With the well from he11 over with what have we learn?

You had me at energy diet! I think we are used to living in a oil rich society. We are accustomed to asking for more and receiving more. We have build our society based on oil never leaving. Lets face it we are past peak oil and we need oil to create new technology. It would be wonderful if we has a planet could reduce our dependence on oil but have you started at home? That is where it starts. There are three simple principles outlined for use: reduce, reuse, recycle. They are in that order for a reason. First, and most effective is to reduce. Reduce the amount of resources we deplete from our future. Reuse what you do have to obtain. Don't through it on a dump to rot. Use the leftovers, again and again if you can. and finally, recycle. Send it out to be processed, which uses the most energy of all. We are a spoiled society, at best. Nothing lasts forever. I like your realist point of view~

I think we can do a lot of adjusting in our lives. Driving less, walking more, saying in more. Don't use so much plastic. Shopping less. I wonder how capable Americans are at accomplishing this. I know I can and have.

I, for one, can answer the question, "Is it worth it?" without a second of hesitation; absolutely, positively NOT. Unfortunately, as we both know, there are those who feel it's very much "worth it" and that those of us who care about our planet, our only home as you said, are some kind of "environmental wackos". If our departed friend kennyrose were still here she'd be telling you all about how it's the fault of the environmentalists that the disaster in the Gulf happened. We absolutely need to go on an energy diet and we CAN do it without destroying our way of life, despite what some will try to tell us. I've gone through the financial struggles the past few years so I've had to conserve out of necessity and I've gotten used to it and haven't gone back to my wasteful ways, although I was never particularly all that wasteful. There are safer energy sources and there are probably many we've never heard of yet but for some odd reason nobody in a position to do so has had enough incentive to try to find them. We've all got to realize we're all in this together. This is the only earth we have and we collectively have done a lot to destroy it for far too long. Now it's up to all of us to try to prevent more damage. Annie