As a terminal Do-It-Yourselfer and sustainable living advocate (I'm not one of those earthy-crunchy people, but I think we should strive for steady-state existence), it frustrates me that its so difficult to live both economically and ecologically frugal manner. I've been slowly switching over to compact flourescent light bulbs to save electrical power (my electric clothes dryer isn't helping with that project), but its hard to find other places to conserve.
The engine in one of my cars seized recently (a seal I put in poorly last time I did a repair failed and dumped the oil), so I'm considering riding my bicycle to work. Its only 7 miles, which is within my physical capability (and with gasoline pushing 2.50 a gallon even the 28mpg the other car gets commuting is getting pricy), but unfortunately the roads that go where I need to go are under construction. Granted, my bicycle is a nice 21-speed mountain bike with front and rear shocks, so it can handle the lack of road sholders on which to ride, but off-roading would be a bit too much work before work. No showers available and all that. What ever happend to putting sidewalks in a city?
I'd like to reduce the costs for keeping the house cool, but it seems that people who design houses don't live in houses. Lighting is poor, air circulation is nearly impossible, no thought is given to appliance placement (ok, washer/dryer are upstairs, but who's idea is it to put something that uses water by carpet without including a floor drain? And what idiot thought that running a narrow pipe through the wall for the dryer vent? How are you supposed to clean that when it gets all coated in lint? That thing should be removable for cleaning). For a high-tech society we sure have a lot of crappy stuff.
I'm a liberal kinda guy, I think the government ought to provide a few essential services, but mostly concern itself with staying out of the way. But for some important things, it needs to take a much stronger stance. I'd sure like to get a nice, eco-friendly car, but it would cost me tens of thousands of dollars, plus more than a hundred bucks monthly for insurance. I can buy a piece of crap car for 200 bucks plus 30 bucks monthly for insurance. Until gasoline hits about 15 bucks a gallon it'll be a better deal to go with used cars and continue to dump formerly-sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere. I think lots of people are in the same position. There are so many cars already on the road that it will take many, many decades to get them off the road. What we need is not new electric vehicles. What we need is stuff like bio-diesel, fuel thats made from carbon thats already in the biosphere. We'll be dumping it back into the atmosphere, but at least it won't be adding to the problem while we do make the slow switch to more efficent vehicles.
Why can't I get an ultra-cheap, efficent commuter vehicle? I just need to get to work every day in a reasonable amount of time, without being exposed to the weather all the time. I don't need a 3000 pound, 150 horsepower beast to get me there. I little motorcycle would be great, except it would suck in the rain and snow. And besides that, they don't call them "donor-cycles" for nothing.
We've all been hearing how we're ruining the environment. Most of us would be happy to use more efficent stuff, if only we could get hold of it without having to take out loans. We get a little legislation once in a while, but corporate lobbiests usually neuter it before it gets very far. We need some real leadership. Laws with teeth. It would be expensive, but I'll take economic slowdowns if it gets us real environmental reform.
Don't even get me started on nuclear power.
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