The oil industry.

[icarus]

After watching the 60 Minutes report on Global Warming and how the Bush Administration (Dick Cheney & Cronies 'R Us) is squelching scientific voices on the subject, I decided that a lot wrong with the world today is due to the dependence on oil.

We're destroying the environment, not in a "oops, dropped a candy wrapper" sort of way, but in a "turn the planet into an unliveable Venus" sort of way.

Wars are being fought over oil. Don't tell me we'd care about Iraq if it didn't have oil.

Why oil?

Not because we don't have other options, but because oil is an easily controlled commodity. Anyone can build a windmill or put up a solar panel. Oil profits can be funnelled through a small number of people at high margins. Certain powerful people want to keep milking their oil profits for as long as possible.

Oil has a stranglehold on the world economy.

I want out of the oil economy. It's pervasiveness tells us how deep the problem is.

I've already taken a few first steps. Ten years ago I lived a 45 minute drive from work and lived in my car. I moved, and now am about a ten minute bus ride from work/school, and can walk to work if need be. I'm still dependent on oil (in the bus) but it's much less.

Four years ago wildernessguru and I were a two-car household. I got rid of my car, and because of how close I live to downtown, we've only driven 15,000 miles in four years.

I live in an apartment, so I can't rig up a solar panel on my house (or set up hydro-electric power which is probably more likely in Seattle). But I don't need all this plastic when there are other options.

How else can we cut ourselves out of the oil economy?

Comments

[korestemenos.livejournal.com]

I couldn't resist putting my 2cents worth in here. Anything that you do to reduce your footprint is good.

One small thing you can do is not to put the vegetables that you purchase into individual plastic bags, just put them all together into your shopping basket. Also, take your own bags to the supermarket with you. In Ausralia there's a big drive to reduce our plastic bag use, and purpose-made re-usable fabric shopping bags are seen everywhere. If you don't have them in the States, you could improvise.

I've got lots of web-sites about reducing oil consumption, but unfortunately a lot of them are Australian and refer to Govt programs here... If you want something closer to home, Canada is very progressive with it's environmental policies and would probably be more relevant than Australia. Here's a good place to start Canadian Environment Week (http://www.ec.gc.ca/e-week/index_e.htm). If you know some of the stuff that they're talking about, it may provide a good launching place for you...

Good luck! The more of us in the world, the better :-)