It's Easy Being Green

We’re all being confronted with a steadily rising price at the local gas pumps. I can’t believe that already, we’re facing $3.75 for a gallon of unleaded gas in Northern Arizona. I worry about how much higher prices are going to climb and how much this commodity runs my life and maybe even ruins it.

It seems like we will never see prices dip to the levels they were at four or five years ago. I can fondly remember filling up my gas tank in Phoenix with prices hovering around $1.50 a gallon. I can remember when the price climbed to $1.75, people were outraged. But here we are nearly double that amount in a five year period and everyone seems as calm as a Hindu cow. How does that happen? How do we just seemingly ignore the fact that the situation with oil is getting way out of control both with prices and with future supplies? It frustrates my wife and I a lot, so we’re trying to do what we can to limit our demand on oil.

We live about 12 miles away from the city in a small, relatively rural bedroom community. We both commute into town to work but we’re really trying to plan our trips smartly. Before we head to town, we think about where we have to go and what we have to do. Then, we plan our route making one big circuit. Not only does it save you the frustration of having to drive back and forth from one place to the next. It also saves you gas! While 12 miles into town and back hardly seems like a long trip, we’ve programmed ourselves to believe it is. That 24 mile round trip will burn one gallon of gas in our Nissan Maxima. That number makes me cringe, thinking about a 1 gallon container of gas being thrown out the window. When we come up with something we’d like to do in town, we try to think of other things we can accomplish if we’re going to burn the gas to get there. It’s a great, easy technique that we’ve found works really good to make a dent in how much gas we consume.

We’ve also started talking about trying to buy a hybrid car. Our 1999 Nissan Maxima gets about 26 miles per gallon city driving and 31 on the highway. That’s really not bad compared to some other “energy hogs” driving on our roads today. Considering a Toyota Prius hybrid can get 44 miles per gallon, we’ve got a long way to go! We can’t afford to buy a home in our area because prices are way out of line for first time home buyers. So, we’re thinking about investing our money in vehicle that will save us from the pain at the gas pump.

I’ve been doing some research on hybrid cars and I’m just really not impressed with the way auto manufacturers are finding ways to save us money and energy. Chevy has announced a new hybrid Malibu but it’s only rated at 24mpg (miles per gallon) in the city and 32 on the highway. That’s just a 2mpg increase over the normal engine. That hardly seems worth it! Ford’s hybrid Escape SUV get’s about 34mpg in the city, 30 on the highway. That’s pretty decent but the price seems too high starting at $25,075. Buying American would be nice and I’d feel better about supporting some of the last remaining manufacturing that goes on in our country or at least supposedly does. But it seems like once again, the foreign automakers are leading the pack on hybrids. Hopefully American automakers will get their act together or just like our oil reserves, they’ll dry up.

Here’s some cool resources I found on the web while doing my research. The Fed’s fuel economy website gives you details on the current tax credits associated with buying a hybrid car:
Federal Fuel Economy Website

To find rebate and incentive programs offered by your state you can head to the U.S. Department of Energy website:
Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center

And, for those of you that would like to see some side by side comparisons of hybrids, head to the website by the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Hybrid Center

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A World Naked Bike Ride Event

I’m having a good chuckle while waking up to my first cup of coffee this morning.  Heads were apparently turning in St. Louis Saturday night, while hundreds of mostly nude bicyclists protested society’s dependence on oil.  It was all part of the “World Naked Bike Ride” which stretched for 10 miles through the city.  So far 70 cities across the globe have unknowingly been host to one of these political rides.  Officers with the St. Louis Police Department checked to make sure the bike riders were within the decency laws, wearing minimums like pasties, body paint, loin cloths and thongs.

For more information about organizing your own World Naked Bike Ride, check out their website.  There is also an entertaining video of what the rides look like.  You can also Google search for pictures using the ride’s name.  It’s quite entertaining.  I’d really like to see one of those come to Flagstaff!

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