STEP #2

Make Smart Transportation Choices

For better or worse, our society is dependent on motor vehicles. Most ofus depend on our vehicles for just about every out-of-home need and activity we undertake. As the exhaust from vehicles is rich with carbon monoxide, our trips to school, work, the grocery store and the beach all contribute to global warming. The good news is that there are fast-developing new alternatives for meeting our transportation needs without imperiling polar bears or jeopardizing our future with our insane oil addiction.

One 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, when refined, produces about 20 gallons of gasoline and 7 gallons of diesel, not to mention jet and military uses. In other words, more than half of every barrel of oil goes to fuel our cars and other forms of transportation. So we can really kick our oil habit quickly by realizing our biggest reduction in oil use starts with our cars, trucks, buses, trains and planes. Driving less also reduces global greenhouse gas emissions. As you probably know, many scientists have linked these emissions with global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps.

As if right on time, the auto industry is undergoing tumultuous times of change. General Motors and Chrysler asked Congress for just enough bridge cash to survive. Ford said the company could make it through the end of 2008, but wasn’t so sure about surviving through 2009. Toyota also experienced declining earnings in 2008.

Alternatively, auto manufacturers like Fisker, Tesla and Tati specializing in electric cars are creating new markets and emerging as global players.

The high price of fuel in 2008 also took its toll on the friendly skies of the airline industry. And even now, at the time of this writing, although fuel prices have dropped by more than half of what they were, people are not traveling as much and so airlines’ troubles persist. On the bright side, breakthroughs on the horizon—thanks to scientists and entrepreneurs such as Sir Richard Branson—involve jet fuel made from renewable sources like algae and agricultural waste.

Similarly, fuel costs for trucking were exorbitant throughout most of 2008, but when prices finally dropped, so did the demand to ship products. Again, though, good news offers hope: a newly recognized source of diesel fuel in the form of a non-edible salt-tolerant crop.

There’s no more of an economical way today to pull a huge load than by train, making it a wonderful form of “smart” transportation. General Electric is one company developing the next evolution of fuel-efficient train engines that may not even need the usual polluting fuels of the past.

And what about walking?

The nations with the healthiest people are also the most physically active!

It is up to people like us to make intelligent choices about transportation—which includes using our own two legs at times. Our transportation energy concepts are changing, making it possible to wean ourselves from fossil fuels like petroleum and coal much more quickly than anybody imagined.

Frankly, our transportation choices could move us toward energy independence faster than anything else we do!

So let’s be smart and get energy independent!