This era in history may be remembered as the "Peak Age", a brief time when nearly all materials used to power and create our society reach the maximum extraction and production potential. Past this point, all of these resources become increasingly difficult to extract until they are no longer economically viable resources to be using. There are hundreds of examples of resources, currently embedded in our industrial society, which have reached their peak in the 50 years surrounding 2010, but the one which will most impact our society is petroleum.
The goal of living for 100 days without oil is to understand the extent of our dependance on oil in American society today. Specifically, how it will affect my life, as a 25 year-oil living in Minneapolis, MN. By using myself as a metric I can take a close and conscious look at where oil dependance occurs in all aspects of our daily lives : How we transport ourselves from one place to another, what we eat, how much waste we create, how water is cleaned and transported, where oil is used as; an energy resource, in conventional medicine and for hygiene and how oil affects how we entertain ourselves and communicate with others. By demonstrating how someone would be forced to live without using any oil resources, outlining both what the sacrifices will be as well as the benefits, we can can identify the many systems which will have to be re-designed in a world without cheap oil, and explore a new way of living in which we live in an energy balance.
(At the bottom of this page is a link to my version of a flow diagram of 'Where Petroleum Exists in Our Daily Lives' (using information from the Energy Information Administration-Annual Energy Review 2008 fig 5.0 Petroleum flow) click and zoom to enlarge)
Monday, August 30, 2010
DAY 13_TOO BUSY TO EAT
With a big deadline and no food prepared already didn't have time to spend even 20 min making breakfast this morning. Definitely a day I would have grabbed a pop tart and a coffee and ran out the door :) I need to start making a schedule of what I plan on eating every day and pre-make foods. EVERYTHING just takes so much longer, but if I had things somewhat pre-made already it would go much faster. This goes for more than just food: laundry takes time, getting water and carrying to where I need it takes time, biking around doing errands takes time...I need some structure, something like this:
SUNDAY-grocery shopping for week's worth of food (veggies at farmer's market-only buy what you can eat! and freeze anything that is almost out of season (milk and grains at co-op)
MONDAY-make bread for the week (pizza dough, or bread for spreads), cut fruit (melons)
TUESDAY-make sauces (spreads for bread, pesto, tomato sauce etc), hard boil eggs
WEDNESDAY - farmer's market again, run any errands (not as many to do when you can't buy anything)
THURSDAY - work on vegetable garden, plant new seeds, transplant seedlings
FRIDAY - make products (cleaners, lotions, deodorant)
SATURDAY - laundry day week (hand washed with surplus water from previous 6 days, about 45 min)
When I really think of how much there is to do it is overwhelming, breaking it down into doing one thing each day might help. I'll see how this works.