Small Changes to Reduce our Dependancy on Oil

BP's disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is really disturbing to me especially since it has been continuing to flow for over a month now. The more I see, hear, and read about it the worse I feel for the animals in the gulf and the people who live on the shores. But what I think is even more disturbing is that I don't really hear anyone talking about any drastic moves to stop our dependence on oil.

Our society is addicted to oil. In fact we are all a part of the problem. Today I was driving to pick my daughter up at school when I heard another report on the radio about the hundreds of sea turtles that were dying in this disaster. It is hard to be critical of the oil companies when they are just providing us with the product that we desire, and in many ways can't live without.

While wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources are being developed and improved, we have a long way to go to kick our nasty oil habit. It would be awesome if we could make a major change and give up our cars. Since this site is about small changes I'll give you some ideas of how to lessen your personal use of oil. Lets start the weaning process now.

Your Car: Obviously the best thing to do would be to trade in your car for a bicycle, scooter, or at least a fuel efficient hybrid vehicle. If you can't do that start with these easy and inexpensive small changes.

1. Slow Down: Consumer Reports estimated that driving at 65mph on the freeway instead of 55mph means that drivers are using 12.5 % more gasoline.
2. Check Your Tire Pressure:You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure.
   
3. Plan Your Trips: Avoid times of high traffic which would increase you idling time and running errands together saves gas because warm engines run more efficiently that cold engines.
4. Carpool: Look for opportunities to carpool with friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
5. Take Public Transportation.
6. Ride your bike. Start with one trip per week. Maybe a weekly trip to the library or something else that isn't too drastic. Then try and add more and more bike trips instead of car rides.
   

Other ways to reduce your use of oil. There is a lot more oil in your everyday life than just driving a car.

1. Switch to a push or electric lawn mower
2. Bring your own reusable bags. The oil in just 14 plastic bags could power a car to drive 1 mile.
   
3. Use natural hair and body products. There is oil in many cosmetics and also in the plastic bottles they come in.
4. Give your children beeswax crayons and natural toys. There is oil in all of the plastic toys and even in conventional crayons.
5. Wear clothes made of Natural Fibers instead of nylon and polyester clothing.
6. Use soy-based ink most printing inks contain petroleum.
7. Stop buying bottled water. Imagine each plastic bottle filled about a quarter of the way up with oil. That is about the amount of oil used for the plastic and the energy used in manufacturing the bottle. Just buy a nice reusable bottle and kick the plastic bottle habit.
   

This is just the tip of the ice berg. There is oil in so many products that you use everyday. I am not suggesting you try to completely remove all petroleum products from your life today. But I do think that if we all became more aware of the oil in our own lives we could begin making conscious decisions to lessen our dependence on it.

~Andy
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Andy Hawbaker is co-owner of Hip Mountain Mama and is a regular contributor to One Small Change and the Hip Mountain Mama Blog. Photos in this post were borrowed from internet sources.

Small Changes to Reduce our Dependancy on Oil