Gas Consumption--Darn, So Close!

I've gotten a kick from seeing how little gas I can put in my car--as I noted when I looked at my credit card summaries for 2008:

...the coolest thing I figured out: I spent more money on good booze than on gasoline this past year. Yeah. I'm happy on both counts. (i.e., I'd rather give my money to Scotch distillers, Guinness and local breweries than Exxon-Mobil and the House of Saud).

I was really hoping to managed to get through Q1 2009 without putting gas in my car... but I had to fill it up this past Thursday. Grr! Only 5 days away from one tank of gas = Q1!


One funny thing though--when I pulled up to the pump, it had been long enough that I literally forgot which side of the car my filler is on. Had to put it in reverse and re-orient.

Yeah, I know you non-car-owning folks are a leg up on me. But January 2 through March 26 seems pretty good.

And for reference--booze purchases in Q1 2009 are currently an order of magnitude larger than gas purchases. Heh.

But back on the subject of Exxon-Mobil: I caught a PBS Frontline episode HEAT--on global climate change:

The world needs to dramatically cut the carbon emissions responsible for wreaking havoc on the planet's climate, according to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, whose organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize. "If we don't take action immediately, we face a crisis," Pachauri tells Smith. "Climate change is caused by human actions, and we need to do something about it. The sooner we realize that, the better."

With that sense of urgency in mind, Smith traveled to 12 countries on four continents to investigate whether major corporations and governments are up to the challenge. HEAT features in-depth interviews with top policy-makers and with leading executives from many of the largest carbon emitters from around the world, including Chinese coal companies, Indian SUV makers and American oil giants. The report paints an ominous portrait. Despite increasing talk about "going green," across the planet, environmental concerns are still taking a back seat to shorter-term economic interests.

The whole episode is available for online viewing. Particularly painful/irritating portions were the interviews with the big oil representatives and GM's VP for environment, energy and safety policy (wow... that sounds like a thankless job). When oil companies were confronted with their funding for global-warming deniers and astroturf campaigns (which they have since stopped), they did handwavey backpedaling of, "... well, that was our best decision at the time... we have changed our opinion..." And it was amusing to see GM get confronted with the fact that they ran away from hybrids, and now they're getting their asses kicked by the Japanese. Man... I will be very happy if/when fate craps on them as much as their past actions warrant.

As a side note, I have kept a quote from a Paul Krugman column on how hard it will be to create a clean power grid in this country (interviewing Prof. Nate Lewis of Caltech):

“So building an emissions-free energy infrastructure is not like sending a man to the moon,” Lewis went on. “With the moon shot, money was no object — and all we had to do was get there. But today, we already have cheap energy from coal, gas and oil. So getting people to pay more to shift to clean fuels is like trying to get funding for NASA to build a spaceship to the moon — when Southwest Airlines already flies there and gives away free peanuts! I already have a cheap ride to the moon, and a ride is a ride. For most people, electricity is electricity, no matter how it is generated.”

Anyway... off to bike to Framingham to visit A & Guy! Looks like a beautiful day for it!