90% observation, biofuel, visual aid, and excess water

fifteen minutes starting 10:48 a.m.

today i feel a bit paralyzed, and it has nothing to do with The Environment, though much to do with my environment. i feel like there's something i should be doing right now.

i joined the riot for austerity web ring :) see the link over to the right under the blogroll? i haven't explored it much yet because i just got approved last night, but i assume it will take you to the blogs of other people trying to get 90% down. it's so nice to know that there are a bunch of other people out there who are about to embark on a similar journey as i am, and it's interesting to see how they're planning to do it compared to how i'm planning to do it. the main theme i see on baseline posts (which i'm still working on. i'll get it up sometime) is the dependence on gasoline and driving places. almost everyone i've looked at says that the gasoline guideline is likely one of the places they will not be able to get all the way to 90% down. i take mass transit every day to work, and i'm STILL over my allotment.

an article in the ny times this morning says that big oil is trying to place the blame for high gas prices on biofuel development. this sounds like passing the buck and avoiding anything that might cause a panic (like saying that we're running out of available oil supplies). i'm not a proponent of biofuel. i've heard that to make fuel out of corn not only completely messes with the world market on corn, but also uses at least as much energy to produce it as it generates in the end. this is mostly hearsay, but i'm more likely to believe that than i am to believe that biofuel development is the wave of the future and the thing that's going to reverse global warming.

erin is reading a book called deep economy, and she related a tale the author tells which gives a great visual for the effect of mining/using oil on the atmosphere. the oil under/in the earth's crust is in large pools that we drill down and suck up so that we can use it. now, when we take the oil out of the earth, it doesn't just disappear (matter can neither be created nor distroyed; it is just changed into anther form). instead, pulling the oil up and using it creates an equivalent "pool" of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. that's a pretty striking visual, eh?

news this morning is that erin tried the bucket-under-the-tub-faucet thing i talked about the other day (yesterday?), and it turns out that our tub faucet runs more than 2 gallons during one shower (i didn't time the shower, and our bucket only holds 2 gallons). that's a lot of water! one idea i had was to limit a shower to the time it takes to fill the bucket. that would definitely shorten our showers and avoid run-over on the water capture... or we could get a bigger bucket. either way, i don't think our plants can use 2 gallons of water EACH day. what else could we use it for?

fifteen minutes is up!