SUE'S VIEWS: Running on Empty

Posted @ May. 15 2008 02:56PM by Perry - viewpoints

By Sue Piper

I had a college classmate named Dave Schreffler who was one of the rare students on campus with a car. He let my roommate and me use his Volkswagen Bug one day. Handing us the keys, Dave said his car got about 28 miles per gallon and the fuel gauge was on empty.

Being on shoestring budgets, we put in a precise amount of gas, calculating how far that would take us, and kept our eyes on the odometer as we criss-crossed Seattle, scouring junk shops in search of the perfect wooden trunk to decorate our dorm room.

We were surprised when we ran out of gas, because we thought we were good at math. However, the car evidently didn’t get quite the mpg we expected. We bought a couple more gallons and ran out yet a second time later in the day. We learned there are variables in fuel efficiency. And a car can run on fumes, but only for so long.

Running out of gas – twice in the same day, mind you – may have a certain charm if you’re a college student. My dad apparently thought so, because he often re-told the tale to family friends over the years. But running out of gas is very inconvenient. As a nation, we need to take steps to delay the inevitable and give our scientists and engineers maximum time to figure out energy alternatives.

Meanwhile, with the cost of gas skyrocketing, people are re-thinking how they drive. This $4-per-gallon (and rising) gas price situation is complex and I don’t pretend to understand it. But if there’s a limited oil supply and increasing worldwide demand for it, the obvious thing ordinary Americans can do is start using less.

Even those who can afford to pay escalating prices or who don’t think they are really that high should conserve. There’s more involved than just the individual’s pocketbook, although everybody I know is certainly feeling it there.

Conservation is also about good citizenship. About not mindlessly consuming and wasting the possibly-dwindling supply of this resource we have grown, in a rather cavalier way, so dependent upon. Are we spoiled? Oblivious? Ignorant? In any case, more and more of us are considering the cost before just hopping in the car and driving off, as we long ago got into the habit of doing.

After visiting my friend Victoria Findlay (owner of Bob the Dog) last month, we had breakfast together in downtown Corvallis on my way out of town and her way to work. As we finished our pancakes, Victoria realized she’d forgotten the banana and apple she meant to bring from home for lunch that day. She started to head back home to get them, until we stopped and calculated the cost. The round trip would take a few minutes and burn about $1.00 worth of gas, we figured, which was about what the fruit itself cost. Being a wise woman, Victoria decided to just stop at the grocery co-op near her office and buy “replacement fruit” and save the “home fruit” to eat later.

The other evening, while working on the last-minute details to complete this issue for the printer, I asked Ned to get the Monticello Hotel’s music updates. He disappeared, returning a few minutes later looking wind-blown and rosy-cheeked. He had ridden his seldom-used, old bike instead of impulsively hopping in the car and driving down to the Hotel, something we calculated saved about one-eighth gallon, or 50¢ worth, of gas.

These are baby steps, of course, only a drop in the bucket – or barrel – but at least they are steps in the right direction. And collectively, efforts and thinking like this will surely help.
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Sue Piper is the Publisher/Editor of Columbia River Reader. Sue's Views is featured on page 3 of every issue.