Lent is a time that Christians spend focusing on their relationship with God by stripping down to the essentials.  For many of us, this means giving up chocolate, alcohol or smoking.  This can also be a time to dedicate to volunteering and helping others.

In this spirit of the season, I saw an interesting story on Fast Company entitled “British Bishops Call for Carbon Fast During Lent”.  A group of British bishops ran a successful “carbon fast” last year and they are calling on followers to again reduce their energy usage.

Over at The Daily Green, they offer “9 Things You Can Give Up For Lent That Will Help The Environment”.  Here are their suggestions:

1. Give up plastic (and paper) bags
2. Stop buying bottled water
3. Stop receiving unwanted catalogs
4. Give up conventional detergents
5. Give up the clothes dryer
6. Give up conventional toilet paper
7. Give up paper towels
8. Give up 2 degrees
9. Give up dry cleaning

Sometimes committing to these actions for a short period of time can result in long term changes to our consumption habits.  So go ahead, give up the wine or chocolate, but also give up a few habits that waste energy.  You will improve your own wellbeing, the struggling economy and the health of the planet.  If you could share a few rides, that would ne nice too.

photo credit: jezobeljones

My wife’s car was in for repair’s this week, so we were down to just one car.  On Tuesday, we both needed to go to the office, so I made arrangements with my neighbor John for a ride in the morning to my parent’s house.  He works in the same town where I use to live and from there I could borrow my Mom’s car for the rest of the day.

Well, it could not have gone better.  John picked me up at 6:30 in the morning, in a nice warm car on a cold morning.  We had a great conversation during the ride and the 45 minute trip passed very quickly.  It was too bad I could not pick up another ride for the second half of my trip or found a ride for my trip back home.

Now, I did not pay John for the ride, but I gladly would have.  He didn’t mind giving me a ride since he was just making his normal every day commute anyway.  So it did not cost him anything and he enjoyed having the company.

While we were driving north on Route 9, we could see that the majority of the cars were single passenger vehicles.  All this unused capacity is just going to waste.  I think the bulk of our daily trips are on major highways and we would need to provide our own transportation for the first and last 10% of the commute.  Imagine driving your car to a commuter lot where you could get a ride or pick up some paying passengers.  If you then were dropped off near your work place, could you text a coworker for a ride the rest of the way?  What if you sent out a tweet?

It seems like I never have enough time.  What about you?  Think of all the things you could do while some else did the driving.  Think of the money you could save.  Think about how sharing rides could help the economy, transportation and the environment.  Now do you think you would try an organized paid ride system?

photo credit: Axel-D

There is a great article and running discussion on “The Economics of Volatile Oil Prices” at TheOilDrum.com.  The author, Phil Hart, does a very nice job breaking down the change in oil prices over the last few years.  He explains how the basic rules of supply and demand have had a powerful impact on the wild price fluctuations.

In the first comment, a reader points to the YouTube video below called “Gas Prices, Gas Gouging, Peak Oil, Elasticity, Supply Demand”.  This video simply demonstrates how the supply and demand curves have moved to cause the price spike and then recession:

As I read this article and watched the video, I gained a better understanding of the events of the last 3 years.  I also see how this cycle will definitely repeat itself in the next few years.  Once demand returns, prices will spike again.  It seems like we have a window of opportunity now to change our consumption habits before the next spike, but will we do it?

Last week I wrote a post entitled “Putting the Brakes on Offshore Drilling”.  In this post, there is a video from GreenPeace comparing our oil usage to drug addiction.  This is a very powerful metaphor that illustrates our urgent need for energy independence.

This week’s song is “Royal Oil” from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.  I’ve read in a few places that the song is about drug use and how it can ruin your future.  As you listen to the song, I think you will agree it could easily be about our current oil addiction.

Royal Oil, come on bubble and boil.
Stabs like a dagger, makes you stagger on the hot tin foil.
Mind your mind or it will surely spoil, then you sleep down in the soil.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil.

When you smoke or poke the poison you lose the chance to be tomorrow.
Look out on the horizon and see the sadness, the pain and sorrow.
I can’t say enough about the stuff or what it has in store.
When you smoke or poke the poison you can’t be anymore.

Royal Oil, come on bubble and boil.
Stabs like a dagger, make you stagger on the hot tin foil.
Mind your mind or it will surely spoil, then you sleep down in the soil.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil.

Royal Oil has cut many down to size.
Spikes gonna strike the weak and strong alike.
And then forever, and ever close those eyes.
Make up your mind to keep your mind up and to your life be loyal.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil.

Royal Oil, big trouble brewing.
Long lonely road, long road to ruin.
Wrong path to take, great big mistake.
And then you sleep down in the soil.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil

Last week I wrote a post entitled “Putting the Brakes on Offshore Drilling” that looked at the government’s plan for longer review of offshore drilling.  I also discussed the many dangers associated with ocean drilling and why we need to proceed cautiously.

We should not toy around with ocean drilling

Well today, TreeHugger has an excellent piece called “Offshore Drilling: Worth the Oil, or False Hope?”.  They offer comprehensive coverage of this topic, including background information and answers to the following questions:

1. How much oil do we get from offshore drilling today?
2. How much might we potentially recover?
3. What offshore drilling is currently banned?
4. What are the environmental risks?
5. Does offshore drilling offer false hope of plentiful cheap oil?

I talked last week about the dangers, but I was under the flawed impression that it may be worth the risks.  According to this story, lifting the ban on offshore drilling would not have a significant impact for at least 10 years and even then it would only save us pennies on a gallon of gasoline.

We need to accept the fact that oil is a finite commodity.  No matter how much we increase exploration; there will always be a limited supply.  We need to look past these false promises and focus on true oil alternatives.

photo credit: dierk schaefer

Well, you think our traffic is bad?  According to TreeHugger.com, “1,466 New Cars Added to Beijing Streets Every Day”.  At this rate, they will add well over 100,000 cars in the first 3 months of this year.  Yikes!

While reading the story on  TreeHugger, I found the original source for this information is Reuters.  In their piece about Congested Beijing, they mention an interesting tactic that has been implemented.  To reduce congestion, they introduced rules based on the license plate numbers to remove a fifth of the cars each day on the roads.

Now, at first this seems a little crazy, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  We may someday have to resort to a conservation scheme based on license plate numbers.  Do you remember odd-even gas rationing of 1979?  I do, that was the year I got my driver’s license and it was not pretty.

The Beijing plan is interesting in that they target only a fifth of the cars each day.  So if you figure a 5 day working week, then you would only have to leave your car home just one day each week.  Could you get a ride, use mass transit or work from home that one day?  If everyone could follow this simple rule, we would immediately reduce our daily traffic and gas consumption by 20%.

We need to explore simple ideas like this while we still can.  If we wait, then we will be forced to take more drastic measures in the future.  The time to act is now, are you ready?

photo credit: poeloq

We keep hearing on the news that oil prices are slipping, but when you go to fill up your car, the price of gasoline is higher.  Why?

According to USA Today, refiners are to blame:

• Refiners are cutting back on production
• Performing maintenance to reduce equipment utilization
• Decreasing the supply of gasoline on the market

The refiners are squeezing supply to match the reduced demand resulting in increased profits.  It is hard to blame them, since every other business would try the same thing, but we are all paying for it.  This just underscores how little control we, the consumer, have over the price of gasoline.

Between the refiners and then the speculators bidding up the price of oil futures, what are we to do?  Well they have control over the supply side, so our control can come from reducing demand.  Aggressively pursuing alternative energy and increased conservation are our only defense.  How do you plan to cut your gasoline consumption this year?

photo credit: Jacob Garcia

To celebrate President’s Day, here is a classic video from Animaniacs.  It amazes me that they can fit 42 Presidents in a 3 minute song.  This video stops with President Clinton, but maybe someday it will updated to add Bush and Obama.

Well since I picked one of my son’s favorite bands last week, he is back this week with another selection.  He recently downloaded this song from iTunes and it is now on heavy rotation on his iPod.

This song seems like a good fit considering there is so much fear and uncertainty going around right now.   The passage of the new stimulus package earlier this week brings with it much hope for an economic recovery.  We’ll look back in a few years to judge the wisdom of this decision.

I’m waking up at the start of the end of the world,
But its feeling just like every other morning before,
Now I wonder what my life is going to mean if it’s gone.
The cars are moving like a half a mile an hour and I,
Started staring at the passengers waving goodbye,
Can you tell me what was ever really special about me all this time?

But I believe the world is burning to the ground,
Oh well I guess we’re gonna find out,
Let’s see how far we’ve come
Let’s see how far we’ve come

Well I, believe, it all, is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess, we’re gonna pretend,
Let’s see how far we’ve come
Let’s see how far we’ve come

On Tuesday, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar announced that they are adding a longer period of public review to the Bush offshore drilling program.  In a wise decision, the government wants to take more time to do the proper analysis before expanding this type of exploration.  There is more detail in this story entitled “Drill Baby Drill? Not so Fast: Interior Dept. Scraps Bush Offshore Drilling Plan”.

By adding 5 months to the review process, are we just delaying the inevitable increase in offshore drilling or is this a true change in direction away from this risky proposition?  In this story entitled “The Future Of Offshore Oil”, Dan Shaply cites the many dangers ocean drilling.  Hurricanes over the last several years have ruptured oil platforms and pipelines causing hundreds of thousands of gallons to be released into the ocean.  This along with oil spills from tankers present a serious threat to our oceans.

When gas prices were soaring to record levels, most people thought that offshore domestic drilling was a necessary evil.  Now that oil prices are way down, this option looks even less attractive.

We all understand the grim ecological objections against this type of drilling, but what is the alternative?  Should we, in the words of T. Boone Pickens, continue with the “greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind” to foreign countries that hate us?  Given this ugly option, I would definitely consider offshore drilling.  If you do not like either option, then you must embrace more aggressive conservation efforts to reduce our insatiable appetite for crude oil.

You may have seen these facts before, but they are well worth repeating again and again until we do something about it:

• We have 4% of the world’s population
• We consume nearly 25% of the world’s oil
• We only produce about 10% here in the U.S.

If we are going to protect our oceans for future generations then we need to take action now to break our addiction.  Let’s follow the government’s lead and put the brakes on our gluttonous consumption of this dwindling resource.  So instead of “Drill Baby Drill”, we should “Conserve Baby Conserve”.  Not too catchy, let me know if you have a better one.