[Previous entry: "Bike Trail Bringing New Life To Old Towns"] [Next entry: "Car Free Summers in New York City"]

12/01/2008: "The Messy Room"

Peak Oil has passed, and Global Warming is not a liberal conspiracy but a physical fact, and yet we're still compulsively swilling petrol, bloated drunks moaning and pissing ourselves in the trash-strewn bed-sitting room we've made of this once-lovely planet.

What does it take to make us make sense? Must we experience catastrophe before we can wish we had averted it? (And by "we" I mean primarily "us," as in "U.S.")

The Danes fret that "only" 36% percent of their population's travel miles take place on bicycles, bicycle use in Britan has more than doubled since 2000, and the Parisians have fallen madly in love with the "Vélib" borrow-bike network...and here in the US polls show the people supporting resumption of offshore drilling for crude oil even though it's well known that all the offshore oil we could possibly extract won't lower gas prices, or even support our current usage for more than a few weeks!

It's all-pervasive: people dear to me will drive four blocks to pick up a bottle of olive oil when it's a ten-minute walk if you dawdle. My neighbors can't be bothered to step an extra three feet to the blue recycling bin but throw paper, metal, glass, and (oil-based!) plastic into the standard bin, which goes straight to landfill.

Grow up, America! Mother Nature can't clean up after you any more.

There are some simple things you can do that aren't a great imposition, yet that have great effects, if enough of us (that means you and me) do them.

If recycling bins are offered in your community, as they are in nearly all US towns and cities now, just use them. It's not that hard. Clean paper, bottles, cans, and most plastics go in one; dirty trash and kitchen garbage in another. If you're really slow about it, it might take you an extra minute and a half per day, so no one's asking you to cut off your right arm. And it takes more energy to make something new, especially out of plastic, than it does to recycle used materials into something new. (Recycled paper uses 43% less energy than virgin, for example).

Skip the driving as often as possible. Even a chump can walk a mile in twenty minutes. You need the exercise anyway--you keep saying you're tired of being fat. Is it really more pleasurable to wedge yourself into a car, then wedge the car into traffic, then wedge it into a parking space, after circling the lot three or four times to find a spot closer to the door? What--are you nuts or something? We already know, from the National Household Travel Surveys, that 40% of the trips you take are under three miles, and a quarter of them are under one mile. Shake a leg, if you aren't feeble. Ride your bike if you want--uses even less energy than walking.

If you do have to drive (and you usually don't), don't drive so fast. What's the point of rushing down the street wasting gas just so you can wait longer at the next red light? You know, you really look stupid when you're doing that. I see you every day. You're not impressing me.

The there's food: buy local and seasonal. It's not that big a deal to pass on tomatoes in January--come on! Off-season fruit comes on ships, trucks, and trains and wastes a lot of oil. Not only wastes oil, but adds to greenhouse gases. Seasonal food has more nutrients than stuff picked unripe to ship 1500 miles, and tastes better too, so you'll enjoy it. It might require a bit of thinking when planning meals, but just remember that keeping an active mind helps stave off dementia when you're older, so you'll get to enjoy your life longer on two counts, physical and mental.

Just take this seriously. We can't afford to burn the oil we already have access to, let alone tar sands or coal, and keep a stable planet. It's time to put down the bottle, pick yourself up out of your own mess, and start living like a grown-up. Now.

Richard Risemberg, on 12.01.08 @ 13:50PST