Fuel saving tips & musings

Here's an article at Ecobuddhism about how to save fuel, from a blog which seems promising.

Living in NYC is perhaps one of the best things you can do for the environment. More public transportation, housing doesn't leak heat because many live in buildings, and we don't spread out, destroying untouched land. Ironically, the best thing you can do for nature is to get out of it. I find that many people who "love" nature, love it to death by being in it. My "nature loving relatives" buy land and build a house where there was none before. Drive long distances for groceries.

I can't blame them. I want to live closer to the earth. I feel alienated from the nature that I love by living in the city. But the fact is, if you really love nature, you get out of it, and live in the city. That's the best thing you can do for the environment. Would I say that's a moral imperative, people need to move to the city? I think people have to do what they feel in their heart is right for them. If that means we're going to destroy the planet...

I guess I wonder if we have the foresight to head off the disaster. Does that mean I'm hopeless, and don't have faith in myself and the human race?

Pessimistic people are more often right, but they also don't lead as good as lives as optimist. So while in assessing and predicting, I think pretty dire. But I do hope that we can be more intelligent and more far sighted, with leaders who can think more about the future than getting re-elected. We do the best we can. We are puny, have little impact in this world, but there are some people that have a big impact, and who knows, maybe that's you (or me).

We are interconnected, so we do have power to change things. I don't think the battle is just inside us either, we need to take the battle outside ourselves and be engaged with the larger world. I recognize that that's not easy for me and be realistic. I want to be as kind to you as I am kind to myself. Attaching myself doesn't help, and I can easily use my carbon imprint to attack myself, my lack of control over myself. I can extrapolate that to others, their lack of control. I think we all have a little Eliot Spitzer in us all. While fighting corruption, he himself is corrupt.

That doesn't mean he didn't do some good, and it's good to fight corruption in government. I think the poverty of the 3rd world makes corruption inevitable, and makes it so hard to help out there.

So I try to be the change I look for in the world, and try to lead others along with me, try to give my children a sense of the importance of the larger systems of the earth, give them a larger view of things. I am empathetic to ecological causes, but I'm also realistic about myself and others. I have all the parts of what everyone else has, so I think about the larger picture and I am selfish and destroy our world. There is inevitable destruction, but we could be a little more judicious and think about the issue. My plea is to think about the issues and live more consciously. It will send us on a road to saving the planet, but we need to go further, and I'm trying, we're trying. I see it, so keep up the good work, and reach for more.