A Depressing Thought
 

I like trying to get better MPG. I've been beating my brains out at it for nearly a decade.

America uses 5.5 billion barrels of fuel liquids (gasoline, diesel, Jet fuel) for transportation a year.

Say ecomodders/hypermilers are wildly successful and double the fleet mileage - all cars, trucks, trains, aircraft, and ships - and travel does not go up.

America is STILL using 2.75 billion barrels of refined product.

We're gonna need some more coroplast...

Or, just maybe, you could learn how to live from other countries. :-(Not this one)

Like every country in Europe.

Looking around the world, the most efficient modes of transportation seem to be school buses and bicycles. Coroplast is handy stuff but more available in the Third World is grass matting. I may try a bike fairing with it someday.

Starting to get the population thing now Dave? :thumbup:

Coroplast is plastic, made from oil so using that is not going to help.

And you have to remember a lot of that oil for transportation is not you driving to work or you driving for leisure, its trucks bringing you the 2K mile salad and supplying every supermarket via a 4 day supply chain.

And no, in Europe we are no better - perhaps even worse.

A few pounds of Coroplast can save many pounds of fuel, and it stays out of the air itself. The feedstock is actually natural gas, AFAIR.

To cut down on the use of oil buy local produce and meat. Less is used to transport it most likely has also had less fertilizer and insecticide used on it and it supports the local economy.

Compared to a vegetarian diet with good variety, eating meat will take five years off your lfe. Buying grain-fed meat ensures that someone else will starve that day. Ranching does increase the overall human food supply, but it is wiping out wilderness. Around here, we are fighting Coyotes for food, and wiping them out.
In traditional Chinese cooking, meat was a condiment, used to scavenge available carrion in an ecosystem that still included some wildlife. All domestic animals make excellent pets if you pay attention to them.

If we all eat algae, and use algae for fuel, and get that stand-up VW mobility system in place, we could pack a few more people per square inch in, and that would be wonderful. :p