Oil now at $100 per barrel. How will you change?

capt. planet · January 2008

You might find Jared Diamond's op ed piece in the NY Times yesterday interesting. He notes that the 1 billion people living in developed countries use on average 32 times as many resources as the 5.5 billion living in undeveloped countries. While he notes demographers are expecting world popuation to reach nearly 10 billion by mid-century, the real problem is what happens when those undeveloped 5.5 billion people start to live like Americans. It would be like having 8.5 billion new Americans! From world resource depletion perspective, it would be like having 272 billion people on the planet (32 x 8.5 billion) plus the 1.5 billion in the already developed world. Do you think that's going to work?

Today oil hit $100 / barrel. Is all of this starting to get real? What do you plan to do differently in the new year?

lilbangladesh · January 2008

Nothing much. I don't own a car. I take public transportation. My house uses energy-efficient bulbs. I have noticed that heat is not as plentiful in my apartment as it would probably otherwise would be, but since it stays consistently in the mid-60s, which is within legal limits, and I prefer it cooler anyway, that's not much of a problem. Most of my oil use is out of my control being a tenant, so there's no way for me to reduce.

If I were to ever own a car, it'd be a hybrid, but I already had decided that a while ago.

I'll live just as cheaply as I ever did, schlepping my groceries in my handcart. Not only does it save on resources, it makes ya skinny! I lost a ton o' weight since moving to Brooklyn.

ltjbukem · January 2008

better to bark up the midland and california. as nyc'ers, most of us use public transport, a lot more than other parts of the country. not to say that we can't afford to lower each of our carbon footprints, but what's the rest of the country doing?

whatchuwant · January 2008

I read an article recently (New Yorker?) that basically described the fact that the people of India are buying cars like its nobody's business and there is no sign of stopping. Obviously, they are catching up to us and it ain't gonna be pretty. Imagine two HUGE gas guzzling countries.

Alternatively, another article in the New Yorker (a while ago) as well as Seed (OMG: awesome mag alert) touted city living as the most energy efficient style of living. Suburban sprawl is an energy sucker. We city dwellers utilize mass transit to the fullest extent, use less electricity in our homes, generally consume less, and take up less space on the planet thereby leaving the rest of the planet to breathe.

Environmental scientists along with urban planners genuinely feel urban city living is the way of the future and are working towards creating more cities.

lilbangladesh · January 2008

Having grown up in soulless suburbs, I can tell you that city living rocks! One can feel pretty isolated in the city, but it's even worse in the suburbs where you can't get anywhere without a car. When I was engaged, I fought tooth and nail with my fiance about staying in the city. He wanted to move back to (gasp!) New Jersey!

lydiabrunch · January 2008

If you're interested... wind power through Con Edison's own ESCO:

http://www.conedsolutions.com/gp/default.asp

rtraindweller · January 2008

lilbangladesh wrote: Having grown up in soulless suburbs, I can tell you that city living rocks! One can feel pretty isolated in the city, but it's even worse in the suburbs where you can't get anywhere without a car. When I was engaged, I fought tooth and nail with my fiance about staying in the city. He wanted to move back to (gasp!) New Jersey!

i hear ya on that. i grew up in the jersey suburbs and i will never return. everyone was a carbon copy of each other (you think hipsters are bad? go to any dude-bro bar in north jersey). even when i lived i south philly i had a car there, but never took it anywhere except to ikea or to band practice in jersey. but anywhere else i just walked or biked (philly's mass transit is absolutely useless). it was also nice not having alternate side parking. now in brooklyn i'm 100% car(e?) free and i've never felt better. ok so it can take me up to an hour to go 4 miles with transfering trains/buses but honestly i'd rather spend an hour doing that than 15 minutes driving around the lunatics/morons who reside on the roads of bergen county.

capt. planet · January 2008

I turned on my coffee pot yesterday and nothing happened. I finally figured out that the heating coil had burned out, so I chucked. Now I have one less appliance to use electricity. I figure my microwave is next. It's already making funning noises. One by one, I'm down-sizing my electric consumption. People tend to forget an entire civilization lived for years without either microwaves or electric coffee pots. Most apartments built prior to 1950 only had 10 amp electrical service. Now 100 amp service is considered a bare minimum. :idea: Maybe we're heading backwards? Or is it really fowards!

lilbangladesh · January 2008

I haven't had a microwave in years. Food out of a microwave always tastes funny to me, and I much prefer to make things from scratch when I can. There have also been Soviet studies that show a possible link between microwaved food and cancer (which is why microwave ovens, even though they were available earlier there than here, are not so popular in Russia) so it's probably best to stick to your gas oven.

I make coffee by boiling water in a teakettle and then pouring it through a Melitta filter. It makes tasty coffee and it's electricity-free!

Oil now at $100 per barrel. How will you change?

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