[TheIglu]

Originally Posted by benVFR

Clayton can live in the sticks and heat with wood but is he so far out that he won't be able to afford food or be able to work?

I'm 20 minutes from my current job. I spend about $40 every week and a half driving to work, going out to eat once a week and usually driving around quite a bit one weekend day. That is driving a small 4x4 pickup that gets relatively poor gas milage (20mpg on a good tank). I have three other competing companies within 15 miles of my current employer.

What I saved by purchasing a REASONABLY priced home is enough to make me comfortable for quite a while, even with a decrease in pay or loss of second income.

BTW, there is more locally grown/raised food in my town than in any town you likely commute through, live or work. Release the mindset that being near a metropolis is the only way to survive when the economy takes a dump. I find that to be quite opposite from the truth. The only towns that died during the last recession were the ones with the overbearing property "values" without tangible reason. My 20 minute commute now covers the same distance it would of taken me to go from Natick to Waltham in 45 minutes. A community that holds itself in reasonable proportions with agriculture, industry and service businesses isn't as naked in the wind to transportation costs as a bustling metropolis full of people/goods and service that needs to be trucked in for every last mouth to feed or shelf to stock.

[ChrisNoF4i]

Isn't it funny when people feel the need to answer a rhetorical question?

[ceo012384]

[taxonomy]

Originally Posted by benVFR

We're going to get stuck reshaping the country so we all live & work close together to reduce consumption.. it's going to suc
.

There are huge economies that we can get right now. There is the awesome technology that saves a ton of energy, about .79 eveny time you do a load of wash. Your grandmother used it. Its called a clothesline.

The thing is we've been doing things in a wasteful way. Now it's time to change that.

The thing is we don't have most of oil (we have 2%) but we use a lot (about 25%) the people that have it are not interested in giving it away. They have proven very adept at making it hard to take away.



Eventually that country that makes the most GPD per gallon will do best.


So, wasteful practices must stop. My motorcycle gets 50 MPG, I live in a smallish town with local services close to me. I make many trips to the store by bicycle. I walk to town to see movies. I commute to work by bike (motorized or not) I'm no sending money to Chad and Saudi Arabia.

That spike, say $25 gas, could occur any time. The House of Saud is riven with problems. There will be a messy, messy monarchical power stuggle when this old guard dies off. A lot of people that hate those guys, there are thousands of princes.

Every time you accelerate to hard, every time you drive alone, some of that money goes to Osamma.

There are some very simple technologies for solar home heating and most roofs can me photovoltic. I bought my house because of it's orientation to the sun, in part. We need real energy independence for America. I'm doing my part now.

I'm buying two 20,000 BTU (on a bright day) made in Methuen warm air solar heating panels for installation on my house. Wave that flag.

Honestly, are you really up for mountain top removal on a massive scale for coal? When you dig that stuff up other things come with it that get in the water supply and in the air. Are you up for tons of mercury in the milk supply?

Are you really going to protect that reactor or waste dump for the next 100 years, 1000 years, 10,0000 years? Is this possible?

If we get to clean, renewable technologies of the future and patent them America will stay rich. In the mean time we need to reduce our exposure and not use so much fossil fuel, no consume so much, not send so many jobs over seas, think a little more.

We're writing checks we can't cash.

Adam

[TheIglu]

Originally Posted by ChrisNoF4i

Isn't it funny when people feel the need to answer a rhetorical question?

I will do everything I can to never let this thread die.

[richw]

Adam

Especially if you heat water with electricity you should look at supplemental solar hot water.

You use hot water in the summer where the solar is best warm air in new england not so much

[taxonomy]

This is new "technology" I was at the Green Building Conference in Boston last week. It's sort of like Trobe wall and a little like TAP panels. It's pretty proven technology. I know an architect that installed some in an outbuilding in Ashfield. They're also cheap (around $1600 ea) and easily installed. No running plumbing to the roof.

Anyhow, you have to see it coming. You have to just stand back and think about it. Putin controls the gas and much of the oil pipelines from Central Asia to the west. China is very close to central Asia and what may be the largest natural gas reserves. Via Afghanistan also not so far from the mid east. Those people may be nuts.

The Mideast is pretty spooky and the foundation it's built on was built by crazy people.

This is a true story. At the secret conference in France where the Europeans were divvying the collapsed Ottoman Empire all of the chief negotiators died of the 1918 flu. Because of the secret nature (from US Pres. Wilson) of the conference they accepted the provisional maps proforma. The more you know about it the less you'll want to base any future on that region. Get the f' out.

Take responsibility for your energy needs as much as you can. Be responsible. Ride to work.

$10 gas will be cheap, and not when my income goes into the stratosphere.

The Clinton years featured oil around $20 a barrel. it bottomed out at about $8. The economy soared. Coincidence? Sure, it's multifactoral, I admit. So, in essence world supply is questionable for many, may reasons.

It may be a strategic error to pull out BUT It's not in anyones interest to see that area go to pot. Maybe a real multinational force will have to move in. Maybe the emerging giants of China and Russia will step in and take some of the role of keeping the area stable?

You think China wants to see and end to cheap oil? You think Russia wants chaos so close to Chechnya? Nope. Everyone benefits from America's policing of the Mideast. We've been a patsy and whipping boy footing the bill. If they like cheap oil so much to make lead tainted toys step right up.

Maybe others will look after it. Not every problem requires an American solution.

[zombie]

well thought out reasoning Adam
+1 for effort

[richw]

Russia whole current economy is based on high oil prices.

They are exporters and would be happy if the towel heads act even crazier.

Maybe our real mistake was that Saddam kept the Saudis and Kuwait's piss scared so they were our friends now they are not so worried

[taxonomy]

I believe you grossly underestimate the history of Russia and a Caucus region. Chechnya, Azerbaijan, and by extension Yugoslavia are not at all aberrations. The Russians know that widespread ethnic and or religious revolt in the area would be putting a match to tinderbox. The "stans" e.g Turkmenistan etc. are more or less strongman regimes a la Saddam's Iraq and form a buffer zone for the USSR.

Also the Russian memory of "operation Barbarossa" Hitler's superfabulous foray into Russia are still pretty fresh. That was basically the first resource war. Hitler was after the oil fields east of Stalingrad. There were a staggering million casualties at Stalingrad alone. Take a look at a list of the top casualties of all battles ever and see where Hitler's drive east ranks, it is totally unreal. Nobody, nobody knows the cost of all out resource war better than the Russians. May I add that this was done with piston driven aircraft and bolt action rifles.

As long and the US polices the region the Russians are free to criticize our actions and not foot the bill. The extent to which we could blackmail Russia with this potential chaos is astronomical.

This, of course means that we would have to have a solution to a problem that was not 100% (in reality) American troops.

Bush 1 failure in Gulf War round 1 was not waiting and building an international recognition that everyone has to chip in to stabilize the sitation. We should have let Kuwait burn until it hurt China and Europe. Then we should have moved with real multinational backing. I mean real.

Now with the US staggering around like a white boxer in a heavyweight title fight, just being punished round after round by an opponent that wont send us to the matt everyone there knows that the effect of behaving badly is pretty low. There is no credible threat for the Palistianians or the Iranians. Everyone is like, "oh, the Americans will deal with it."

I have no problem with making sure there is a western military presence to make sure that the whole of science based civilization doesn't go in the shitter becuase the bastard child of the Ottoman Empire burns to the ground. We just could have been waaaaaaaay smarter about it.

Fuck all. If you're going to talk about the price of gas and international politics you have to talk about the fact that the oil is sold through two exchanges that deal only in dollars and how that effects borrowing and the M1. You have to talk how OPEC works with that. You have to talk about how the neocons drove down the food for oil because it threatend to trade oil in Euros, you have to talk about how China was tryign to buy long term futures in Yen, you have to talk about how Chevron had the Taliban to Texas when negotiating the pipeline through Afghanistan.

$10 gas? ha.

Pick your cartoon president but ride to work.

[zombie]

another well reasoned post thank you and you have said it much better than I could.

[richw]

Adam

Let me bring it home...

One of the three Obama, Hillary or John Mc Cain will be the next President.

Of those three and their purported middle east policies which one would bring about higher gas prices faster.

Obviously now my vote is Obamacadabra

[taxonomy]

Wow, that's very Porter Goss of you. What's he up to these days anyhow? Isn't he living in a 3 bedroom flat with Bill Krystal and Joe Lieberman in the newly gentrified Alphabet City? The whole think is kinda 1998, isn't it?

Anyhow, check out Baker-Hamilton. At least that's '06


On the topic of gas prices, since there's a bottle neck at refining the price per barrel has nothing like a 1:1 ratio for oil prices. I care little about price spikes soon. You're talking tactics, I am talking strategy. I'm talking fuels, you're talking gas.

Everyone except a deselect few is Baker-Hamilton these days. Porter, Bill and Joe are hardly A list anymore. They'd have trouble getting invites to the Bear Stearns Company picnic.

[richw]

Engine room...Make smoke