Not so long ago I posted my annoyance with somewhat backwards, in my view, behavior regarding environment and health. As I was doing my news rounds today, I came across this piece on ways beyond the old changing light bulbs in order to reduce Green House Gas emissions:

Using a spring-driven clock instead of an electric prevents 48 grams (1.7 ounces) of carbon-dioxide emissions daily, while air-drying clothes saves 2.3 kilograms (5.1 pounds) daily, the Nairobi-based UN Environment Program said today in an e-mailed statement. Jogging in the park rather than on a treadmill at a gym can cut 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide, or CO2, the main pollutant blamed for global warming.

If full-scale greenhouse gas pricing went into effect, gyms might find themselves not quite so popular or profitable anymore. That 1 kg is presumably for one person’s daily workout, so imagine the cost of a steady stream of customers on rows of exercise machines, not to mention the cooling and lighting costs of exercising indoors vs. outdoors. I understand that the gym can seem more convenient and that some climates aren’t exactly hospitable to outdoor exercise year round (mine’s a good example, but I make do), but humanity needs to learn to be in line with the natural environment instead of being completely inconsiderate of it (increasingly to our own detriment).

And on the constrained energy and surging prices front, The Christian Science Monitor describes how prices for all sorts of goods are set to go up by leaps and bounds because companies can no longer afford to absorb the increasing price of oil (for energy and as an ingredient in products and/or packaging).

And on a personal note, I’ve been reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven and although it helps pass the time, it also presents a very depressing and somewhat terrifyingly accurate portrait of the problems we’re currently looking at, especially for a book done in 1971. When I read the above linked CSM article, especially the sections on road repair and asphalt, I couldn’t help but wonder how long it will be before governments look at ways to avoid repairing the roads at all if no substitute is found, or if it will even matter so much the shape of the roads with fewer people all the time able to afford driving on them. It’s always important to keep in mind how ever-present petroleum is in everything and in every stage in production for the world’s economy. With it becoming more and more expensive as demand exceeds supply, society will quickly gain an education in everything that requires oil in its production and transportation and to what extent as prices shoot up.