I bought a new toothbrush with disposable heads - it's a cheap as a normal toothbrush but without the wasted plastic throwing away the handle every time. The fibres are natural too!



A lot more people using these nowadays. Lots of slim people here in Bristol! meanwhile the debate over road charging continues.



This was a great sighting! Our postman has given up on his van to ride this bicycle to work!

Richard Heinberg's post last week was scary. It made me realise that our problems are going to be far less immediate and 'hollywood' style collapse. Not being able to drive isn't going to kill us. But not being able to eat will. There's a lot of mouths to feed in the world right now. It scares me to think that our world will die not in some massive crisis over a few weeks but in a long, drawn out starvation.

The efforts in Cuba since their petroleum based fertilisers ran out to change their country to a small-farm based one makes me optimistic but we're going to have to overcome all the greedy corporations running the massive industrial farms if we're to get there. a lot more of us will have to become farmers, and live more simply. But will that not cure some of the problems of our lives before? People were stressed working in high-stress low-reward meaningless jobs, sitting in an office pushing paper all day, seeing no evidence of what they were working for. Almost all of the profits went to the select few at the top whilst those at the bottom had little freedom or autonomy, simply cogs in the machine! Maybe if we go back to the land, we'll remember what it's like to live slow. I can't help but feel a strong appeal. I'm definitely going to learn how to grow things in the new practical lectures at school.

I made a prize for someone today! I made a mix tape based on the crisis. It's a lot of angry protest songs mixed with a few on a more hopeful note. The song list is in the cut below:

( WWO mixtape )

Now, you could always make one with the same songs - but where's the community in that? I'll post someone a copy if they can complete my challenge!

The Challenge: to call up, email or write to your representative in congress, senate, state senate, parliament, council, whatever. Ask them what they think about peak oil and what your government is doing about it. Obviously calling/email is preferable because it'll hopefully get a response before the wwo project finishes. The first person to post a response gets the cd! (if there are more than one good responses, I might be tempted to burn a few more!) Either put your representative's response in one of the miawithoutoil posts, or email it to me at darrkespur@gmail.com. Feel free to post it as a contribution to wwo too!


-Mia

[Author's Note - week 24. The road congestion is from yesterday's news. I think it's a great plan, as long as they siphon the money into public transport. In the UK we've run out of room for cars but the alternatives are expensive and badly managed. I think this kind of road charging scheme, combined with huge increases in spending on trains, buses and new trams, etc, is the only way to go in the end. If we do it quick enough, we may even start the trend away from the automobile before peak oil even occurs. Now the government is pushing this excellent legislation forward, we just need to overcome the stupid shortsighted opposition of many of the nation's motorists. There was one of the biggest political petitions ever when this bill was first announced. It makes me really angry. This could be a great thing for the Uk. If people took a step back and let their attachment to their vehicle go for a few seconds, they would see that this could only be a good thing for the country - we've seen a lot of positive things on wwo about people finding alternatives to the car. If we can do that without the upheaval of an oil crisis, so much the better. Part of me is hopeful, another pessimistic.

Incidentally, for anyone interested in US politics (and at this strange time in the world's history I feel that should include everybody), the most important witness in the US Attorney firing scandal, Monica Goodling, testifies in Congress today. With all the scanadla surrounding Gonzalez' Justice department, this could be a crucial moment. Goodling was the one that fired the 8 attorneys last year, which many people believe was done for political reasons, either because they weren't pursuing (mostly false) accusations of voter fraud against Democrats, or that they were pursuing (mostly true) accusations of criminality and corruption by Republicans.

The important part in terms of history is less that act and more the administration's response - to refuse to testify to congress. When Gonzalez took the stand he said 'I don't remember' to nearly 100 questions. Goodling has refused to give up documents detailing her actions, despite being granted immunity so that she could testify. There's a huge constitutional crisis brewing because a lot of these justic department officials are refusing the constitutional right of Congress and the Senate to perform oversight. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the reason Bush is so keen not to let Gonzalez go is because a non-partisan Attorney General might uncover a lot more illegal activity by the Administration.

I know it's not strictly wwo-related but I urge anyone to follow this story and pressurise your government if you're American. This could be as big if not bigger than the Watergate scandal. UPDATE: Here's a link to the transcription liveblog on Daily Kos following the hearing live.

PS: I loved the image the wwo site gave me yesterday - of an atom and its orbiting electrons. It was ironic because I wrote the post about an hour after my particle physics exam.]