Reply #23: I took your advice and pondered things while soaking up natural beauty

[taterguy]

Here's what I came up with:

I just don't see any feasible way to enact a rationing program. The rich will find loopholes to prevent any changes from affecting them. It's not a question of whether or not I think that's right, that's just the way things are. If anyone knows how to change that I'd love to hear about it.

Earlier I asked a simple question: How much gas should people be able to buy every month? Your answer was to say people could buy as much as they want, just every other day.

I still want to know: how much gas is it reasonable for a person to consume? Just pick a number.

Should some folks get higher rations? Who and why?

Obviously I think we all should make sacrifices. We just disagree on methods.

Here's what I think we should do:

Set examples by using automobiles as rarely as possible. People in my area have all sorts of excuses about why they need their cars. The fact that mine stays parked the overwhelming majority of the time refutes most of them. I do talk about my lifestyle way too often for my friends' taste.

Point out to our employers that it makes good business sense to promote alternatives to driving for employees to get to work. The EPA even provides technical assistance and financial incentives for employers to go this route.

http://www.bestworkplaces.org/index.htm

Lobby local governments. People that you have access to that can actually implement change. A national program to conserve oil would be great but I don't personally know anyone that makes national decisions.

That's it for now.

Have a great evening and rest of the weekend.

PS: Here's the beauty I soaked up. I think I consumed about three gallons of gas doing it. Sorry.