The State of Vermont is showing leadership in advance of this winter and any possible future fuel crisis.
Rutland Herald: Dubie’s declaration spurs action
Dubie is Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, who recently held a press conference to declare an emergency in advance of the winter heating season. Gov. James Douglas is also involved. Douglas created the Vermont Fuel and Food Partnership and established a Cabinet-level task force “to focus every effort and every resource Vermont can bring to bear to help manage the effects of higher energy costs on Vermont families.”
Dubie’s initial emergency declaration focused on three things: ensuring that Meals on Wheels and other services to seniors could continue with high gas and diesel costs, updating the emergency operations plan to address a wider range of fuel emergencies, and addressing public safety hazards from faulty installation of wood, electric and other heat sources that people are installing to reduce their oil use. Douglas’ Fuel and Food Partnership added food to the mix, which makes sense given that high prices for food make it hard to pay for fuel and vice versa…
In addition, gubernatorial candidate and Speaker of the House Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, announced an emergency home heating meeting of the Joint Fiscal Committee on June 26, inviting the administration to the table. The following Tuesday, House Republicans announced an initiative to help install pellet stoves and chunk wood stoves in low-income and middle-income houses, as well as encouraging start-up wood pellet manufacturing businesses in Vermont.
These are the kinds of steps we should be pushing our local governments to take right now, before things get worse.
Dave Cohen at ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas) writes that “The oil crisis is upon us. I hope to convince you that sharply curtailing our oil demand is the only and best way for Americans to negotiate the coming decade (2008-2018).” I agree with Cohen. We are wasting our time and brainpower talking about offshore drilling, ANWR, speculators, ethanol, hydrogen power, and bubbles. The only thing that will get us through is learning to live on less oil.
ASPO: The Prognosis for the United States
Cohen explains that the US must learn to live with roughly 300,000 barrels of oil less per day, each year for the next seven years. The US uses around 20,000,000 barrels a day now. We’ll have to do this under very difficult economic circumstances (the credit/financial crisis, the mortgage crisis, rising food prices). An economic collapse is very possible. That is one way to reduce demand drastically, but it would leave many Americans worse off than we were during the Great Depression.
Cohen describes three possible scenarios based on how quickly Americans respond to the crisis.
There are plenty of ways we can cut our energy use. Not all businesses can offer telecommuting to their employees, but there are other ways to save. A business can go to a four-day work week, staggering days in the office so it can remain open for the full five weekdays and having employees work 10-hour days. That would cut the weekly commute for every employee by 20%.
Your homework assignment is to come up with more ways to reduce oil consumption by at least 20%.