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unplug

unplug magazine asks you to unplug from your current modes of thought and look at life in a new way, whether this means unplugging from our toxic consumer culture, mainstream society, the tv, or a limiting mindset. author megan prusynski explores life's alternatives and discusses activism, progressive thinking, and moving towards a "green" & sustainable life.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

"Eco-friendly" Cars are Coming

I've been watching the posts on gas2.0, a Green Options blog about the bio-fuel revolution, and I suddenly have the desire to get new wheels. Some companies, like ZAP and Hybrids Plus are working on converting hybrids to plug-in hybrids for gas mileage up to 120 miles per gallon. The ability to plug hybrids in is even closer to all-electric vehicles, which are also on the horizon. And volkswagen has just announced that it will be releasing a diesel-electric hybrid, which I'm very excited about, as I dream of volksvegan II. It gets nearly 70 mpg and it's about time someone took an efficient diesel engine and combined it with hybrid technology to make the best of both biofuels and hybrids.

But after looking at all these shiny "greener" cars, and their price tags, I can't help but feel like maybe car lust really isn't all that green, no matter what kind of cars we're talking about. The American Dream is heavily based on car culture, and many families have more cars than drivers in their households. I'm all about having more sustainable choices, and like to use them whenever possible, but along with new choices comes the dilemma of what to do with old cars that these new ones replace. Planned obsolescence has long been marketing gimmick used by the auto industry, making old models seem outdated just by rolling out the new ones. This leads to cars, and countless other products, being put to waste long before their useful lives are truly over. It also leads to cheaper products that aren't built to last as long as they should, and "replaceable" or "disposable" products that in previous generations were used for decades or longer. In reality, nothing is ever truly disposable. There is no such thing as "out of sight, out of mind" on this small planet. We can't escape our waste.

We rely on cars more than we realize, and I don't just mean to get around. The way our communities are planned and structured is based on roads and the cars that travel on them. Suburban sprawl is very much a car-centric problem. It's rare to be able to work, go to school, live, and eat all within a few blocks. Cities are compartmentalized into zones for industry, business, retail, and living. This is not how things used to be, it's evolved along with the automobile.

Unfortunately, living without a car can be difficult if not damn near impossible for many people. This is why I'm glad that there are more sustainable cars being developed. However, I think all too often car ownership is seen as a right, not a privilege, and one that is often abused. Reducing our fossil fuel usage and its disastrous effects is an important part of combatting climate change. But just switching to different cars is not going to solve the problem. We need to re-think our relationship with cars, our public transportation system, even the way our communities are designed. And we need to get over our obsession with shiny hunks of metal with wheels that guzzle petrochemicals and spew pollution.

Here are some ways we can start re-thinking our relationship with our cars and reduce our use of fossil fuels:

Walk, skate, rollerblade, or ride your bike for shorter trips. Gradually work your way up to longer and longer trips via bike or foot. Not only will it give you some great exercise, but there are no emissions! Don't be afraid to walk in the rain (what are umbrellas for anyway?) and in winter, try sledding or snow-shoeing.

Use public transportation if possible. If your town doesn't have much of a public transit system, write to local politicians, bring up the issue at city council members, and gather fellow citizens together to raise awareness. Democracy only works if you use it, so get involved locally and see what you can change.

Get a bike trailer. It's a great way to run errands you'd usually need a car full. I can fit a full load of groceries in mine.

Carpool or Car-share. Share rides with neighbors and friends. Travel with as many people as a car can hold whenever possible. Post something on the employee bulletin board at work about organizing carpools. Talk to your kids about which of their friends live nearby and trade off days with other parents to take the kids to school. There are even car share companies popping up. This is a novel idea that works well in large cities, where people can just reserve a car for as long as they need it, and the company maintains it. Just google "car sharing" and you'll be surprised how many of these companies there already are.

Plan and combine trips. Instead of running to the grocery store today and the mall tomorrow, try running all your errands at one time. Plan out which errands are close to each other and group them to save time and gas. Plan a list well in advance so you can buy all you need at once. Shop less often and buy in bulk so that what you buy lasts longer and you don't have to return as quickly for more.

Eat locally. Locally-grown food doesn't have to travel around the world, burning fossil fuels along the way, to get from the farm to your table. Read labels and research companies so you know how far your food travels. When you can't eat locally, eat regionally, state-wide, and nationally as a last resort. Go to farmer's markets or learn about community supported agriculture in your area. It's a great opportunity to meet your neighbors and support your local economy as well. Of course, if you want to eat really local, you could grow your own food right in your very own garden! Even if you just grow a few herbs in pots on your windowsill, you'll end up saving a little more money and trips to the grocery store.

Telecommute or work from home. Imagine having no commute. Americans are commuting more and more miles all the time, so why not reverse that trend (and get a chance to sleep in) by working at home? Talk to your employer about whether your position would allow you to work from home via the internet. You can start by suggesting just staying home one day a week, and work up from there. Many times, this can save your employer money on overhead, office space, and energy use. It also saves you time, money, and gas. Or, start your own home-based business.

Use an electric scooter or moped for your commute instead of a car. Even gas motorcycles get great gas mileage compared to cars.

Call before you go. If you have any question whether a place you need to drive to is open or has what you need, call first. You may save yourself a trip.

And, I knew you were waiting for this one... eat less meat! Since raising animals for food takes a lot of fossil fuels (between transporting feed to the farms, running tractors and farm machinery, trucking animals to slaughter, taking the meat to be processed and packaged, and then shipping it all over the place, it adds up to a lot of gas). It's rare that animals are raised, slaughtered, and processed all in one place. The majority of animals are shipped around several times in the stages between farm and grocery store, ultimately being driven home to your table. Reducing your meat consumption even a little can have a huge impact. Not only will you reduce fossil fuel usage, but you can reduce pollution (since raising animals causes a lot of it) and improve your health. In fact, going vegetarian may have a far greater impact than changing what you drive or not driving at all, since livestock is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation.

Keep your car well-maintained and your tires filled up. Making sure your car runs as efficiently as possible helps you get better gas mileage and helps your car last longer.

There are lots of little steps you can take to reduce your fossil fuel usage. After you've reduced the use of your car, you can consider upgrading to a greener model when it's time. Don't get rid of the car you have (unless it's a Hummer, then by all means, replace that evil thing and start reversing your karma) unless it is absolutely time to replace it, or unless you have more cars then you need. Make every effort to repair and maintain your car to keep it on the road longer. New cars take a lot of new materials and pollution to make, so buy used whenever possible. Consider getting a diesel (the engines are more efficient) so that you can run bio-diesel in, or a hybrid. Sadly, the dreamy diesel-electric hybrids are still a few years away, so we'll have to keep dreaming (and saving) for those.

These suggestions are based on the premise that reducing should come before re-using and recycling. If we reduce our demand for fossil fuels by using our cars less (and by using fewer cars), that will have a greater impact than simply changing the type of car we drive. Question yourself every time you reach for your keys: could I walk instead? Do I really need to make this trip now or could I combine it with another? Could I carpool? Do I even need to own my own car when I could share one? There are countless ways to reduce pollution and gas usage, all it takes is a little ingenuity and the courage to change the way we think and live. A small step in the right direction is certainly better than stubbornly doing nothing. Change is good!

Labels: cars, energy, environment/sustainability, lifestyle

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Tough Times Ahead: Surviving Peak Oil

Our current way of life is completely dependent on cheap oil. Despite knowing that it is a finite resource, we continue to use it in large quantities for just about every aspect of our lives, especially in America. Petroleum does not just fuel our cars, it fuels our entire agricultural system (fertilizers and pesticides are made with oil and natural gas, not to mention the fuel needed to harvest and ship food around the world) and is our main source of energy. It is even a major ingredient in many of the products we use every day - such as plastics, pharmaceuticals, beauty products, and cleaning supplies. It's not money that makes the world go round, it's oil.

Our petroleum addiction comes at a high cost: not only in the increasing costs of finding and extracting oil, but in the long term environmental effects of its use as well as the political and social harm that comes from fighting over a dwindling resource. Even though we may not run out of oil completely for hundreds of years, it is becoming more and more difficult and expensive to find and produce. If you've been to a gas station lately, you've obviously noticed the rising cost of oil. It's certainly not getting any cheaper. But what happens when oil is more expensive to produce than it is worth on the market?

That's where peak oil comes in. Simply put, peak oil is the point at which, on a global scale, we extract the most oil from the earth that we ever have or ever will. It represents a halfway point in the earth's oil supply, not an end. The problem is that the second half of the oil that we have not yet extracted is more difficult to get to and more expensive as well. According to wikipedia:

Peak oil is the point or timeframe at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, the availability of oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically. M. King Hubbert first used the theory in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. His model, now called Hubbert peak theory, has since been used to predict the peak petroleum production of many other countries, and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical bell-shaped curve based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures.

Since our current lifestyles are so dependent on oil, a decline in its availability (and a rise in the cost of getting the last half of it) will have dramatic effects on society. America got a glimpse of peak oil in the early 1970s during the oil crisis, when there were long lines at the gas pump and President Carter began urging Americans to curb their energy usage. But when that crisis blew over, it seemed as if Americans forgot it ever happened. Instead SUVs surged in popularity and oil and energy use rose even more. It's as if we're ignoring our impending doom, and doing nothing to prepare for the drastic changes that peak oil will bring.

Of course, society does not have to be doomed by peak oil, which many scientists say is coming soon, if it's not already here. Some major changes will need to be made, most notably in the way we think and the way we live. But we can survive if we focus on alternatives for our energy, transportation, and agricultural needs. One group dedicating their time and resources to finding a solution to peak oil and climate change is The Community Solution. This organization advocates "culture change, conservation and curtailment" to survive this crisis. The Community Solution states:

Through reductions in resource consumption, dramatic conservation and curtailment of energy use coupled with an increase in local community living we can survive peak oil and create a sustainable world in its wake.

And they offer an example of a society that has had to face severe shortages in oil and lived to tell about it: Cuba. In 1991, the Soviet Union fell, and since the US placed a trade embargo on Cuba, a Soviet ally, their supply of petroleum was abruptly halted. Energy shortages and famine spread, but luckily Cubans have since figured out a way to get by on less energy and less petroleum. They returned to organic farming, creating small-scale local farms all over the island and in every empty plot of land in urban areas. They turned to bikes and public transit for transportation and alternative and more sustainable forms of energy production. Food production, education, and industry became much more localized. Cuban communities began to thrive, taking care of each other and supporting themselves. What happened in Cuba offers a glimpse of what a post-peak oil society might look like, if we learn to consume less, help each other, and return to more traditional and ecological ways of farming and living.

You can watch The Community Solution's documentary "How to Survive Peak Oil: The Cuba Model" as a six part series on YouTube. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that reducing our energy consumption and finding alternatives to our petroleum addiction lead to a more sustainable way of life. This is what Cuba has done, and although their journey is still evolving, the rest of the world may soon be adjusting to peak oil's effects.

Let's hope that we can learn to live as sustainable, efficient, localized communities as the peak oil crisis approaches. The days of cheap oil will soon be over, but that doesn't mean that society will end. I believe we will learn from the "oil age" that we can't rely on finite resources or short-term solutions. If we're going to be in it for the long haul, we're going to have to work together, with each other and with the earth. We will have to learn to work with nature and not against it, and this learning process begins with a new way of thinking and seeing the world. Let's start now!

Labels: energy, environment/sustainability, lifestyle