I still think we wouldn't have so many problems with oil if people didn't drive so much

[taterguy]

Sorry.

:shrug:

[End Of The Road]

1. I've said it before, here goes again

So long as the U.S. military is the largest consumer of oil in the world, we will continue drillin' and spillin', even if you and I are headed to the grocery in a horse & buggy.

2007 stats: U.S. military consumed 20,687,000 barrels (not gallons, barrels) per DAY.

FYI - I'm with you that we should drive less, for all sorts of reasons. Just sayin' that it won't help stop off-shore drilling, spills, fires, deaths, etc.etc.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. You are incorrect - the entire US uses about 20 million barrels a day.

The military uses about 400,000 barrels a day.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I have made the point before

but the Military is easy to demonize...

We use far more oil in our food production system, but don't tell them that.

[End Of The Road]

16. You are correct. I goofed.

Or it was a typo in an old Energy Bulletin I read. Regardless, I'll revise my numbers.

[Bluerthanblue]

41. there'd likely be less use for a military like this if we weren't

"protecting our interests" in fossil fuel, don't you think?

[county worker]

63. I agree. When they make jets that burn electricity and still stay in the air let me know.

Just looking at how much we drive is such a narrow blinders on point of view.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. IF we had not engineered our entire nation to require driving..

we would not drive so much.

The U.S. is the pinnacle culture in an oil civilization. We have designed our entire nation to use cheap, readily available crude.

Public transportation,except in a few cites in a joke. It takes 20 minutes for my wife to drive to work and an hour and a half to get there by bus. Suburbs and runaway urban sprawl make no sense in a world that requires public transportation to get around. Large, single family homes make no sense unless they are fed by small single family vehicles.

In order to quit driving so much, we need to re-engineer the entire country...and that may be necessary.

[laughingliberal]

21. +1000 nt

[Radical Activist]

24. Yes, and it started with the stimulus bill.

The investments in high speed rail are a nice start but much more is needed.

[Ozymanithrax]

47. More important that high speed rail is light urban rail...trollies.

becaues they are more efficient that even busses. But they are expensive and have along lead time.

[Radical Activist]

49. I love light rail

but since I don't live in a major city, I'll see more benefit from the HSR system.

[Dappleganger]

59. It's a shame they ripped out all of those trolley lines...

and what the auto companies lobbied local governments to do in order to push everyone having more than one vehicle.

[Javaman]

80. Lobbied nothing, they bought them all out.

It was a concerted effort by Standard oil, GM and Firestone.

This isn't some crazy conspiracy, this actually happened.

Here check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal

[Javaman]

81. They are trying to push through light rail here in Austin...

I would much more perfer overhead powered articulated buses like they have in San Francisco.

[Javaman]

79. I look at photos from times before the 1950's.

the cities were full of street cars and trolley's.

Here in Austin, we had a giant street car system.

All that is long gone.

Now the city is trying to push through light rail. Such a waste of money. Just go back to the trolly system of overhead lines.

but alas...

[kayakjohnny]

3. Or if birth control had ever caught on.

[ProgressiveVictory]

4. Our country is too big not to drive. How many people work in the same town or city the live?

[damntexdem]

13. That is the result of having misdeveloped to emphasize the car.

The daily commute to work, or to shopping, cannot be attributed to the size of the country.

As to intercity travel, the country developed quite well with rail. And modern rapid rail systems work well in other countries, whatever their sizes.

[Javaman]

82. Excactly right.

zoning laws were molded around the car. If they were molded around trolley systems like they were in the first half of the 20th century, we would be living in a much different world now.

[Terry in Austin]

29. Lots of people made that choice

As a consequence of that choice, they made themselves car-dependent.

It's a viable choice when circumstances allow car dependence, but circumstances change and then it's not so viable... stuck in the 'burbs with miles between you and where you need to get to -- and there you jolly well are, to use Lord Buckley's phrase.

[ProgressiveVictory]

33. did they make the choice because they wanted to or because they had to?

what if they could not get a job within a few miles of where they live?

[Terry in Austin]

54. Again, the choice is about where they live

The location is not an absolute given. It's a variable that's part of the mix.

One makes choices about where to live. Where you live is not beyond your control. It's negotiable. It's subject to adaptation. Where you live is your decision, and the consequences of it are yours to deal with.

This applies to everyone not in prison.

[Dappleganger]

57. Most normal people are very constrained by money.

How much housing costs and how much they have to spend will quite often dictate where they can AFFORD to live.

[Terry in Austin]

61. Most major choices are constrained; few of them are easy

Life's a bear, ain't it...

:shrug:

[Dappleganger]

66. Yes, and regentrification hasn't helped...

and neither has been the systematic destruction of affordable housing for the poor and lower-middle income folks. In our city of Jacksonville you can't live downtown unless you buy a fancy, expensive condo or loft. If you're a family there's nothing for you down there.

[Terry in Austin]

75. Low income people will definitely get the sharp leading edge

They'll be hit first and hardest as the car system -- and all the arrangements based on it -- starts to fail. It'll take a little longer for the "gents" to be affected...

[Dappleganger]

56. Many people moved out to the suburbs in order to pursue...

better schools for their children, cheaper housing and larger plots of land, as well as less beaurocracy in local government. As cities became more car-dependent the auto industry lobbied for them to remove many of the local transit systems which had been in place before (which had encouraged more urban-centric employment). With those transit systems either greatly depleted or removed altogether, people saw that for just a short distance drive they could more easily afford their 'American Dream.'

[Terry in Austin]

62. Good historical summary

Pretty much nails it.

> people saw that for just a short distance drive they could more easily afford their 'American Dream.'

Here's the part of history where the circumstances change. That drive is about to become a lot less affordable. Then, "boom" goes the whole premise.

[Dappleganger]

65. How do you propose to take us back, then?

It's not just people who have moved out into the suburbs but also the businesses where they work, many of their doctors' offices, grocery shopping, places of worship, recreational parks, shopping centers, etc. How is this going to be undone (and I'm not being snarky, just wanting to know if it's possible to change this).

To give you an example, Jacksonville FL (we live just outside it's city line, although geographically it's a very large city) has regressed from an urban-centric area with many streetcars/trolleys, buses and pedestrian paths from before WWII to todays hodge-podge conglomeration of multiple suburban hubs which are only connected by major highways or busy roads. Pretty much all the pre-WWII pedestrian and public support has disappeared except for a very tiny, ineffective bus line, no pedestrian walkways on most of those major roads, very few bike routes as well, and a silly monorail which goes nowhere (not kidding, it has 3 stops if that). You wouldn't believe the businesses which have packed up and left our urban core (there are other reasons, but the public transit situation is a major reason for this).

[Terry in Austin]

73. I don't have a solution. Solutions are for problems.

Unfortunately, the current situation of car-based living arrangements is not a "problem" in the sense that it has a "solution" that makes the problem go away. Much the same way that some diseases have a cure, while some just have to be coped with and adjusted to.

The situation might better be classified as a "predicament."

Jacksonville sounds like a good case in point.

So much construction and pavement and land allocation have been committed to an arrangement predicated on use by car, it will take at least a couple of generations to undo it and re-do it to suit reduced-energy life -- and we won't have the abundant diesel fuel to run the bulldozers and cranes. The peak of global oil production is already several years behind us, depletion is accelerating, and all the alternatives put together can't replace the amount of energy we get from it.

You may have already come across James Howard Kunstler, a feisty commentator on energy issues who wrote http://www.amazon.com/Long-Emergency-Converging-Catastrophes-Twenty-First/dp/0802142494/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276875729&sr=1-1">The Long Emergency and contributed to the documentary film The End of Suburbia. He offers quite a bit of commentary and analysis on our car-based living arrangement and its future -- or lack of it. Highly recommended.

[Javaman]

86. My take is...

If you change the zoning laws to reflect the new needs of the community, then the traffic will follow.

What also vanished, over time, with the US embracing the car oriented culture, is the corner or neighborhood store.

If zoning laws change to reflect a more walking or bicycle friendly mentality, you will see the rise of the mom and pop store again.

The fabric of social philosophy will change when convenience presented.

As the price of gas rises yet again, the demand for more local services will go up. Thus forcing the change to zoning laws.

This is why I have been saying for years now, if you want people to protest, really protest for change in this nation, raise the price of gas to at least $5 a gallon.

They will demand more public transportation, they will demand new zoning laws to make local groceries a reality, they will demand, things to be local within their reach without breaking their banks.

[Terry in Austin]

72. self delete

(moved)

[Javaman]

84. Actually that's not true...

at the height of the trolley system, a person could get on one in Brooklyn and with the correct connections could travel all the way to Detroit.

The concepts of suburbs is not a post war invention. The first Suburbs were developed around end stops of the trolley lines. It's once the lines were ripped out and zoning laws put in to favor cars, that people started moving farther and farther away from cities to live.

[Subdivisions]

35. That is a choice many people will live to regret. n/t

[Javaman]

87. Those of us in the know, are already regretting it.

I look back at what Jimmy Carter tried to do, to try and wake us up to, but alas, reagan destroyed what could have been.

Cheers!

[LeftyFingerPop]

5. Bicycle tires are made from oil.

[Subdivisions]

36. Then we better use lots of what's left to make lots and lots of bicycle tires while we can. n/t

[hayu_lol]

6. Driving is only a small part of our dependence on oil...

mass transit? Oil generated power to run the trams/trains. Freight hauling? Trains run on oil-generated electricity. Manufactured goods? Oil, petrochemicals and the like are used in the production of almost everything at one stage of production or another.

Sea going freighters use oil-fired boilers. Planes...same thing. Dyes? Yup, oil-based. Paint and chemicals use oil.

Agriculture? Lots of oil use in food production.

Electricity generation? Heavy reliance on oil and gas fired turbines.

Fast food joints? How about gas-fired grills going around the clock.

We rely on oil because we don't have family farms that are horse powered anymore.

Most civilian driving is just a few miles a day for the most part.

Military? BIG user of both fuel and petrochemicals.

[Javaman]

88. I'm really glad you posted this...

I have been trying to impress upon people that all things we use, make and eat use fossil fuels.

These same people don't understand that in order to make a transition to any other type of alt fuel will also take huge amounts of energy and materials.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. How about the oil-based seat, brake lines, tires, inner tubes, bike helmet, water bottles,

and other plastics that go into the bike?

I agree that, obviously, the bike ends up using way less fuel - but driving is also not the biggest problem with oil consumption.

Plastics is a huge component of oil use as well. So is electrical generation, road surfacing, airplanes, trains, cargo ships... and running the Internet and making that computer you are using.

[Prometheus Bound]

19. The energy and resources needed to build one medium-sized car could produce 100 bicycles.

From the Eugene/Springfield (OR) Bicycle Map (1998?), which further credits the American Lung Association, Oregon Traffic Commission, Association of Commuter Transportation, American Automobile Association, and City of Eugene.

[Subdivisions]

38. The we better get busy making lots of bicycles before we can't anymore. n/t

[damntexdem]

9. And traffic wouldn't be so bad were it not for all the vehicles on the road.

But the issue is that for many decades, we have been structuring our built environment so as to REQUIRE driving so much. For example, Los Angeles originally developed to fit to the streetcar -- it was after WWII that it metastasized to fit to the automobile. The Dallas area, where I live, is the same, just on a smaller scale. We are not going to be ABLE to rely more on automobiles unless we rebuild our cities, and return to intercity passenger rail -- in modern form, as has been developed in many other countries.

[old mark]

10. Many US cities and towns had very good train and trolly service

till soon after WWII when the oil and car manufacturers bought up and closed many of these local services or paid politicians to shut them down and support road building and car use. Even LA had a great trolly system till around 1948 or so.

This was on purpose - it was sold as the future to Americans. It was manipulation pure and simple.

I don't blame everyone for driving because in many areas and situations there is little or no alternative...thanks to the oil and car companies and the politicians.

mark

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Tell me how many people can bike to work?

be realistic here... if you are, you will realize that this is how we have engineered the country. Oh and kudos for one more "SIMPLE" solution to a very complex problem

[damntexdem]

15. We have limited options, basically two:

1) redesign and redevelop, or
20 fail.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. We need a top down overall

civilization redesign. It is not just one thing... but everything. And simple solutions are simple FAIL.

[Radical Activist]

25. How many drive less than five miles to work?

That alone would make a huge difference. Yes, we've designed our cities for disaster. The changes are possible and absolutely necessary.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Less than you think

that said, this is a SIMPLE solution to a complex problem. Look OIL is the basis of our modern civilization. If we don't change, we WILL face civilization collapse, and if we do... we may still face civilization collapse. That will not be pretty.

And if we are to look at this honestly, we should all start changing from OUR CHEAP FOOD POLICY... that would make more of a difference. Good luck with that one.

[Radical Activist]

27. I realize that it's very few.

Yes, the solutions are simple. The problem is the political power of the oil industry, not a lack of simple or complex solutions.
And yes, changing our food system is another solution we already know how to implement if not for political obstacles.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. It is not simple

and that is the point.

When EVERYTHING you use is touched by oil... that is not simple.

by the way I wish it were, but it is not. And yes politics is part of the problem, but I suspect it is more than just obstinate politicos.

You go on and tell the American people that our way of life is over... oh and that we may face a population collapse of oh 5 billion people, and not just over there, but also here. You go on and tell people this.

[taterguy]

44. How do you know?

Are there actual studies that show how many current car trips could easily be done by other means?

If so, I'd love to see them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Depends on where you are

cities have different ways of dealing with this. But for example in SoCal it is STILL policy that we need to expand the freeway system and NOT reduce Miles traveled per day. Incidentally this leads to the expansion of the Freeway system instead of... the expansion of the public transport system.

Here is a silly example, but real. Both my sister and my husband WOULD LOVE to use public transit to get to work. Using the freeway both take 20-30 minutes to travel to work. Using public transit, same distance incidentally, it would take 3.5 hours. That is your problem in a nutshell. And the local freeway BOTH drive every day was at one point meant to carry light rail in what later became a toll road. That is your problem and mine

But if you are really curious, Caltrans does publish those studies, and realize their goal is not to reduce miles traveled but congestion. This is the kind of policy change needed, but it goes beyond just that. It goes well beyond cars... we need to change, FULLY the way we live. Good luck telling the average American, guess what your way of life IS OVER. Why do you think Muricans voted Carter out, among other reasons? That is exactly what he told us in that famous Malaise Speech. Yes he was right, and your point? Most Muricans still don't get it.

[laughingliberal]

30. Hardly anyone in our area. I'd guess there are few here who drive less than 30 miles to work. nt

[Dappleganger]

58. We figured it's 26 miles one-way for my husband to bike.

And it's on extremely non-bike friendly roads (and Jacksonville is one of the most non-bike friendly cities in the nation). He does ride a motorcycle several times a week, which saves us gas money.

[Fumesucker]

67. I used to live in Jacksonville, it's very flat..

If you think bicycling is bad there, try it somewhere almost as hot and with far more hills and no more bicycle paths or lanes, it's awful in the summertime.

[Dappleganger]

69. I used to bike in VA...

actually I was a runner, too. We lived in the Shenandoah Valley and rode/ran all over the place.

There has to be another way besides biking (and for those who have rain nearly every day during the summer like we do, it must be enclosed transportation).

[Fumesucker]

70. I was half my current age when I lived in Jacksonville..

It would be much harder for me to bike these days..

I lived in Richmond VA for a while too, that's not a bicycle friendly place either.

[spin]

14. While that's true ...

many people live in rural areas and have to drive long distances to work.

If you live in a rural area, you have no access to buses, trains or subways. They just don't exist.

You can be wise and do your shopping on the way to or from work but you still consume a lot of fuel.

Many of the jobs we have in our country can be done from home on a computer. Perhaps this is a solution.

[damntexdem]

18. But rural commutes do not constitute a very-large proportion of drives.

Note, however, that passenger rail used to serve a large proportion of rural towns. And in other countries, bus service DOES currently serve large proportions of rural towns.

[spin]

22. Good point ...

When I lived in the Tampa Bay area I used to see many buses that only had a few people on board.

Perhaps we need to encourage the use of buses by subsidizing the system.

I would have used a bus to get to work, but unfortunately none ran at the hours I worked. (I worked the late night shift.)

Many other countries are much smaller than the U.S. For example the U.K. is about the same size as Oregon. England is about the same size as Alabama.

[Subdivisions]

40. That is a choice someone makes. Now, either they ignore the problem

and continue their business as usual or they choose to heed the warnings and make the changes they need to make to depend less on oil.

The latter choice means they stand a chance of surviving the oil crash. The first choice means they'll die of starvation, violence, or disease.

It's already too late to fix this on a societal level. It's been too late by ten years. The only thing anyone can do now is make individual choices that will hopefully ensure their continued existance on this earth.

I've been trying to warn about this problem since my first day at DU. No one cared. Which is all too common when trying to approach this subject. No one wants to hear it. Well, now they will pay dearly for their apathy and ignorance. Maybe even you who are reading this now will pay for not having acknowledged my warnings and began years ago to prepare for a time when there are no more grocery stores.

[spin]

43. Many people who live in rural areas ...

may survive better than those in urban areas.

They have the land to grow vegetables and in rural areas game such as deer and wild hog is available to harvest.

[Subdivisions]

45. Yes, but they must choose to heed the warnings first. If they drive from the country

into the city, they must plan on a time when maybe that's no longer economically feasible. If there is a sudden oil spike, let's say Iran is attacked for instance, will they be able to pay for fuel to get back and forth to the city? Maybe not. This recession has taken hundreds of grocery stores. What if it takes many more? And as we slide down the right-hand side of Hubbert's Curve, food production and delivery systems will begin break down at an increasing pace.

Heeding the warning now affords one the opportunity to begin gardening if they're not already doing so. Skills that require no fossil fuel input could be learned. Perhaps where one currently lives is not suitable and a move is neccesary. For instance, I live in Texas but all of my blood relations live in N. Carolina. I need to decide if I want to be here or there when going to visit becomes a larger challenge, if even possible at all. Someone living in a rural area but working in the city may have to make the decision to move closer to work. May even have to decide if their job and company would be viable in a high-priced fuel environment and act accordingly.

The whole thing is very complicated. It's very dangerous. And, for some, it will be too late. This is why it is common knowledge that we should have begun working on the problem when President Carter tried to warn us. Now, we will either individually survive the oil crash that is most assuredly coming (as in no more oil available for purchase by us proles by 2037 - and LOTS of pain until then), or we will perish until our numbers are below the planet's carrying capacity.

2037. And quite possibly sooner.

[laughingliberal]

20. Yeah, we run a furniture refinishing, antique restoration shop. Haven't figured out a way around it.

Sorry

:shrug:

[FLPanhandle]

23. To quote Douglas Adams again...

"On Earth – when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass – the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another – particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish."

[Itchinjim]

31. High speed Mag-lev monorails following interstate highway corridors coast to coast.

Who's with me?

[Terry in Austin]

55. Rails of any kind

Even bi-rails with great hulking steam-powered choo-choos would be a major win, as long as they went everywhere that the interstate does. That's the main thing -- reach, not speed.

Seriously, lower-tech options might prove to be more robust and doable in the longer run.

But yeah -- as far as rail following the interstate everywhere, I'm with you.

[Overseas]

32. I have long thought mass transit should be part of our defense budget.

But apparently we need that money more for war profiteering and fighting on behalf of big oil and other giant multinational corporations.

[customerserviceguy]

34. And when gasoline is ten dollars a gallon

we will drive less. But I suspect that the well-off will not cut down that much.

Obviously, cheap oil built the car and truck dependent economy we have today. When it's no longer cheap, people will find it economical to switch to something else, and we may see an economy that revolves around the all-electric car twenty or thirty years from now, while gradually finding ways to do less travelling overall.

Perhaps a high tax on gasoline and diesel would do it, but it would be political suicide for the Democratic Party to advocate it.

[ecstatic]

37. I tried to rec but it stayed at 0... We're partly to blame as long as a decent set of alternative

powered vehicles aren't available.

[Subdivisions]

42. It stayed 0 because some idiot doesn't think there's a problem. At least they won't

be preparing, which is good because you don't want to be in a post-peak survival situation with a dumbass anyway.

[taterguy]

53. It stayed 0 because some people think the OP is an asshole

Present company included.

[tabasco]

39. And if they didn't drive gas hogs.

It's all dumbass 8-cylinder pickup trucks where I live and usually just a couple bags of trash in the bed.

Stupid conformists. Here in 'neck land, the idiots have to have a big truck to be like everybody else.

[Fumesucker]

68. Oh, not all of them..

A grand nephew of mine had to have a jacked up giant truck, I tried to tell him the gas would kill him but, like most people, he found out the hard way..

He traded the giant truck for a Camaro not too long ago and now he gets well over twice the gas mileage..

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

46. The oil/auto industry uses some very slimy tricks to keep people driving.

- Lobbying against public transportation (rail, buses...);
- Pounding the propaganda that "car = America";
- Paid operatives posting as caricatures of obnoxious, arrogant "green transportation advocates" in order to turn people against it;
- The very architecture of some places, with everything far away from everything else;
- Etc etc etc. The list goes on and on.

[J-Lo Biafra]

83. EPIC.FUCKING.WIN.

:D

[justinaforjustice]

50. U.S. Military Uses One Third of Our Oil Supply.

So, if we simply cut our military budget by one third, we'd have lots more spare oil and the money to provide government subsidized health care to all.

[taterguy]

52. Military consumes 395,000 barrels a day, total consumption is 19.5 million

Are you really bad at math or do you just repeat stuff that has no basis in reality?

US Military consumption:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199

Total consumption:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

[okieinpain]

51. that is probably true, matter of fact it is true. but man oh, man just

you try and pry car keys out of someone's fingers and offer them a horse.... holy shit.....

[LWolf]

60. I'll drive for the first time in 6 days this afternoon.

I haven't left home.

I'm a long, long way from anywhere without driving, though. Living rurally, there are no buses, trolleys or subways to get me into town.

So...I make sure I do all my errands on my way to or from work, minimizing any other trips to town.

Or, if I'm not working, like now, I concentrate anything I have to do into one day a week, leaving home only once a week to do whatever needs to be done.

When I get to go into the city, once a year or so, I deliberately stay somewhere close to a metro line, and avoid driving anywhere for the time that I'm there. It's a 3.5 hour drive, one-way, just to get there. I love visiting, as long as I don't have to live in a city.

[lynne]

64. Sure, you're right. But, it's not as simple as that -

- I'm only 40 minutes from DC but there is no public transportation close to my house. The nearest grocery store is about 7 miles away. I was laid off so I don't work but my husbands work requires that he use a vehicle in his line of duty. I don't have the facilities for a horse and my property isn't zoned to own one. My child plays cello and the instrument won't fit on a bike to go back and forth to lessons. I have no option other than to drive to where I'm headed.

Not to mention that the majority of a barrel of oil goes for products OTHER than gasoline. We need to develop a non-petroleum replacement for the uses of petroleum in plastic, cosmetics, tires, etc. before we'll make a serious dent in petroleum consumption.

Quite honestly, gasoline is the least of our petroleum use.

[CBR]

71. Everyone I know in my Public Policy department who focuses

on environmental policy agrees that personal behavior changes are the driving force. They agree government regulation is extremely important but changing personal lifestyle choices and cultural values are the real game changers.

[IDemo]

74. I've got just over 50,000 miles on my '93 pickup

It only gets about 17 mpg, but I figure I'm doing my part.

[dionysus]

76. everyone thinks about gasoline, but don't forget PLASTIC.

[Javaman]

78. Yup.

my wife and I have made a concerted effort to remove as much plastic as we can from our home. We try to find wood and metal replacements. If we can't, we do without.

We are also very lucky to have a private company near us that recycles ALL plastics. So what we do generate, we are able to take to them.

[Javaman]

77. Of the 42 gallons of oil in a barrel of oil, 19.5 gallons of gasoline is produced.

that's less than half.

The rest is by products that are then further refined and made into all sorts of other things.

While driving a car is a big problem, it's not the leading problem in our oil use.

Yes, we should conserve. Lower the speed limit, raise the tax at the pump and cut back the hand outs to the oil corps. But also cutting back on anything made of plastic should also be our mission.

but alas, our government won't do those things and will ask none of use to cut back or conserve.

[Jennicut]

89. A list of products:

One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make things like:

Solvents


Diesel fuel


Motor Oil


Bearing Grease

Ink


Floor Wax


Ballpoint Pens


Football Cleats

Upholstery


Sweaters


Boats


Insecticides

Bicycle Tires


Sports Car Bodies


Nail Polish


Fishing lures

Dresses


Tires


Golf Bags


Perfumes

Cassettes


Dishwasher parts


Tool Boxes


Shoe Polish

Motorcycle Helmet


Caulking


Petroleum Jelly


Transparent Tape

CD Player


Faucet Washers


Antiseptics


Clothesline

Curtains


Food Preservatives


Basketballs


Soap

Vitamin Capsules


Antihistamines


Purses


Shoes

Dashboards


Cortisone


Deodorant


Footballs

Putty


Dyes


Panty Hose


Refrigerant

Percolators


Life Jackets


Rubbing Alcohol


Linings

Skis


TV Cabinets


Shag Rugs


Electrician's Tape

Tool Racks


Car Battery Cases


Epoxy


Paint

Mops


Slacks


Insect Repellent


Oil Filters

Umbrellas


Yarn


Fertilizers


Hair Coloring

Roofing


Toilet Seats


Fishing Rods


Lipstick

Denture Adhesive


Linoleum


Ice Cube Trays


Synthetic Rubber

Speakers


Plastic Wood


Electric Blankets


Glycerin

Tennis Rackets


Rubber Cement


Fishing Boots


Dice

Nylon Rope


Candles


Trash Bags


House Paint

Water Pipes


Hand Lotion


Roller Skates


Surf Boards

Shampoo


Wheels


Paint Rollers


Shower Curtains

Guitar Strings


Luggage


Aspirin


Safety Glasses

Antifreeze


Football Helmets


Awnings


Eyeglasses

Clothes


Toothbrushes


Ice Chests


Footballs

Combs


CD's & DVD's


Paint Brushes


Detergents

Vaporizers


Balloons


Sun Glasses


Tents

Heart Valves


Crayons


Parachutes


Telephones

Enamel


Pillows


Dishes


Cameras

Anesthetics


Artificial Turf


Artificial limbs


Bandages

Dentures


Model Cars


Folding Doors


Hair Curlers

Cold cream


Movie film


Soft Contact lenses


Drinking Cups

Fan Belts


Car Enamel


Shaving Cream


Ammonia

Refrigerators


Golf Balls


Toothpaste


Gasoline

[Javaman]

91. that's a great list...

where did you get that from?

[Jennicut]

92. Sorry. Here it is:

http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

[jillan]

85. This is another reason why we have to get the republicans out of power in Arizona.

Everything is so spread out, you have to have a car.

A few years ago we finally got a Metro train that takes you from the suburbs into downtown Phoenix.
What did Brewer just do? Cut funding.

She's not just bad for immigration - she's also a disaster for the environment. Every year we get a brown cloud over the city from the dust and the pollution. We get days where there are actual warnings not to go outside if you have a respiratory condition. We finally move forward and the pigs move us right back - it's part of their "take back our country" project.

[fascisthunter]

90. it's not even that simple

there are plenty of variables you ignore:

Income is a huge factor
Transit infrastructure
and shitty gas mileage on the cars sold here in the US

I agree on driving less when it's only an option, but for some it isn't.