The reality of it all......
 

This is the reality of life now.......

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0125-01.htm

This could also be a problem for cyclists on this forum. If we become carfree, we have to remember that the autmobile (purportedly) consumes 32% of a average household's total energy usage. 39% comes from electricity/heating.

Seems like we really need to have a societal discussion about where all this energy is being used. It is a shame to conserve it on one side and waste it on the other. We probably need to break usage down to a finer grain. For example, how much energy gets used if you consistently forget to turn off your coffee machine.

I've thought of this myself. All my commuting over the last year and then I take an airplane trip to visit my mother.

Do what you can, then do some more. Don't obsess about it. Yes, I still have a car, and still drive it. But I drive it 9000 miles a year instead of 15000 as I used to. That's significant. That's 200 gallons of gas per year, 2000 over the life of the car. 2000 gallons would make one hell of a bang if it all went off at once.

But wait ...... if you bike vs car commuted for a year and would have flown over to see your mother either way, does that not result in a net savings?

If I change out all my light bulbs for flourescents, but still take a hot bath (instead of a shower) most nights anyway, just like I did before the change, is this not still a net savings?

Sure, we ALL (me included) could do better, but the point is to get people at least thinking about it and doing something even if it's little. Any little number times a big number is a big number. If people get started thinking in terms of little things they can do to make things better, the amounts of savings will start to add up pretty fast.

But, if we're all going to wait for our next door neighbor to do something first, well ...... any savings at all will be a long time coming

and because gas prices increase it's probably more, and because you aren't driving your car as hard it might last longer, and because you don't rely on it as much you might not feel the need to replace your car as soon even when gas prices are higher as well.

A litte OT question: Does the shower use less water? I ask because, like ya'll, I'm doing my best to reduce consumption but those hot showers are my downfall!

Now back to the topic; I don't think an airplane trip to see ones family constitutes any sort of gross over-usage of facilities, power, etc. But if you're flying off, willy nilly, for pleasure trips.... I think that is a problem. And I think there are some folks out there who have worked hard and earned their financial success and so they feel entitled to reap the rewards. Somehow, the attitude that recycling and less consumption DOES NOT equal depriving oneself of the 'good life' has to be changed.

I gather jetliners get 20 mpg/seat (full; 10 mpg/seat if half capacity, scale out as needed). Has anybody heard estimates that are different, or better-sourced? I guess that would give a guide for deciding whether to fly vs roadtrip (rent a car if you don't have one) depending on how many people are making the trip with you (if fuel consumption is your one concern above all others).

When we lived 3-400 miles from a lot of people we spent time with it wound up taking a very similar time to drive as fly (get to the airport, go through all the lines, wait for the delays, do all that on landing, and then get to wherever we were headed from the airport). So time alone was no real savings for trips of that length, plus driving would only be 10-15 gal each way for (then) 3 of us in a car vs 40-60 gal jet fuel each way (if the 20 mpg/seat figure is correct, and the plane was full, which it always was). But it was the airport hassles (and cost), not the emissions, that shifted us toward driving rather than flying.

And then there was the train...

Next time you take a shower, close the drain off. When you're done showering, compare the amount of water in the tub to the amount you would have used if you took a bath.

When you take a shower, turn the water on for a little trickle, get wet and then turn the water off. Soap up, then turn the water back on and rinse off. This is how my dad taught us to take showers. He called it a "navy shower."

I read from a couple sources that jetliners got something closer to 60 passenger-miles per gallon when full (which I think puts the average flight's fuel economy at 45 passenger-miles per gallon). I believe howstuffworks.com was one source, and some airline industry group (?) was the other source.

Showers can consume a very large amount of water, but baths are often worse. If you want to save hot water you should have a showerhead that puts out no more than 2.5 gallons per minute. You should also turn your water heater down until your shower and dishwashing water come out at about the right temperature without using water from the "cold" tap. That will save heat loss through the walls of your pipes and heater-tank.

Also, driving long distances is much less safe than flying. Hundreds of additional people died in traffic accidents in the days after 9/11 when the planes were not flying!!!

You dying is also a big waste of energy... all the energy you've consumed since birth. Thrown into the grave.

My showers use less water than a bath...about 50% less, if I went with Navy showers (no thanks been there done that!) I could probably cut the 50% to about 80%. I think flying is efficient for longer distances compared to driving, as well as safer. I wish we had better bus and passenger train service. Personally I think they need to start raising taxes on fuel until it hits $5-$7 a gallon and then use the taxes to improve the mass transit infrastructure. Other things we do to save...swapping out various bulbs with compact fluorescents, turn off all unnecessary lights and equipment. We just swapped out 60 150 watt flood lights at my wife's bridal shop with compact fluorescents. That should make a major difference come summer with the cooling bill.

Aaron:)

Cerewa, I didn't believe you, so I googled some sites and found this
which proves that you would be better off flying than driving alone. If you have a 2nd passenger and a reasonably gas-economical car, the car wins... Although, staying home would have the least CO2 damage. :)

What is that?

Aaron:)

:roflmao:

Point taken.

:D
What is sad we have a double mainline that runs thru our small town. We get 10-12 trains a day thru there, including Amtrak. The sad part is if we want to ride a Amtrak we have to drive at least 25 miles to the nearest station, ditto commercial bus service. I am old enough to remember when buses and trains were the way to travel....now they don't go anywhere and cost as much as it does to drive or fly.

Aaron:)

One can thank GM for the dismantling of the rail system
in America to sell more cars. It on the net so google
to see how greedy GM got in the 50's & 60's with NO
consideration to the future at all.

greedy ba$tards.:mad: :mad:

The miles per gallon of an airliner varies with the distance of the flight, since takeoff uses so much fuel.

Then consider this note from Mark Lynas in his book "High Tide: the truth about our climate crisis":
"The warming effects of the actual carbon emissions from a jet engine are tripled because of vapour contrails and the fact that pollutants are injected high up into the Earth's atmoshere where they can do the most damage." His advice is "take the slow train."

He must not plan on getting/going anywhere...I have tried numerous times to route my self somewhere using ground based mass transit. Basically impossible if you are going anywhere with a population base of under 25k or so, and even at that it still may not go there.

Aaron:)

Did you mean to say the streetcar system?

They not only dismantled the street car system but systematically destroyed the passenger rail system too, buy purchasing and dismantling them.

Aaron:)

Well, he' s British and was kind of talking about an European solution. In another section he did talk about the US style of working in one city while living (weekends...) in another. I see a lot of this going on and was partly involved in it myself at one point until I realized that it was all a bit silly... spent way too much time in airports or on freeways. Basically, the only solution for domestic travel in the US would be Grayhound.... which exists and is cheap, but using it is considered too "low class" for most people.

Even that doesn't work well. The small town I live in doesn't have a bus station anymore...we have to travel at least 30 miles to the nearest Greyhound station and about the same for Amtrak. Our town has a population of around 10k and we are right on I-95 and have two major US highways coming thru as well as a double mainline carrying CSX and Amtrak...but they don't stop! Many years ago we used to travel from college to home via Trailways or Greyhound, it was about a 2.5 hour trip by bus or 2 hours by car. It was convienent. Now the routes have changed to the point that that same trip takes 4-6 hours and only runs once a day. It used to run 3-4 times a day. In fact if you attempt to book on Carolina Trailways the only way to do it is in person or via telephone...they don't schedule via the internet... in fact as far as I can tell they don't even HAVE a website. I also recall traveling in the early 70's from Florida to Iowa when my dad was in graduate school, we would go "home" to Iowa for the summer.

Aaron:)

Well Greyhound and the other interurban bus carriers have pretty strange business plans. They seem to think that they can increase profitability by cutting service, especially feeder runs. Like I said before, in order for any mass transit company to attract passengers, they have to put up with losses in their feeder lines and in off-hour runs. People won't take the bus at all if it doesn't offer convenient times and locations.

BTW, you can book tickets on Carolina Trailways through the Greyhound Web site. I looked up a sample of schedules between Charlotte and Winston-Salem. There are 8 trips a day, 5 on Carolina Trailways and 3 on Greyhound. Each is 1:30 hours, so the service between those two cities is excellent on the face of it.