Practical solutions for people + planet
How are you handling rising fuel costs?
With gas reaching $4 a gallon and home heating oil expected to continue skyrocketing, everyone I’ve talked with is getting serious about conserving.
I’ve seen a few folks riding Vespas, a strange sight here in rural Maine. There’s less traffic. Johnny’s Seeds reports a 20 percent increase in vegetable seed sales as more people start home gardens.
I think these developments are positive signs that people are refusing to be taken hostage by oil companies and I aspire to join them by making changes myself.
So far, I’ve just taken small steps: consolidating errands and carpooling when possible, expanding our vegetable garden , switching off the oil burner for the summer, and attending and helping to organize local events exploring local energy, food security and sustainable livelihoods.
The coolest thing? None of this stuff is onerous. It’s actually interesting, liberating and fun.
I sense a new energy (pardon the pun) expressing itself around the country in everything from hypermiling to local power generation.
Are our individual efforts to conserve fuel and find alternatives to oil enough to catalyze larger change?
What do you think, and how are you dealing with energy issues in your life and community?
I’ve seen a few folks riding Vespas, a strange sight here in rural Maine. There’s less traffic. Johnny’s Seeds reports a 20 percent increase in vegetable seed sales as more people start home gardens.
I think these developments are positive signs that people are refusing to be taken hostage by oil companies and I aspire to join them by making changes myself.
So far, I’ve just taken small steps: consolidating errands and carpooling when possible, expanding our vegetable garden , switching off the oil burner for the summer, and attending and helping to organize local events exploring local energy, food security and sustainable livelihoods.
The coolest thing? None of this stuff is onerous. It’s actually interesting, liberating and fun.
I sense a new energy (pardon the pun) expressing itself around the country in everything from hypermiling to local power generation.
Are our individual efforts to conserve fuel and find alternatives to oil enough to catalyze larger change?
What do you think, and how are you dealing with energy issues in your life and community?
Tags: conservation, energy, gas, hypermiling, local, oil
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Harry O. Rakfeldt on
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For over 28 years I have been using NON-crude oil lubricants to maximize my equipment life cycle, improve efficiency, significantly extend oil and filter maintenance intervals that contribute to resource conservation. See article detailing the benefits of using synthetic lubricants at www.syn-lubes.com, How To Be Green.
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Permalink Reply by Garthh on -
Don't confuse synthetic with non crude. Synthetic is produced from crude oil, it is just processed to build better more stable molecules for longer life.
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Permalink Reply by Joy Gardner on -
After seeing Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, I resolved to make a personal sacrifice in the name of helping the environment (the way his family gave up growing tobacco after his sister died of lung cancer). I dearly loved my green Suburu Forester, and I was proud that it got 25 mpg, but it still seemed a bit self-indulgent since I'm just a single person. Especially after I found out that I could get a 1992, completely rebuilt, Geo Metro for $2000, stick shift, that gets 50 mpg. So I made that sacrifice, and boy have I felt smug as I've watched those gas prices go up!
As for heating the house, I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to get one of these next winter: a heater that uses quartz, infrared, and copper tubing, emits no fumes, doesn’t get hot, cannot start a fire, and does not reduce humidity or oxygen. Read about it at (60 day satisfaction guarantee, 1 yr warrantee)
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Permalink Reply by Pamalah MacNeily on -
I sell a Hydrogen Generator which increases fuel consumption 20 to 40%. This product uses only distilled water and the electricity in your car to electrolize the water into hydrogen and oxygen and then feed that back into your air intake.
My website is: www.hydrogen-hybrid.com
Pamalah MacNeily
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Permalink Reply by Maria Morales on -
Hello Kim and others: in addition to a woodstove and growing our own chickens we have been plucking along...however this $4.25 gas is nuts! So I asked my husband to "do something!" Well he did.
He found a potential solution which we are going to use on our own car. He found a fuel kit that you install on your engine that guarantees the increase of your current fuel economy by 50% or more by injecting hydrogen gas along with the normal fuel into the engine. This results in a cleaner engine and less gas. When I asked my husband where the hydrogen comes from he said the kit has a water tank and you pour distilled water into it. The kit then splits it into hydrogen and oxygen gas. You can do it yoursefl or have your mechanic install it. You need someone with a timer. Each kit comes with a computer chip so it will talk to your car's computer so it doesn't adapt to it. That is why magnets and those other things work at first but then stop after a month or two. Apparently Detroit designs a car's computer so it stays within a hungry wasteful range. Not this time...I'll check in and let you know how it our own milage improves.
-Maria
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Permalink Reply by Doug McVickar on -
Dear Maria:
Please be careful. Are these products registered with the EPA? There are hundreds of these products out there and they can be dangerous. They can damage your engine and then where would you be?
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Permalink Reply by Joy Gardner on
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Here's one more thing I just received from Sierra Club:
The biggest single step we can take to cut global warming pollution is make our cars go farther on a gallon of gas -- and it'll also save you money at the pump.
Gas mileage standards are currently in the hands of a below-the-radar government agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -- and we've got until July 1st to weigh in on a federal proposal telling Detroit to speed it up!
Click here to add your name:
http://www.LightbulbsToLeadership.org/
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Permalink Reply by Philip Tymon on -
Wrong question.
George Bush says he's a wartime president and this is war. Well, in World War II we had rationing. Let's take him seriously. We should immediately demand:
1. Gas Rationing: Every licensed driver with one registered car gets ration coupons allowing up to 50 gallons of gasoline per week maximum.
2. Private Planes, Recreational Boats, Gas Powered Lawnmowers, Leafblowers, etc. Banned.
Private Planes, except in emergencies, and all other recreational and non-essential gasoline using devices are banned for the interim.
3. Registration Fees for any private vehicle that gets less than 25 miles per gallon are quadrupled. Fees go to developing alternative renewable energy sources.
4. Registration Fees on motorcycles, scooters, etc. are dropped.
5. Sales Taxes on Bicycles and other non-gasoline using vehicles are dropped.
This is a societal issue. We need to solve it as a society.
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Permalink Reply by Doug McVickar on
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I am biased but for a good reason. We all are using too much fuel and polluting our planet. Seven years ago I began my search to reduce pollution. I found a terrific product but it used fossil fuels as a carrier. So what good was that? Well, this year we improved it. BlueSky - Green, is a 100% bio-degradable fuel conditioner made from 100% bio-renewable sources.
Our goal was to reduce our dependency on oil, not just foreign oil, but all oil and to reduce our air pollution and carbon footprint.
BlueSky reduces Carbon Monoxide, Oxides of Nitrogen, Hydrocarbons, particulate matter from the exhaust of our cars, trucks, motorcycles,buses, generators, lawnmowers, any internal combustion engine. It also works in open flame boilers and oil burning furnaces.
It accomplishes this with a more complete burn of the fuel. The benefits are; reduced pollution, better fuel economy (up to 5-20% fuel savings) and therefore a smaller carbon footprint.
My website is;
http://www.blueskycleanair.com
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Permalink Reply by jesse carson on -
want to save on gas please go to this site thanks jesse carson.click here www.saveenergy.bitronglobal.biz
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Permalink Reply by C.J. Boehle on -
I am so glad that most of you see this as a challenge and not an insurmountable problem. I have been lucky enough to have traveled about and have seen how other countries deal with the cost of fuel in relationship to their incomes and I have found that it need not affect your quality of life.
In mexico I would see a pickup heading for town with everyone from the area that wanted to go to town that day clumped in back or hanging on to the sides,their dear Grandmother seated in a chair in the bed of the pickup. Everyone would be laughing and waving and throughly enjoying the day.
I have seen healthy senior citizens riding their bicycles in France with a little dog in a wicker basket in front, sparkle in their eye,tanned and fit.
Senior citizens in Crete with their donkeys also apple cheeked and in enviable health heading out to their gardens in the hills. In some parts of England,Scotland and Ireland a personal car is a nuisance because it is much more convenient to ride the trains,busses and underground system.
And everywhere I saw people walking,fitting fresh air and exercise into their daily life without having to sweat it out in a gym. There was such a sense of community everywhere because everyone was out in the open .
I go for weeks and don't see anyone in my neighborhood now because of the private cars and traveling to jobs,school, sports activities and the lessons for children that our lives consist of.
We are just starting to make the adaptions that we will need to continue on as a nation and there will be rough patches as each of us decides what a good life for us will consist of.
But being relieved of the burden of constant car time might turn out to be a saving grace as far as quality of life goes. As I get older I often think owning a sweet little donkey would be preferable to the madness of fighting traffic. And don't get me started on how superior is the taste of a garden tomato, carrot or anything else compared to the agi-crops in our super markets.
What really is important in life?
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Permalink Reply by C.J. Boehle on
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