06-07-2007, 05:54 AM
Excessive use of oil has almost become a National disease for our country. We - as a nation - use a lot more oil than any other nation although China has now gone from a producer of oil to a consumer of oil and they may eventually take over our excessive user spot. Whatever the price of the stuff is doesn't really matter, we need to get off the oil kick however we can.
There isn't just one answer, though, we need a whole new awareness and a whole shift in our national lifestyle - however that lifestyle is exhibited in each part of the country. Take the bus, drive less, install solar electric panels and wind generators to produce power, use less power (although if you are totally not connected to the grid, then you can use however much power you can make since sunshine is ecologically guiltfree), produce your own food and whatever goods you are capable of making, use cloth grocery bags instead of plastic, recycle everything, live simply and use everything until it is worn out and quit rampant consumerism.
I personally don't shop at big box stores since I consider them part of the excessive consumerism disease in this country and don't want to encourage them. We rarely buy retail and we repair instead of replace. Actually, it is difficult for us to shop since our shopping list is rarely encompassed by retail stores. Currently we are looking for a set of feet to repair a clawfoot bath tub, they certainly aren't available at Wally's world!
If you look at what you buy and consider what had to happen for that item to get into your shopping cart, then you will be able to choose things that are less ecologically harmful. Here's a typical choice: a bunch of bananas is grown on a plant in Keaau and someone (who lives on this island) cut them off a tree, someone else (probably someone else, maybe the same person) washes the bananas and tidies them up for retail sale. The bananas are probably then boxed up (who made the box and where did it come from and do they reuse it?) then sent to the store (using a truck and gasoline, no doubt) where I put them in my shopping cart. By choosing locally produced food, not only is fuel saved on shipping it from the other side of the planet, but the folks who worked to produce the food paid taxes into the infrastructure that I live in. If I pick up bananas from South America, the money I pay for bananas goes off island and there is more harm to the ecology (more fuel used to get the bananas to the end user). All that from one choice at a grocery store. Did you know that the average bite of food on the average plate in the United States of America traveled 1,500 miles from where it was produced?
There isn't just one answer, though, we need a whole new awareness and a whole shift in our national lifestyle - however that lifestyle is exhibited in each part of the country. Take the bus, drive less, install solar electric panels and wind generators to produce power, use less power (although if you are totally not connected to the grid, then you can use however much power you can make since sunshine is ecologically guiltfree), produce your own food and whatever goods you are capable of making, use cloth grocery bags instead of plastic, recycle everything, live simply and use everything until it is worn out and quit rampant consumerism.
I personally don't shop at big box stores since I consider them part of the excessive consumerism disease in this country and don't want to encourage them. We rarely buy retail and we repair instead of replace. Actually, it is difficult for us to shop since our shopping list is rarely encompassed by retail stores. Currently we are looking for a set of feet to repair a clawfoot bath tub, they certainly aren't available at Wally's world!
If you look at what you buy and consider what had to happen for that item to get into your shopping cart, then you will be able to choose things that are less ecologically harmful. Here's a typical choice: a bunch of bananas is grown on a plant in Keaau and someone (who lives on this island) cut them off a tree, someone else (probably someone else, maybe the same person) washes the bananas and tidies them up for retail sale. The bananas are probably then boxed up (who made the box and where did it come from and do they reuse it?) then sent to the store (using a truck and gasoline, no doubt) where I put them in my shopping cart. By choosing locally produced food, not only is fuel saved on shipping it from the other side of the planet, but the folks who worked to produce the food paid taxes into the infrastructure that I live in. If I pick up bananas from South America, the money I pay for bananas goes off island and there is more harm to the ecology (more fuel used to get the bananas to the end user). All that from one choice at a grocery store. Did you know that the average bite of food on the average plate in the United States of America traveled 1,500 miles from where it was produced?
Kurt Wilson