oil is coming to a screetching halt.

[JANdad]

33. Ok then...stepping away from the computer...

Ex-hippies...I get it...buh bye...

Gonna go get back to reality now...buh bye...buh bye now...

[cliffordu]

35. Nothing ex about me. When you need to learn how to live simply and fully,

we'll be around.

[saracat]

53. Really, Well it happens, I can't live "simply and fully" without being able to get to my medical

appointments and I can't bike across country 6 times a year. I wouldn't be able to "live" at all in any meanigful way.And there are many others like me.It must be nice to live in a perfect healthy worlds that allows you to dictate to others.

[cliffordu]

56. Never said anything about your NEEDS, now did I?

I find your insults interesting, though.

[saracat]

61. You want gas to go to $10 bucks a gallon? Do you have any idea what that does to airline tickets for

people like me? Do you have any idea how difficult it is for some folks to pay for healtyh insurance and then have to pay airlines as well? You didn't address my needs but your lack of forethought and empathy was obvious.Those of us who need the price of feul lowered are the ones that should be insulted by your lack of concern. Not everyone can get where they need to go by bike.

[cliffordu]

65. I won't make gas go to 10 bucks a gallon. Exxon will.

And they'll laugh at you all the way to the bank.

The sooner it does get to ten bucks, though, the sooner a nationwide demand for real change occurs, instead of these feel good tax rebates, the fake drilling ideas, the promised fuel efficient vehicles.

You can have my gas. Just ask Mobile for it.

Have you written anyone about gas prices? Yelled at Exxon??

I spent the last 10 years setting myself up to NOT need a car. If I stopped riding a bike tomorrow, I STILL wouldn't need a goddammed car.

Why do you think I have a lack of empathy because I don't care if people drive cheaply or not??

[saracat]

67. Yes. Because you mock them and offer no alternative. I have gotten involved locally in the issues of

alternative energy but I am still aware that others need to use gas to survive. Things can be done but it isn't as "simple' as it is for you. It is wonderful you have a simple solution for yourself but for many people it just won't work.

[cliffordu]

69. The solutions are simple. Difficult to adopt

and brutally painful to accept, for lots of folks.

The simple solution:

I'm talking about using a LOT less fuel - lowering heat signatures is the way I look at it -

Heat a (much) smaller home. Close off rooms. Stop using multiple cars within families wherever possible.
Use public transportation where possible, get an extremely fuel efficent car.

Ride a fucking bike. Car pool.

All these things to do, to make it better, but most people would rather drive the chevy a mile to the store rather than actually LOOK at what they can do to change the way they interact with the world.

It ain't convienient, and we as a culture are all about living large/unbridled consumption and convienience.

And that is what I really mock.

I am an energy radical, and I know it, but there is a grain of truth, here......The way I live is difficult and at times exhausting, but I got back the hours of my life I used to give to EXXON and the fucking insurance companies. Fair trade.

[Breeze54]

91. You're clearly a simpleton. n/t

[cliffordu]

93. We'll see. When you get sick and tired of being sick and tired,

you'll make a change, until then, you can continue to call me names. I can take it.

Simple is good. 10 bucks a gallon is your future.

[Name removed]

95. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DebJ]

54. Bike riding long distances with asthma and no shower in the

high school in which I will be teaching won't cut it. Particularly in February and March snows. Pennsylvania roads aren't fit for cars, much less bikes.

[cliffordu]

63. My conversation was with a particularly abusive individual, and has nothing

to do with the limits to bicycling...and I know there are.

My whole point in the beginning of this was that we ARE addicted to the convenience that cheap oil has provided.

The days of that are coming to a close. Exploring options might prepare one for the -discomfort- that the next 20 years are going to bring.

And I still don't care about that guy's car.

If EXXON has anything to say about it, gas WILL cost 10 bucks a gallon before too long. The sooner we get there, the sooner people are going to demand REAL change and not just band-aids on the bullet wound that is oil dependency in this country.

It's going to get real expensive to eat, transportation costs and all, real soon. Lots of folks will fall off the edges. They already are in southern California - homeless camps of people who last year were living in 23,000 sq foot homes in Pacific Palisades.

There was a post about it here, a couple of months ago.

[saracat]

51. ReallY? Screw you. I have a medical condition the requires me to fly to

Chicago and without treatment, I would be disabled.There is only one doctor who can treat my condition and I do not have a choice. I can't afford the flights as it is and you want to make sure I can't? You are an ass.You really don't give a damn about other folks , do you? They have no meaning in your life. You lack of empathy is stunning. You are a really sad person.

[cliffordu]

113. Be sure to take this to the extreme, this is NOT the kind of thing I'm talking about

and I think you know it.

[tblue37]

107. I have owned a car for just 2 years. I am 58 years old,

and can't walk much any more because of ruptured discs. I use a cane and have a handicapped tag. I park in handicapped spot right by where I teach. I used to walk 10 miles a day--regularly. Now I simply can't. My city has very little public transportation--and it's on the verge of getting rid of what little it has. The bus service, limited though it is, is only 6 years old, and they are ready to dump it as an expense the city can’t afford.

In many places, necessary goods and services (groceries, doctors, etc.) are not within walking distance or located in a way that it is safe to walk or ride a bike to them. My doctor has moved 5 ½ miles away from where I am, and I can't walk 5 ½ miles any more. The bus doesn't go out there, and I can't afford a $9 cab ride in each direction, especially since I have to visit the doctor fairly frequently.

During the 18 years that I ran a home daycare, I often packed up all 6 kids in my care--one in a stroller, one in a carrier on my back, two holding onto the stroller handles, and two more holding onto my shirt--and walked the 7 blocks to the grocery store and the 7 blocks back to buy needed groceries. (The parents were awful about not picking their kids up on time, so I often couldn't get free of kids in time to go to the store before going to my second job--and I was afraid to walk down there after midnight when I got home.)

On the way back, each of the walking kids would carry a small plastic bag with something light in it, and I would hang a bag or two on each of my arms. I could also tuck something into the carry spot in back of the stroller.

The kids thought of the grocery trips as a fun field trip, and I thought of it as a nice break in the day and a chance to teach them how to behave properly in public places. But believe me, it was a major undertaking. I managed, but back then I was something of a superwoman. (Now I am merely mortal.)

You and your bike--HA! I have walked the walk with six kids at a time--two infants and four preschoolers, no less, while grocery shopping. And that doesn’t even count the times I pulled them in a wagon to the swimming pool, the library, or the park downtown (25 minutes in each direction). The older kids had to take turns walking and riding in the wagon, because I couldn’t fit all of them in at once. We would walk up the hill to the campus to go to the Natural History Museum—a hill so steep it is called Mt. Oread. (I suspect my lower back disc problems might even be related to dragging all those kids in a wagon—including up Mt. Oread.)

Compared to what I managed without a car in a town where nothing is close by and there was no bus at all at the time, you, sir, are a piker.

I was always proud of my resistance to automobile use. In fact, I called myself a "foot soldier." But I never assumed that everyone would be able to live auto-free as I did. I would encourage people to cut down on the auto use wherever possible, but it would never occur to me to insult them the way you do.

I don't doubt that many people use cars way more than they need to, but I know from my own experience that sometimes there are no viable alternatives.

Walk the walk (or bike the bike), and encourage others to do so, too. Even now that I have a car, I don’t use it unless I have to, and I still encourage people to reduce their auto usage.

But I think you should get off your holier-than-thou high horse. Or else get a bunch of babies and toddlers and start walking to the grocery store several times a week to pick up groceries, just to make sure you know what you are talking about. Put them in a wagon and haul them up a steep hill at least once a week. Take them to parks and libraries—on foot! Oh, and don’t forget to lug along the diaper bag for the babies and toddlers and some sort of drink for all of them, because it gets very hot in Kansas in the spring and summer.

You have no idea!

Sure, I had a daycare, but some mothers have several kids, and they are in a similar position without a car. Goods and services are zoned away from residential areas, so there often simple is no way to walk to them—or to ride a bike safely to them.

Riding a bike safely is often impossible. I gave up riding bikes after 3 very close calls as a young woman. From age 16 to age 22 my son was hit FOUR times while riding his bike—and in every case he was in the right, but some driver ran a stop light or turned right on red without looking—in one bizarre case a retired professor peeled out of a parking lot so fast he didn’t see my son riding on the sidewalk to work, where he was riding because I had begged him to stay on the sidewalk after his most recent accident (even though that’s illegal in our town) just because I wanted him to survive.

Our cities have been designed for cars, not for bicycles or pedestrians. Heck, in our city, many of the streets don’t even have sidewalks! When I first moved here (Lawrence, Kansas) in 1970 I was astonished. I had never seen a city with so few sidewalks.

I just can’t get over how absolutist you are in your assumption that you are 100% in the right and anyone who uses a car for any reason is 100% in the wrong.

I think you haven’t got a clue.

[cliffordu]

111. I don't believe a word of what you wrote.

If you had done all the cycling and walking you claim to have done, you would certainly understand the point I have been trying to make.

The name calling is a weak point. The grandstanding is a little over the top, too. The obsessive detail in where every kid put thier hands on the stroller is a nice touch though.

But, really, it's the chronic one-upmanship that ultimately leads to your tale's failure.

Not a bad effort, all and all. Thanks for caring.

Car culture is coming to an end. People can prepare or they can wail and gnash teeth later.

The level of vituperation and name calling in the replies by a few is a direct reflection of how desperate people are to maintain the rictus of status quo; faces locked in a panicked smile, just trying to get back to Happy Motoring.

Like a junkie trying to get back to that very first euphoric high.

[tblue37]

115. Actually, it is all true--every word. I have a website,

Who's Minding the Children about parenting and children's issues. (I have several websites, actually, but that is one of the two that grew out of my daycare years.)

As I said, you have no idea.

I was divorced in 1983, when my kids were 21 months and 3½ years old. I was then (and still am) an adjunct instructor of college English. At the time, I also had my own dressmaking shop, and I also tutored and did freelance editing and writing. I arranged shared custody with their dad: he had 4 nights a week and all day and overnights on alternating weekends; I had three nights a week and alternating weekends; I had them from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every weekday, except for the nights I had them with me when they didn’t go back to his place until bedtime (8:00 p.m.).

That left midnights past 8:00 p.m. and alternating weekends free for all my jobs, but I still had the kids during most of their waking hours, which is what I cared about.

I did the home daycare because I wanted to be the one to raise my children, not some stranger—a college student, maybe, or a woman with little or no education, which is what usually happens when kids are put in full time daycare.

I had a regular substitute sitter during the 6-12 hours a week that I taught classes at the university (I would usually have 4 sections in the fall and 2 or 3 sections in the spring). Then I had my office hours on Saturdays from 8:00 to 11:00. I also met with students for conferences in my apartment evenings and alternating weekends, too, to fit them around my schedule, and sometimes, when we needed more time, I would hire a sitter to watch the kids for a couple of hours in the afternoon during daycare hours, and I would sit there in the living room at the table, conferencing with a student while the kids played under the watchful eyes of the substitute, but still in my presence (and sometimes even in my lap). You can read about my daycare on my Who’s Minding the Children and my Kidbits sites. It’s all for real:
http://childrensneeds.homestead.com/index.html
http://kidbits.homestead.com/index.html

After the divorce, I had to do whatever kinds of work I could do to squeeze earning an income around my absolute priority, which was that I meant to be the main person raising my own kids. A home daycare doesn’t pay well, and parents are often really bad about stiffing the babysitter and not bothering to pick their kids up on time. (Read my rants about that on the Who’s Minding the Children site.) The sort of jobs you can fit in bits and pieces around a daycare and that sort of shared custody arrangement often don't pay well at all, and since much of it was freelance (the custom-sewing and alterations jobs, the tutoring freelance editing jobs), it was also sporadic. Actually, the sewing, tutoring, and editing jobs paid decently, but they were sporadic and couldn’t be counted on, and sometimes I would have to turn down a good job because of exhaustion or because of the demands of my other jobs, so on average, that work didn't pay well.

For many years, I was very, very poor. Up to 3 years ago, I was netting about $17-20,000 per year. I couldn’t afford a car—and I didn’t want one anyway. I am doing much better now, thanks, because my two kids are now launched into their adult careers and don’t need my time or my support any more. I also have gotten a more secure full time rather than a part time adjunct position at the university. I am not making a huge salary, but it is larger than it was as a part-timer, and it is steady now—and I have learned to live frugally. My freelance writing, editing, and tutoring businesses are going well, and I am in the process of monetizing my websites. I expect to make a good living from them once they are relaunched with a professional redesign to sell my many ebooks.

I did have a car for less than a year at one time, because I was too crippled by plantar fasciitis to walk. But the car was a crummy cheapie (all I could afford at the time) and too junky to last, and I ended up deeply in debt from paying for maintenance and repairs. I finally had surgery on my foot so I could walk again. (Fortunately, as a college instructor, I have excellent health insurance.)

Yes, the plantar fasciitis was real, too. On another site I have a series of articles in which I detail my bouts of plantar fasciitis. I describe the conservative methods that worked to handle several flare-ups, and then my surgery and recovery from surgeryfor the flare-up that didn't respond to the conservatie treatments. Those articles are very popular with plantar fasciitis sufferers who seek advice abotu how to deal with their crippling pain. One reason I developed pf was that I walked so much. (People who have the inclination to develop pf will often do so when they walk too much on the hard surfaces that one must walk on in modern life.) Go to http://www.salvoblue.homestead.com/articleindex.html and scroll down to the bottom of the article index page to read the series of articles by me and several of my readers about dealing with crippling plantar fasciitis.

cliffordu, I am giving you info about my websites so you will see that I am for real. One reason my story has so much detail is that I am a writer, with several popular websites and hudnreds of articles on the web--about 450 on my own sites, and about 150 more that I have sold to others.

Two of my websites consist of articles based on my experiences as a daycare provider—one is the Who’s Minding the Children site and the other one is filled with funny true stories about the things small children do or say. Another site consists of funny true anecdotes about my experiences with a wide variety of animals. Another consists of mostly humorous, but still true, essays about dealing with deafness in a world full of unaccommodating “hearies.” (Yep, buddy--I am deaf, too!)

My most popular site is called Grammar and Usage for the Non-Expert. I also have a popular site about essay-writing, one about understanding poetry, one about ADD/ADHD (my ADHD is one reason I have had the energy to do all those things you don’t believe a word of). I also have a site called Teacher, Teacher, where I post my rants about teaching and education issues. One of the articles on my Teacher, Teacher articles is about the year (2002-2003) when I supplemented my meager income by also substitute sitting in the Lawrence school system on days I didn’t teach at KU. By that time, though, my kids were adults. I quit my daycare in 1999, because parents’ exploitation of me caused me to have heart problems and landed me in the hospital for several days. You can find an article about that at http://www.salvoblue.homestead.com/vaporlock.html
“Heart Squeezies, Heart Clutchies, VAPOR LOCK!”

I quit in August of 1999, and my daughter (my baby) started college that same month. I no longer needed to do daycare, because my kids were had grown up and were out of the house.

If I had had an easier time of it during my daycare years, I wouldn’t have ended up with the plantar fasciitis, the heart problems, or the ruptured discs in my lower back. But I didn’t have an easy time—I had the very hard time I described in my previous post.

I also have a 10th site for all the articles and essays I write that don’t fit into my other 9 sites. And I have two other websites that are only for my students, though one of them is actually open to the public. I just don’t let my readers know about it unless one of them happens to be a teacher who needs ideas or material for certain kinds of classes.

I am still a freelance editor and a ghostwriter, and I also do PR writing, though I am moving out of that field as I monetize my own sites. My kids are grown up now, with great careers. My former daycare kids still come to see me a lot. One just started (at age 14) as a new tutoring student with me this past week. She was not quite 7 when I quit my daycare.

cliifordu, I can tell without looking at your profile that you are male. Men just don’t know anything at all about what women do and have always done to take care of their kids when they end up in stressful, impossible circumstances. As I said in my previous post, I was a “superwoman,” though I have certainly crash landed on earth in my late middle age—largely because of the damage done by overwork and physical strain during my kids’ childhood. But in many ways, I am exactly like a zillion other women who, because their husbands found someone younger while the harried wife was at home taking care of the kids, ended up as a single mother with little income and no car. When they must take care of their kids in impossible circumstances, many mothers become superwomen. I was lucky to have a fairly wide variety of unusual skills that I could turn to earning a living in bits and pieces around my time with my kids. I was also lucky that I was very strong and healthy back then, mainly because I had always walked rather than riding in the car whenever possible, even while married. I didn’t even bother to have a driver’s license from the time I was 19 until my son was born when I was 29, because I had no intention of driving. I got one then only because I was often alone with him, and I wanted to be able to get him to the doctor in a hurry if necessary.

You say the name calling in my post bothered you. The only name I called you was “piker,” which has, as one of its meanings, “an amateur.” When we compare your avoidance of car use to what I have done while avoiding cars—not just because of my poverty for all those years, but also because I disapprove of the automobile and abhor the harm it has done to the earth and to society—you really are an amateur. Compared to the insults you have been hurling at everyone who uses a car or an airplane, without taking into consideration the fact that our society has deliberately made being a pedestrian or a bicyclist as difficult and dangerous as possible, and for some people literally impossible, I am a piker in the matter of “name calling.” You are way better at it than I am.

I wrote an essay many years ago entitled “Foot Soldier” about my devotion to living life on the hoof. I wrote it in response to the students in one of my English 101 classes in 1988 who thought I was nuts for refusing to own or use a car. I have never posted it on one of my sites because I no longer can claim to avoid cars. I will find it today and type it up for you, though. I will then post it online (though without putting a link to it on any of my article indices for my sites) and send you a link to it. You will see that I am as avid an anti-car nut as you are. My problem with you is your inflexibility and your insistence on hurling absolutist insults at people whose lives you know nothing about.

I don’t lie, and I don’t stretch the truth—not even for effect. I don’t have to.

A friend of mine once told me that she had assumed I was exaggerating (for effect and satirical humor) about something in my life that I had described for her. But then she witnessed firsthand the situation I had described and realized I had been telling the literal truth, with no embellishment at all. I laughed at her and said, “Jeannie, my life defies exaggeration!”

[cliffordu]

116. So now this is all about you as a woman. OK.

I thought we were talking about the cult of the automobile/dependency on oil and the changes needed to keep us from a perpetual state of war, but as you say, I obviously have no idea.

You obviously need to spread the issue out into sexism to illustrate how bad you've had it, and add a straw woman argument to the mix.

If you need a car, you need a car. Attacking me won't change the fact that the oil companies own every aspect of our lives. We either change that or we are little more than slaves.

Attacking someone's car is not attacking them as humans, but I find it interesting that people act like I've attacked them personally if I criticize their use of the auto. Your car does NOT equal who you are, in spite of what the commercials say.

When people can no longer drive their self-images around, they go insane. There were killings in the gas lines in the '70's.

I made a choice to opt out as much as I could, and have no sympathy for people who bought into the dead end of the
suburbs and snivel about 4 dollar a gallon gas.

We were warned 30 years ago when the Saudis squeezed supply SLIGHTLY that this reckoning would come, and NO ONE paid attention.

If you need a car, you need one, I am just another hippie on a bike. A piker, and I have no clue. Remember??

[nadinbrzezinski]

117. And sadly you can't read. You are saying the same thing as your

interlocutor, on how society has been designed for automobile use (I'll go a step further and say for consumption)

But that's ok, you are blind to any criticism and your method will get precious few converts.

[emilyg]

41. In Georgia - I drive everywhere.

Spent 3 weeks in N.Y. - walked everywhere.

[cliffordu]

46. You should try a vacation in Portland, Or.

You can live 25 miles out of town and not own a car - they have mass transit there that is KILLER for getting around everywhere in the metro area.

Go in the summer. February sucks.

[Breeze54]

37. Stoopidist post eveh.

:eyes:

[cliffordu]

38. Care to explain why??

[Breeze54]

64. You actually have to ask? Not Everyone has access to public transportation!!!

:silly:

[cliffordu]

68. Why does that make my post the stoopidest post ever??

The suburbs are going to be seen as a poor lifestyle choice when Exxon finally gets gas where they want it.

Living 25 miles down a freeway from work, food and entertainment is going to be extremely painful, and the ancillary costs for heat, food and clothing - everything that gets trucked in is going to get extremely expensive, too.......

Don't call me stoopid for pointing this out. If I were in a place where I NEEDED a car to get everywhere and wasn't RICH by modern standards, I'd get to a place where I COULD do without the need for a car 80% of the time.

Or get ready to decide whether to put gas in the car or eat well this week.


We've never had to worry about just living on the basics in this country, those of us in the middle class - and it's going to get really exciting when all the money we make will buy only the basics.

If the oil companies have their way, and war continues in the middle east, count on it.

I just don't care whether folks think we can continue living like it's 1958, energy-wise.

[Breeze54]

76. Because you're very unrealistic and not everyone CAN move !!!

Have a great time biking! But I seriously don't think you'll be seeing moms with kids and elderly people biking all over the place, especially in winter. Broaden your horizons. Not everyone is your age or lives in a climate that allows for biking year round and moving requires not only money but a place to move to and many area's don't have affordable housing, especially close into a city. Open your eyes to the real world. It's waiting.

[cliffordu]

78. Ok, then how about this- I posted this above:

The solutions are simple. Difficult to adopt

and brutally painful to accept, for lots of folks.

The simple solution:

I'm talking about using a LOT less fuel - lowering heat signatures is the way I look at it -

Heat a (much) smaller home. Close off rooms. Stop using multiple cars within families wherever possible.
Use public transportation where possible, get an extremely fuel efficent car.

Ride a bike. Car pool.

All these things to do, to make it better, but most people would rather drive the chevy a mile to the store rather than actually LOOK at what they can do to change the way they interact with the world.

It ain't convienient, and we as a culture are all about living large/unbridled consumption and convienience.

And that is what I really mock.

I am an energy radical, and I know it, but there is a grain of truth, here......The way I live is difficult and at times exhausting, but I got back the hours of my life I used to give to EXXON and the fucking insurance companies. Fair trade.

And by the way - I'll be 57 years old this November. My wife is 60, and she rides 10 miles each way to her cleaning jobs every day of the week. She has legs like Atlas.

[Breeze54]

89. Well big woot! I biked my baby everywhere & then when he got older (6), 4 miles to the bus

and 4 miles home every night. When he was a baby, I biked all over NV to get to school and to work and to daycare, twice a day for each. You aren't any better than me but now I live where the snow piles up 3 feet deep and there's no where to ride for 7 months of the year!! It's extremely dangerous and many have been killed, just in this small town, by drivers that ran over parents with small kids on the backs of their bikes. How dare you lecture everyone else, as if you're better than everyone else! People are barely surviving right now. And as has been stated by many, not everyone CAN do as you keep insisting that they do. You may be 57 years old but you're not very mature or realistic. I suspect you're abusing your wife by making her bike everywhere. Get a clue. One size does NOT fit all!!

[cliffordu]

92. Never said I was better than you,

I just told my wife what you wrote about abusing her and she spit her toothpick across the table;

She said "I feel empowered, and strong and healthy and do my best thinking, and I always feel better when I ride, and I get to see things I never would otherwise and I feel SAFER as a woman on my bicycle when I ride around town, by the time people figure out that I am a woman I'm gone....."

She said a lot more than that, but I think you get her drift.

I never said I speak for everyone, and I know how difficult it was to set my life up like this. It isn't for people who value convienience and comfort above all.

People are barely surviving right now because the energy companies are stealing them blind.

I'm not.

[Breeze54]

97. There you go with that self-righteous crap again...

"People are barely surviving right now because the energy companies are stealing them blind. I'm not."

As I said above... 'Big Woot!" :eyes:

[readmoreoften]

81. Do you bike your two kids to school before heading off to work on your bike

to bike back and pick them up from school on your dinner break then bike back to work at your shitty 8 an hour job to bike home at midnight?

How are single parents supposed to bike everywhere?
How are those with disabilities supposed to bike everywhere?
How are people who live in Texas and Nevada supposed to bike themselves and their kids in 130 degree heat?
How are those over the age of 55 who are in good health but not trained athletes supposed to bike everywhere?
How are the poor supposed to bike their laundry to the laundromat with a toddler in tow?
How are professors supposed to bike to work with a suitcase full of history books, a computer, a projection system, and 60 essays to grade?

Newsflash: MOST PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE SUBURBS CAN'T AFFORD TO LIVE IN THE CITY.

Can you afford to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn?
Can you afford to live in San Francisco?
Can you afford to live in Downtown LA?
Can you afford to live in Downtown Austin or Memphis?
Can you afford to live in the center of any thriving "walkable" American town?

Well good for you. Aren't you the lucky yuppie. The rest of us low achievers are stuck DRIVING.

When you get into an accident on your bike, I hope the Bike Ambulance pedals superfast to come to your rescue. Answers are SYSTEMIC and STRUCTURAL not based on charity and personal purity.

You'd do more good driving to work and devoting your free time to FIGHTING THE OIL LOBBY so that all Americans can have access to a vibrant railway system. Talkabout SANCTIMONIOUS....

[cliffordu]

87. ROFL This is the attack of someone getting screwed royally by EXXON.

It isn't my fault you live in the suburbs.

I'll be 57 this year. I am no athlete. I ride 20 -40 miles a day. Sometimes with 120 lbs of supplies on the bike.

My wife is 60 and rides her 60 pound bicycle 10 miles each way to her cleaning gigs.

I made 10,000 last year. I am not a yuppie. I'm just a guy who got tired of killing Marines to fill my tank.

I don't want to live in any city you mentioned - I lived in Austin, sold out, dumped the truck and moved 5 miles outside a small town. My rent is 375 dollars a month.

Laundry and toddlers?? Xtracycle.com Forgive the hippie shit, the cargo bikes are great. I know a woman who hauls three kids on hers, everywhere. Look at clevercycles.com for other realistic designs.

Ya better get ready, it's going to get a lot worse before there's any relief. Exxon wants you to drive a Ford Super Duty and live in the suburbs and pay 10 bucks a gallon. I don't.

I want you to get as mad at them as I was and change the way you live. Purity ain't got nothing to do with it.

The bike ambulance thingy is pretty funny, though.

Those systemic changes you believe in??? Ain't going to happen. The oil companies own the system.

Best of luck with that, though.

Sanctimoniously yours,

[readmoreoften]

Glad you're so healthy.

Sorry biking to clean houses isn't going to pay off my student loans. Luckily, I can work online and I don't have to bike anywhere to get to work. Luckily.

[cliffordu]

94. I thought you said you were stuck driving.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

114. First of all, each car you give up saves you thousands of dollars a year

in extra disposable income. For the price of a maintaining a car, you could buy a couple of washing machines. Until you've done without a car (as I did for ten years) and then had to get one (because I moved to a different city), you don't realize the difference in your finances that car ownership makes.

I use the car mostly to run errands for my elderly mother and stepfather. However, I use it so little that I fill the tank an average of once a month. Even so, insurance and maintenance really add up, and if I had to make payments, that would be even worse.

By the way, I'm a former professor, and I always kept my books in my office and did as much work as possible there. I never drove to work, either. I always either took the bus or lived within walking distance. Two of my jobs were in cities, while the other two were in small towns. It's easy to be car-free in a small town, the only disadvantage being that you have to rent a car to leave.

Second, here in Minneapolis, I see non-motorized parents taking their kids all over the place, using bike trailers or riding the bus. (Kids LOVE to ride the bus and train, by the way. I've seen them arguing with parents because they want to stay on the bus instead of going to their destination.) By the age of ten or so, the kids can take themselves wherever they need to go.

While some people actually need to drive, the number is smaller than most people think.

As for not being able to afford a house, think of what you could afford if you were content with a smaller house (or with renting) and had one less car to drive.

The suburban mindset is like the omnivore's mindset in the early days of vegetarianism. I'm not a vegetarian myself, but I do occasionally make vegetarian meals, and I've used Anna Thomas's early cookbook The Vegetarian Epicure. She notes that when some omnivores envision a vegetarian meal, they envision a typical American meal without the meat, i.e. a pile of mashed potatoes and a pile of mixed vegetables. Actually, vegetarian cooking isn't a meal minus meat--it's a whole reimagining of what constitutes a meal.

Similarly, living without a car isn't the suburban lifestyle minus car. It's reimagining what constitutes a good life, independent of the lifestyle that has been relentlessly sold to Americans for the past sixty years. For example, I don't make monthly shopping expeditions to the grocery store. My principal grocery store is 1.5 blocks away, so I simply buy stuff as needed. My neighborhood is not downtown, but in a residential corner of the city about six blocks from the first ring of inner suburbs.

[Dover]

3. Indeed! And soon to be held hostage by Water and Power companies...

So, what to do?

[proud patriot]

4. I like that framing

[carlyhippy]

5. spot on

[muntrv]

6. Can't have our homes run on electricity from something other than oil.

[doc03]

11. There's coal and we have pleanty of it.,

[cliffordu]

14. There is no such thing as clean coal. Period. It is a lie.

[doc03]

19. Have you ever even seen a coal fired power plant?

[cliffordu]

26. I live on the west coast, we have the hydroelectric power.

I have not seen a coal fired electrical plant in operation.

If you look at what has to take place to extract coal from the earth, what happens to ground water, the cancer rates downstream, the "landscaping" required to return the earth to something other that a strip mine, and the actual energy - diesel, processing of the coal itself....the list goes on.


Solar and wind now. There is NO reason not to put 25 billion dollars into solar tomorrow. Wind can be tricky but is doable.

I run 12 volts for all my lights and use about 10% of the electricity I used to.

an AGGRESSIVE switch to LED lighting technology, everywhere. Not bright enough?? Look at a 3 watt led bike light.

The technology is there. We just need the will.

Nuclear might have to be an option.

Edit for speling(sic)

[doc03]

36. Well I drive past 2 coal fired power plants

everyday and there is nothing more than water vapor coming from the stack, AEP has put over $1 Bil
into environmental control on each of those plants. As for strip mines we have the largest cattle ranch east of the Mississippi right here in this county on old strip mine ground. We have a public hunting area of about 10000 acres on old strip mine land in this county. AEP owns the largest public hunting, fishing and wildlife preserve in the state of Ohio and it is old strip mine ground. Both our local malls are built on old strip mine ground and many subdivisions are now sitting on old strip mine ground. We have a country music festival every summer that atracts over 150,000 people and it is on old strip mine ground. Our new county fair grounds is being built on old strip mine ground. We don't have the wind or sun in this area to make it feasible to use solar or wind. We do have the Ohio river and some hydroelectric power could be generated there if anyone could ever get through all the environmental and watershed studies to actually build one.

[cliffordu]

40. I will go read everything I can find out about this:

If you are correct, you will have a convert.

And I'll be doin' the mea culpa all the live long day.

[doc03]

44. Here's some help The Dickenson Cattle Company,

Egypt Valley public hunting area, AEP ReCreation Land 42000 acres and 350 lakes open to the public, Jamboree in the Hills (the country music festival). They are selling 2-5 acre building lots just a 1/2 mile from my house on old strip mined land.

on edit: The AEP ReCreation Land was mined by Big Musky I believe which was the largest land machine on earth at the time.

[cliffordu]

98. Doc - Check out post #97 -

About the new solar technology....

[NickB79]

83. Only water vapor, eh? Where are they putting the tons of CO2 that drive global warming?

You know, that pesky little problem that is melting the ice caps as we speak....

Hell, it LOOKS like all that is coming out of my car's tailpipe is water vapor. Would you be willing to breath it for a few hours?

On edit: also, where do they put the toxic fly ash from the tonnage of coal burned annually?

[Arctic Dave]

7. We are held hostage, because we are addicted.

[cliffordu]

15. Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner. Exactly.

[JBoris]

9. Amen!

[Pale Blue Dot]

12. It's both. nt

[CLG_News]

13. Great point. n/t

[taterguy]

16. Isn't denial a sign of addiction?

:shrug:

[cliffordu]

21. Absolutely. None of the converstaions about oil seriously address just stopping

the use of it.

[doc03]

18. Nobody held a gun to our heads and forced us

to buy big SUVs. The environmentalists have our hands tied, we can't use any alternative.

[cliffordu]

22. Bullshit. The environmentalists are happy to build all the solar panels in the universe

to supply enough electricity.

The oil companies will fight tooth and nail to prevent alternatives to come on line.

Could be your car won't survive the next 20 years. Too bad.

[doc03]

24. Well build them then, I'm all for it. I seem to recall the Kennedys

stopped them from building a wind farm in their back yard. Do you really think we can supply all our enrergy needs from solar and wind?

[cliffordu]

27. Yep. Look on Treehugger dot com and search for solar and wind.

[doc03]

32. That's all fine but it has been nothing but talk for 30

years now. I heard Jimmy Carters speech a couple days ago when he said we are addicted to foreign oil (that was 30 years ago). Why don't all you treehuggers put your money where your mouth is and get into the energy production business instead of preaching to the rest of us about it? At best you may get 20-25% of our energy from wind and solar and then only if the taxpayers subsidize it. I bet if I tried to build a wind farm here today it would take 5 years of environmental impact studies before I ever turned a shovel full of dirt. There is a company that is trying to build an amusement park here and so far 3 years have gone buy and they haven't got a permit yet. We have several dams on the Ohio river that could all support a hydroelectric generator and nobody can afford to go through the red tape to build one.

[cliffordu]

34. Every one of your talking points is precisely the answer to your question.

Mostly, it boils down to "It's too hard" and no one wants to change the status quo.

We need the equivalent of a moon shot to get this done.

The big lie is that we can keep the cheap energy flowing if we just drill, or make cars more efficient, or.....

I believe that the levels of energy consumption we have now are unsustainable.

I've done everything I can to reduce the heat signature in my life, and am constantly amazed at how hostile the resistance is to suggesting people change thier lives to reflect this new reality. I spent fifty bucks on gas last year, and not one fucking dime this year.

It took a lot of work to get here, and I'll never go back to owning a car. Won't heat 2500 square feet of McMansion, won't live 25 miles down some freeway from the things that are neccessary for my life.

Anyone can do some of those things.

[doc03]

43. Hey, I put an electric heat pump in 3 years ago and it

saves 600 gallons of foreign oil a year and the electricity comes from locally mined coal. I estimate it saves at least $1000 a year on my energy bills. There is not enough sun or wind for either to be feasible to use here. I live 25 miles from my job and I can't get what I paid for my house 15 years ago so it's not feasible to move. The reason my house is worthless, NAFTA and the EPA has shut down most all of our manufacturing plants and our population has been on a steady decline for 30 plus years. My car gets 35 MPG and I ride a motor scooter that gets 65 MPG so I am certainly doing my part.

[cliffordu]

45. Yep, I'd say you are....

although In spite of my hubris I am not the judge these things, really - I understand my approach is radical - and that I'm lucky to have made some changes at the right time in my life - strictly luck there..

I DO like to get folks to think about this - energy is going to define how we live our lives unlike any time since we discovered how to make fire.

We can either take charge of it, or we can let OPEC and the oil companies decide.

I don't understand why there aren't riots in the streets over the record profits EXXON just posted - the largest quarterly profit in the history of the US, and the 4.00 per gallon gasoline.

Don't people care?? Are the oil companies entitled to do this??

[doc03]

49. Everyone is pointing fingers, the Republicans say it's because

we can't drill. The Democrats blame the oil companies. I honestly don't know who to believe, I suspect some blame can go on both sides. One thing for sure Jimmy Carter was right 30 years ago and he was ridiculed for it and practically disowned by our own party. Ross Perot was right about NAFTA and the deficit. Al Gore warned us too and still nothing has changed. Even if Obama gets elected he will need overwhelming numbers in the House and Senate or it will never change. It always seems like there are enough conservative Democrats that vote with the Republicans to prevent any changes for the good even when we have the numbers.

[cliffordu]

52. Doc - You are absolutely correct - I don't know what it's going to take for

those folks in power to really take up the cause of the population instead of the corporations...

I get the feeling that it's going to be like everything else in this life - we won;t change until it get soooo painful that we HAVE to change....

Kind of like an addict won't change until it hurts so bad they have to.....


:rofl:

[ZenKitty]

62. I ask this question in all sincerity....

Am I the only one watching this highly important issue being used as a political football?

In my humble opinion, this is not a new issue. Energy and the environment are not separate issues. They are intrinsically intertwined.

Nothing will be achieved while we are too busy sorting out the wins of the Reds vs Blues.

[cliffordu]

70. You are absolutely correct. It is a political football.

I want people to get pissed off enough about it to storm the castle and get the move away from fossil fuels underway like there is no tomorrow.

If we don't we'll be in a state of war until all the oil IS gone, and that means there is no tomorrow.

We've had 30 years since Carter warned us this day was coming.

I hope we don't wait another 30 before the posturing ends and the changes needed begin.

[cliffordu]

48. If I had the dough I'd start a company that makes custom LED arrays

and fixtures for home lighting - the savings and efficiency and the life of the LED's are off the charts....They run off the equivalent of 4 aa cells....

Take a look at DiNotte Lights on the web - although they make bicycle lights, you can get an idea about just how remarkable they are.

There are companies that are making LED arrays for home use but they all look like crap.



And by the way -
My wife is from Indiana. I know exactly what NAFTA did to that whole section of the country. It is a crime.

[doc03]

71. You know the ugliest thing I have ever

seen environmentally was in Colorado of all places. I believe it was south of Colorado Springs there was some kind of a mine and there were literally thousands of the most beautiful mountains totally leveled and barren, it just made me sick to see it. I sighted some of the areas that have been reclaimed in Ohio but to be honest those were the more recent ones because they were forced to do it. We still have lots of old deep mines from years ago that have acid drainage and years ago they would plant some trees on the strip mines and called that reclamation. They have re-stripped a lot of the old mines because with the larger earth moving equipment they were able to go deeper and they were forced to reclaim them the second time.

[cliffordu]

73. There is a stretchon the Great Divide Mountain Bike trail where you cannot

even filter the water out of streams OR the ground for 65 miles because of the trailings from mines - big ones - one copper mine (who's name escapes me) which is visible from space.

If coal really CAN be used cleanly - and I mean REALLY cleanly, then word needs to get out.

Or we're going to be at war forever.

The best way to get minds to change on this might be to reinstate the draft.

[NickB79]

85. One of the biggest manufacturers of solar panels is BP: British PETROLEUM

[ZenKitty]

57. Spot on Doc. n/t

[roamer65]

25. It's a classic, user-pusher relationship just like drugs.

[EndElectoral]

30. Exactly...even with DEMAND DOWN! Exxon rakes in record profits. Disgusting!

[The2ndWheel]

39. The oil companies are just a form of organization that are an extension of what we do

Same as Monsanto. Same as Wal-Mart. It's all to distance ourselves further from physical reality. Whether it's energy companies to turn society into a mass of sameness(to reduce waste and increase efficiency), to agricultural companies in order to control life on an ever smaller scale(which increases the scale of our impact), to a global economy where everything is available at any time(because we don't like limits).

Are you saying that mass society has become so large, that actual people have no say in how their lives are run? We're nothing but cogs in a machine? If the distant(there's that word again) authority chooses to privatize life, nobody has a choice? If the distant authority chooses to nationalize life, nobody has a choice? We've taken actual diversity out of the equation by forcing everyone to live within the same structure? Will another form of energy that is required to make the global machine function really be any different? Wasn't the energy that made the industrial revolution supposed to set us free? Now the same energy that made that revolution possible is holding us hostage, and impacting the global climate, and threatening civilization itself. The next source of energy will set us free though. We better hope so. Although it seems like each time we find a better source of energy, we just end up with bigger problems.

Held hostage by the oil companies? As if these companies are from some other planet, run by some other species. Please, we are the oil companies, be they publicly owned, or privately owned. These institutions, public or private, are the culmination of our need to control more and more of life. If anything, we're addicted to control, and are held hostage by each other.

[Subdivisions]

42. Mmm...hmmmm. n/t

[MercutioATC]

47. I strongly disagree. It's 100% our fault.

From the cars we choose to drive to where we choose to live to how we choose to live to the politicians we elect...WE made this happen.

If we want it to change, WE need to own up to it and change it.

[cliffordu]

50. Yep. I had my character assassinated above for saying the same thing....

I'm surprised more people here don't read Kunstler -


He makes sooo much more sense of it than I can.....

[MercutioATC]

55. Agreed. I know it's human to seek somebody else to blame,

but we're never going to truly fix things if we're not honest about how we got here.

[DebJ]

58. I'd love to choose public transportation but there ISN"T ANY!!!

Lord I'd love to have been reading books on a train or bus all those years I had to commute.

[lonestarnot]

60. None worth a shit here either.

[MercutioATC]

66. Ultimately, the lack of public transportation comes back to us.

We didn't require it of our government. We continued to elect people who didn't make it a priority.

...and before you blame the overabundance of low-information voters for our leadership (If you were going to) we also haven't made education a priority.

It really is all our fault. The beauty of it is that we really do hold the power and we can change things...but we have to accept that power and the blame for not using it properly in the past before we can make changes.

[cliffordu]

74. Yep. We must take responsibility for making the changes needed.

[cliffordu]

72. I know not everyone can do it, but I sold my house in Austin,

and moved to a town where i knew I could ride or walk everywhere all year long.

It was hard, and I lost a fortune. I live like a king on basically nothing now.

The energy stuff came later when I realized that if I just heated and cooled a small space I had all this money left over for incredibly expensive bicycle parts.

My work life had to change, too, I had to live on less. I had some bad times when I could't get the things I thought I needed when all they really were, were wants....

I had to start from this point:

"Everything you assume about what success IS, is wrong."

But I digress... I got interested in saving MONEY on energy and that led me to where I am now.

People might think I'm a hippie. I am certainly not that. I just HATE oil companies, and the insurance racket, too.

[galledgoblin]

100. I wouldn't put 100% of the responsibility on citizens

probably more like 40%, the other 60% is on the shoulders of the criminals who snuck laws onto the books and shifted this country into the car/suburban culture through back-door deals.

citizens are guilty of negligence and obedience, letting the tune be changed and continuing to dance; the corrupt corporations and politicians were the ones actually fiddling with the jukebox.

[killbotfactory]

103. We have a very weak democracy

We don't actually get a say in most decisions like this. Important issues like this aren't left up to "the mob".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. We've allowed the auto companies to make us oil dependent

We allowed them to destroy our transit systems.

We allowed the real estate developers to block bust in the cities and build exurban tracts of McMansions.

[cliffordu]

75. Lydia - Have you been reading that no good Kunstler????

have you been hanging around The Oil Drum???

:rofl:


:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

80. I actually thought that BEFORE I read Kunstler

:-)

[cliffordu]

82. Yep, me too.

I was in college when the oil embargo back in the '70s took place....I realized how completely owned we are at that point....

It must have messed me up really good, because I've had a car for a total of 5 years since.....

[NuttyFluffers]

86. yup, and we're allowing big oil's inflicted suffering be a wedge issue between us, too

time to wake up and smell the bullshit people, just like that african proverb about when's best to plant a tree: the time to be off of big oil was twenty years ago, the next best time is today. and if you can't do that, plan soon, for like right f#$%ing tomorrow. this bickering about "but my lifestyle can't handle it, why don't you liberals 'over there' get it? i neeed, i neeeeeeed! you must pay for my neeeeeeeeeeds! why can't you get that!" look, we already got it dearies, and it ain't us who got you over an oil drum sodomizing you. time to wake up and realize who's really raping you -- and then get mad at them. and what's the best way to hurt big oil? make what they have worthless. period. all other answers FAIL.

when people finally get that, and got it good, then we can have real discussions. your life's a changin' and i got nothing to do with it, cuz i don't own the switch at the pump. whining at other people telling you HOW TO get off of oil ain't gonna buy you a lick of time or mercy from the bastards who are screwin your life. now what's it gonna be, change while you have time, or change while you don't -- all while kicking and screamin'. cuz the simple fact is YOU GONNA CHANGE AND NOTHING YOU RANT AT US TRYIN' TO HELP YOU IS GONNA CHANGE THAT.

(sorry going all 2nd person rant on you Lydia; it ain't at you, it's all directed at the lame excuses i keep hearing over and over again. excuses are just that, they won't save anyone in the end. and only by organizing can people save themselves. new and old tech, social and physical, are going to be needed to save us from what's coming, and whining ain't doin' a damn thing to help.)

[cliffordu]

90. Yep.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

110. For example, every year a lot of people move from one city to another

Instead of automatically moving from one McMansion tract to another, consider living in the city or an inner suburb, or at least in a real small town where you can walk or bike to stores and services or at least within easy distance of your workplace.

The usual excuse is "but I can't afford a house that close in." Well, there are alternatives: Get a smaller house closer in, rent instead of buy, use the money you save by not owning two or three cars (with gas, insurance, and maintenance) to live closer in. Each car you DON'T own gives you thousands of dollars a year in disposable income, tax-free.

When I moved here from Portland, I purposely searched for a walkable neighborhood with what passes for good bus service in the Twin Cities. (It's not very good in fact.) It's an expensive neighborhood to buy in, but I'm renting for a very reasonable price, living in a place I found by walking around the neighborhood with a cell phone and calling everyone who had a For Rent sign in their window, and I got a REAL bargain, not only lower than average rent for this neighborhood but a well-kept building.

Right now the Minnesota Orchestra is having its summer concert series. I've been taking the bus. Sunday night, the bus schedules just didn't work. I ended up paying $9 to park, so my $1.50 bus trips are a real bargain.

Most months, I fill the gas tank once.

Since I'm single, my way of life won't work for everyone, but people with kids might consider whether their young'uns really need to be in every after-school activity that's available or whether they would ultimately be better off with some downtime to play freely outside and use their imaginations.

[Gregorian]

77. We're not addicted. We're DEPENDENT.

100 percent, totally and completely dependent.

You can't name a single thing that isn't related to petroleum. And if you can, it's isolated and trivial.

In this society, everything is done with petroleum. Jump in the car to shop for the items that were produced and transported. Buy produce that was grown in petroleum supercharged soil. Flush a toilet that uses water pressurized by electric pumps.

Even nuclear is held together through the use of petroleum. Mining the ore, building the plant.

The minute the flow of petroleum begins to slow, this society, this entire scheme will come crashing to a halt. And this is why the money we spent waging an invasion was so important. This is why we should have spent the time and energy bringing new energy production into reality.

Now what happens now that two billion other people on this planet want to live just like we've been living? Well I'm not ready. And neither is anyone else. Because we're totally dependent now.

[cliffordu]

79. If I could have written ONE post concerning oil. your post would be it.

Excellent. Bravo.

[Gregorian]

84. I've only been thinking about this for forty years.

It's only the single most important thing in my life. I guess some of us good at seeing different things. This is something I see as clearly as the best out there. It comes from being raised by an engineer, in an engineering community, with engineering friends. When one grows up knowing how everything works, and how everything is made, it's quite obvious.

And now I'm trying to run from it. I've just spent 20 years going from place to place. I finally realize there is no escape. It IS our society. And it is also society in most places on the planet. Some more flagrant than others.

There is no place on the planet where one can go to escape the sound of internal combustion engines. I have tried.

It's hard to fathom just how much energy has been used. But look at the landfills. Look at history for the evidence. Whether it's heat treated gears in a 1920 Model T, or energy that went into making plywood for the siding on a house built in 1959.

We've increased our efficiency greatly over the last thirty years. But we've increased our usage even more. And the usage is increasing.

I try to envision a new power scheme. Optimistically I think of a day when solar or wind gives us what we need. Or even nuclear. But I don't see it happening. Not in time. The polar ice caps are going. And they aren't coming back.

It's all based on population. And until people realize that, we're only going to be addressing the symptoms. That's the thing that most people just can't get into their heads. Until we stabilize and decrease population, none of the rest of this discussion is even relevant other than to help slow the damage.

And we had it all. We even had electric trolleys in the early 1900's. We had people delivering our groceries to us. I guess that's the way we work.



Edit- Wow, I just read a few of your posts. I think we're the weirdos around here. I also ride a bike about 20 miles a day. We could talk quite a while about what we've lost, and what we could gain with a different way of living. But you already know that.

[cliffordu]

88. Yep - The Weirdo Brigade. Welcome, Soldier!!

:patriot:

[Occulus]

101. I know lots of people dislike serious consideration for anything like a 'magic bullet'; however:

There's something going on out in Santa Fe that may be of interest to you. Dr. Rick Nebel, on leave from Los Alamos National Lab, is working on a project for providing fusion power conceived by Dr. Robert Bussard. This project is known as the Polywell, an idea Bussard was working on under a Navy contract prior to his death. Since that time, funding was restored for this phase of the project, and WB-7, their latest design, can be seen being tested here (using helium as fuel):



For a discussion forum where you can find Dr. Nebel himself, visit www.talk-polywell.org.

This is an internal electrostatic confinement (IEC) reactor. The devices are named WB-x for what is termed the "wiffle ball" effect. Here's part of how the Wiki describes its operation:

The polywell approach

Like the fusor, the polywell confines positive ions through their attraction to negatively charged electrons. The difference being that in the fusor, the negative charges reside on a solid-state grid. In the polywell, they are confined to the inner region of the reactor by magnetic fields. The reactor volume is defined by the coils producing the magnetic field, rather than by electrically charged grids. The advantage of coils over grids is that the magnetic fields produced by the coils also help protect them from the energetic electrons and ions. On the other hand, the polywell has electrons and ions existing in the same volume, reintroducing the Bremsstrahlung that the fusor can avoid.

The magnetic field is produced by a polyhedral arrangement of coils, all pointing toward (or all away from) the center. The magnetic field vanishes at the center, and the magnetic flux that enters the volume through the coils leaves it again through the spaces between the coils. Thus the electrons are confined to the central volume by a magnetic mirror with a large field ratio, and all the cusps are points (rather than lines). Ions can be added to produce a plasma, but there must always be more electrons than ions in order to maintain the potential well. While this concept, in contrast to the original fusor, uses magnetic fields, they do not need to confine nuclei — only electrons, which are orders of magnitude simpler to confine.

I've felt this project is of vital importance ever since I learned about it. Why? Because, if the scaling laws hold to be true (Bussard calculated the fusion power output of the device scales as the seventh power of the radius, and the energy gain scales as the fifth power) we will have fusion power.

If that becomes the case, we can truly abandon fossil fuels and use what oil we have left for lubrication, firmly supplemented by and eventually supplanted by synthetics. We can finally supply clean, cheap, abundant, and reliable power to the entire planet. We can finally tell Saudi Arabia and its Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to piss off, and finally end war for oil. But most importantly, we can stop polluting our environment in our need for energy.

This project is definitely worth a look. If nothing else, they're doing some real, serious science, worthy of funding on the level of the Tokamak.

[cliffordu]

102. This should be an OP over at the energy/environmental DU list....

Nice! Thanks!!

[Occulus]

104. Done. :)

I've been watching this closely. Dr Nebel, based on the data they're getting (they are mum as to what, due to the Navy contract, but reasonable speculation says neutron counts), has stated that they might as well build a full-size one at this point, and skip the testing steps left. Apparently, he's that confident the scaling laws are what Bussard claimed.

He wants to peer review the whole thing by the end of the summer, according to earlier claims.

[cliffordu]

105. It would be nice to have a massive shift towards electricity.....clean electricity...

[Ichingcarpenter]

96. Check out this major Breakthrough on Solar from MIT

This is a big deal:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x165192

[Imagevision]

99. 887,000 barrels of oil per day aren't be used by Americans, no wonder the price is dropping

Demand is dropping due to people cutting back on travel/ auto usage.

[1]

106. where does this concept come from that oil companies can only charge us what it costs them?

to refine gas. or their refineries must run at 100% of capacity?

that's a funny thought. the oil company is producing a product, like snapple.

if an oil company wants to charge you $100 a gallon that is what they can do. free market, baby. do you really think it costs $1.89 to make that 12oz bottle of snapple? and we should hold them to that price if it does?

you are not addicted to oil. you are not held hostage by the oil companies.

you choose to pay the prices they demand. you choose to do that.

or not.


your choice...

[mdmc]

108. I disagree

[OmahaBlueDog]

109. The hypocrisy of "Drill, Drill, Drill"

If you ever listen to Boortz or Lars Larsen, you'll learn that we libs have Katrina all wrong. It wasn't government's failure -- it was a failure of the residents to take personal responsibility. That is, as you know, the conservative drumbbeat .. personal resposibility.

So how come they want government and corporations to bail them out of gas prices? Take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and trade that Yukon in on a Prius. You'll be taking personal responsibility for gas prices, the environment, and not funding the many repugnant state-actors who export oil.

It's your SUV, stupid!

[cliffordu]

112. We'd expect that kind of response from a hippie that has a BICYCLE in his sig.

:rofl: