the return of the gas guzzlers and more waste

Unfortunately, gas prices have dipped considerably in the past few months. That has people "changing" their driving habits again. Some psychologists and other luminaries, who probably never heard of addiction before, had already been wondering if Americans had truly changed their minds on driving. Give me a break ! There is no way people could change these habits even if they wanted to. They are addicts. 

All summer long they were like smokers sitting through a long flight, eager to light up as soon as they got off the plane. Now that they are on safe ground again, they are fuming like the old smokestack.

Today we read that Ford has recalled 1,000 workers to build more F-150's next year. The F-150 is one of those gas-guzzling monster pickups that people had been craving but were forced to hold off on because of the $4 a gallon gas prices. Now Ford is convinced there is pent-up demand "from business users who need it for their jobs." Seriously, that is what they said. If you believe that you believe in Santa Claus too. It is the season after all.

F-150's are largely bought by people who don't need a truck but who have an intense desire to show off in public. People who are no doubt very insecure and have wet dreams about Rambo at night. I don't doubt that there are a few small businesses who legitimately need a truck but one look at the F-150 will tell you that this truck was not designed for that crowd. The F-150 is designed for the average commuter who wants to tell other commuters, look at me, I am powerful.

Needless to say this is another dumb decision. Gas prices are sure to go up again as soon as people start driving again. Now is not the time to load up on cars that will soon have to be abandoned because you hate the $100+ fill-up at the pump.

Unfortunately, our great politicians missed another chance to do something smart and to prevent future headaches. If the government is going to give money to Ford, they should at least tell them to stop making these types of vehicles.

Meanwhile, the bankers on Wall Street are going to pay $40 billion in bonuses, fees, pensions and other goodies to their "hard-working" executives. That is more than they will pay for all their other workers combined. And guess where they will get the money? Bail-out? BINGO. You said it!!

footprints

For a while now you have heard talk about your carbon footprint. Maybe the British oil company "beyond" petroleum told you about it. They did that so you would think they were the good guys and keep buying their gas. Besides, drug dealers can tell addicts anything they like about their drugs, it really does not matter. Addicts have what is called inelastic demand. They want their fix no matter what you tell them about the benefits or drawbacks of the product.

Despite all the talk about carbon footprints, and other awareness building efforts relating to global warming, nothing much has happened other than ever increasing carbon shoe sizes. It has gotten to the point where most people are starting to feel numb, and many Republicans are already past that stage and full tilt into mockery as evidenced by their "drill baby" chants at the convention. Can you imagine the passengers of the Titanic singing, "sink baby, sink?"

Unfortunately, carbon footprints aren't the only trouble awaiting us. There is what the Global Footprint Network calls the ecological footprint. How big are our overall resource requirements? And the water footprint, how much water do we need per capita to live our lifestyles?

Needless to say that when it comes to footprints, North America, and especially the US are on top of the list. But the rest of the so-called Western World isn't far behind. China and India are also big players but mostly because they have so many people. 

Our current footprint exceeds what is available on the planet by nearly threefold. What that means is that if we just wanted to bring everybody up to our current level, we would need three planets to do it. Maybe all those people wanting to save the third world should think about that?

Our water footprint is similarly out of whack. Not only do we insist on pouring good water down our toilets everyday -so we can have toilets inside the house and won't have to freeze or be inconvenienced in the middle of the night. We also waste it on growing beef, cotton, and our other favorite drug, sugar.

In short, if we want to keep living happily ever after, we in the West will have to change our lifestyles quite a bit, and in the very near future too. Because most indices predict disastrous crashes before mid-century.

If you think this cannot possibly happen, just remember what they used to say about housing prices. Plain old common sense will tell you that nothing, absolutely nothing can keep going up forever. Think about that before you turn on your TV and drink the kool-aid.

numbers that matter

Forget about can-do spirit, yankee ingenuity, free markets, democracy, and other reasons often invoked to explain economic prosperity. Take a look at the real data. When Europeans arrived in North America, they found a continent that was virtually empty -it wasn't really but the diseases they imported quickly made that happen- full of goodies that the locals were unable to exploit.

North America was a continent where conditions were rather unfavorable for those living there, but very favorable for new intruders with more advanced technology. North America was by far the most favorable continent for exploitation. Africa, while closer to Europe, had too many nasty diseases and other competition, and even today Europeans have a hard time surviving in Africa. Australia, was simply too extreme and the landscape cannot support large numbers of people regardless of their technology.

Such geologic, ecologic, and other basic facts can explain most of the variability associated with a population's success or failure. This premise is not new, and Jared Diamond has based his best-selling novels, "Guns, germs, and steel," and "Collapse," on it. 

Population data can also be used on a smaller scale to explain otherwise curious events. The current economic downturn for example is mainly due to demographics. So was the preceding expansion and the series of bubbles that followed. But now things are changing. Here is some change you can believe in, my friends.

With an aging baby-boomer generation, and not enough young people to replace them, the economy of 21st century America is in for some serious downturns. The process has already started and it is very likely not going to end before 2025. There may be brief upswings, but overall the trend is down and down we go.

The baby-boomers grew up in good times. Their net worth is higher than that of their parents. They never experienced a serious downturn or a major war. Consequently, they did not save. With more money to spend, times were wild. Now those same baby-boomers are deeply in debt but they still have many years to live.

First they spent their cash, and then they borrowed more. All of it went into luxury goods, travel, McMansions, spas, V-8 cars, trucks, boats, jetskis, etc. Now those baby boomers are getting older. They can no longer afford their life-styles, either because they overspent or because their old age limits what they can do. There are excess oversized houses on the market and no buyers. The rush to monetize assets to cover debt is leading to a huge deflation of value. There are not enough young buyers and too many elderly owners.

It is a disaster that can be postponed, but ultimately the reckoning will come.

As for the current crisis, I stick to my prediction, made weeks ago, that the Dow won't hit bottom until we hit 7,000 or less. Despite a recent drop in gold prices, I still think gold is the best way to go to weather the upcoming storm.

follow the money and other tales

Those looking for change may be in for a surprise. If Barack Obama wins, which now seems all but certain, his successful fundraising may come to haunt his presidency. According to the latest numbers, Obama has raised well over $650 million and that is more than any other presidential candidate ever. And no, these are not the little $25 contributions coming in over the internet, as the party would want you to believe.

Fully three-quarters of Obama's fundraising is big money donations. Big, big money. The type of big money that is looking for favors. And who is there you may ask? How about those investment bankers in need of a government bailout and in fear of more regulation? Some of the people who got Wall Street into trouble may be advising McCain, but the people running those banks, the "greedy Wall Street bankers" are the ones filling Obama's coffers. Those same bankers were more than a little bit ticked off at McCain's language of late.

The GOP depends on two constituencies that have little in common: the fundamentalist christians, and the superrich elite. The elite provides the money, while the christians make up the bodies. McCain may be a maverick but he should know better than antagonize the money men. Sarah maybe delivering the christians but without the money it won't matter much. Those money men have already run over to the other side. They weren't too thrilled with all the talk about "cleaning out Wall Street."

What that also means is that Obama may soon do a Bill Clinton on that tax break for the middle class that will be funded by milking the superrich. We have heard all these promises before. All that talk about change is nothing new. The only thing that ever changes is the "face" in the White House. As I have indicated before, that face is just a face. An actor or puppet, beholden to the puppeteers who hold the money strings. It appears this will soon be more true than ever. $$$

sarah palin fan club

I've been thinking about starting a Sarah Palin fan club. Face it, Sarah is a star. Even those who don't like her have to admit that the Veep candidate has star power. Real star power. Her performance on SNL was a smash hit. Her rallies attract as much, if not more enthusiasm than the famous professor Obama. Never mind the dull Biden, or our hero McCain. They all pale in contrast to pale-in.

I think some people don't like Sarah because they are afraid of her success. But take a look at main street. How many politicians have a hairdo and glasses that have become a fashion in its own right? And how many have her lively personality? Sarah is a champion of the right without having to be Ann Coulterish. She is warm and charming. Well-liked. Not spewing venom -or if she is, she does it in such a nice way you don't even feel it.

No, I don't agree with everything Sarah Palin says. Actually I disagree with almost everything she promotes or believes in. But boy, what a trip she is. We haven't had this much fun in politics since.., well since.. I don't know when (maybe Arnold?)

carbon tax

With the upcoming presidential elections, some are worried, while  others think it is about time we should have a carbon tax to fight global warming. But what is a carbon tax other than higher gas prices? And we all know how well that went. Everybody is already rejoicing the fall in gas prices. As soon as gas hit a paltry $4 a gallon, Americans were crying foul.

I have said it many times. If we had just one politician worth his or her salt, they would be calling for $5 a gallon gas minimum. $10 would be much better. That is the best way to discourage wasting oil and gas. It is also the only way that works to reduce greenhouse gases. This past summer, driving was off almost 10%, airlines were cutting back flights, and conservation was on everyone's mind. Our greenhouse gas emissions showed a decline for the first time in 30 years.

Where are our politicians when you need them? At least McCain is open about it and has no trouble admitting he isn't serious. There is something to be said for honesty, even if it is honesty to pander to popular demand.

McCain wants to drill his way out of the "problem." Never mind that it won't work to reduce gas prices or to remove our dependence on foreign oil. What it does, is admit that we do not care more about greenhouse gases and global warming other than saying we do. If we did we would realize that high gas prices are the solution not the problem. If he did, Al Gore would move out of his 35 room mansion and go live in a sensible house.

Obama, the professor and self-proclaimed conservationist, just wants to increase fuel efficiency. We all know -or should know- how that works. It doesn't. Fuel efficiency has made enormous strides over the past 25-30 years, yet we keep on consuming more gas. Fuel efficiency just encourages people to drive bigger cars and drive more. It encourages car makers to load up cars like stuffed McMansions on wheels.

The "other" Obama remedy is technology of course. Green technology. Technology that will help us use more energy and produce less waste and pollution. Never mind the physics, my friends. If you demand it, the great Obama will show his magic and lead the way to greenhouse utopia.

By the way, it is shameful that candidates have now raised almost $1 billion to pay for their election campaign, while decrying the waste and greed on Wall Street. It is more than the bail-out package for big banks.

Yes, Mrs. Obama and McCain, have jointly received about $1 billion in support, about $700 million and $300 million respectively. Wait until all those donors come to the White House to ask for favors. See what will be left then to do the right thing. Why worry about democracy in the Middle East? How about America, folks?

five billion dollar sugar water

Coca-cola, riding on the image of America and the sugar in its bottled water reported better-than expected profits Wednesday. For the third quarter Coke's net was nearly $2 billion. The company has net income in well in excess of five billion dollars for the twelve months that just ended. All of that for sweetened bottled water, juice mixtures, and some, mostly citrus, fruit juices.

Ironically enough, despite promoting the image of American cool, Coke's revenues largely come from abroad. Coca Cola, for all its Americana is by and large a foreign company. Unlike its competitor PepsiCo Inc., whose profit is 70% US based, 81% of Coke's profit comes from outside North America.

Over the last four decades, Coca Cola has roamed the globe and largely displaced traditional local and healthier drinks in favor of its highly sweetened caramel bubbly and the image of success. On the home front, Coke is losing ground against its rival PepsiCo.

No wonder the world is getting fatter. So much for the image of success.

wall street platitudes

Here is some news for those of you who have been asleep the last two weeks: "Government investments in financial institutions could crimp executive pay on Wall Street, at least for a while,...." so far so good, but now get this, "and hinder firms' ability to attract and retain top talent."

We have gotten so used to this little add-on that most of you probably read right past it. It is the ubiquitous capitalist mantra, we need to pay people more to attract and retain top talent. It is considered so self-evident that nobody even pauses and wonders about it. The events of the past eight years however tell a distinctly different story.

For a long time Wall Street has been paying exorbitant amounts of money to its executives. Certainly over the past eight years, we have seen executive compensation skyrocket. Ergo, we can expect that Wall Street did this to attract and retain top talent. And given how much time has passed we can only assume that they were indeed led by top talent.

Would someone explain to me how this top talent, so amply rewarded, was able to mess up the world's financial system so quickly and so thoroughly?

It is obvious these guys were good at something. One has to be very good to make such a profound mess of things in such a short time.

The correlation between very high pay and talent is rather poor. Very high pay is mostly correlated with greed and ego, two rather undesirable characteristics, that have very little to do with talent. I can assure you that overpaid individuals are never as good as those paid a fair wage. Just as ultimate power ultimately corrupts, so ultimate greed clouds judgement and impairs performance. 

Executives drunk with compensation, perks, and other rewards, behave no better than addicts looking for an even higher high. Eventually they OD. All of Wall Street OD'd and now we are paying the price for it. 

Whatever top talent these executives may have had to get them there, their present situation is not conducive to productivity or performance, even at a marginal level. Much as Mr. Paulson would like to see it the other way, the data cannot be ignored.

it isn't over

You probably already knew that. Or you've come to expect "pessimistic views" from this blog. Let me assure you though that I am not a pessimist. I am very optimistic by nature and I really do enjoy life. I find it a pity and a shame that many are so destructive towards our habitat and so inconsiderate with precious resources. Others mean well but they are so spoiled they don't even see how much pollution and trash they generate.

America would do well if everyone cut everything in half. Half the size house, half the size car, half the miles driven, and in a lot of cases, half the body weight. You may find such a view frightening and horrible, but believe me, people would be better off and they would feel better too. They would be healthier and happier.

As for the economy. Don't let wishful thinking cloud your judgement. It isn't over yet. It will get (much) worse before it gets better. But that is only from the perspective of the current Western economy, where good means wasteful over-consumption. From an "environmental" perspective, things maybe getting a bit better. If people spend less, buy less, and drive less that may go a long way towards preserving our livelihood for generations to come.

Also, congratulations to Paul Krugman for his Nobel Prize. I always enjoy reading Paul's column in the New York Times. I know it has nothing to do with his Nobel-winning work, but it is a well written column that is a joy to read. No, I don't always agree with Paul but his viewpoints are always worth considering. He has been an outspoken critic of the current administration, but then again, who isn't? With an approval rating in the low 20s, not many people agree with George W. and his administration.

The war was a really dumb idea. Unfortunately, those driving SUVs, those calling for offshore drilling, and those crying foul for $4 gas, implicitly support the war. They are either ignorant or hypocritical if they don't want to live up to it. If you are really against the war, write your representative asking for a $5 a gallon minimum price. I did.

you be the judge

We read in today's WSJ Opinion columns that the panic of 2008 is a crisis of trust. Nobody trusts anybody else anymore and so the financial system "froze." So far so good. I think everybody more or less agrees with that viewpoint.

Then Mr. Crovitz, the article's author goes on to make a few other, rather remarkable statements. One he asks, "How did the smartest people at the best banks running the most sophisticated financial models fail to forecast the collapse of mortgage-related securities?" Well, to be quite honest, it beats me. For more than two years now it has been painfully obvious to me, not working at any bank and not using any "sophisticated" models that housing was going to collapse. And that was not just an idea among many others. All you had to do was look around you. Bay Area housing prices in Modesto?

One can only conclude that the most sophisticated models were not all that sophisticated. Maybe Mr. Crovitz realized that and the large cap insert shows the "Value at Risk Formula, complex as it is," that is surely meant to impress us with mathematical sophistication. Unfortunately long formulas like that do not impress me. For one, they often indicate a complicated data-fitting model that is by definition only as good as the data it is meant to fit. Great equations, such as e=mc2 are simple. Understanding is by definition simple. If you can't express it simply, you probably don't understand it.

Second, the "smartest people" are often those with little sense of reality. They hail from a distant orbit. Witness the fact that many don't know how to tie their shoe-laces or button their shirts. Such smarts may play well at the large hadron collider but they tend to underwhelm when it comes to day-to-day living. Once again we are not impressed. And as for the best banks, we will leave that one as a home work assignment.

There is more however. Mr. Crovitz thinks we need to examine the failures because, "modern finance has delivered enormous benefits." What those are, apart from millions of dollars in the pockets of the perpetrators is not quite clear to me. 

Once again, Mr. Crovitz must sense there is something wrong because he goes on to list the enormous benefits of modern finance. For example, it goes "from explaining to investors why they should diversify their investments," to "the creation of mutual and index funds."

Maybe you want to read that again. The "enormous benefits" of modern finance are, 1. don't put all your eggs in one basket (I thought this was a old idea, but you learn something new everyday), and 2. the mutual and index funds.

That is not all. "Related innovations helped financial institutions speed capital to its best use, fund new businesses and accelerate global prosperity."

All hail "modern finance" and the "smartest people at the best banks" for bringing us these wonderful gifts. Let's not forget to thank Mr. Crovitz for highlighting these gems too.

rain barrels

To my surprise I learned last night that the city of San Francisco is encouraging residents to buy rain barrels. We started our rain barrel "experiment" more than a year ago and it has saved us plenty. Our neighbors have been skeptical and many thought we were losing it, calling us modern day luddites. Fortunately there is no home owners association to stop us from doing the right thing. Rain barrels are not only the right thing to do, they are the smart thing to do.

Even in California, where a long dry summer is the rule, rain barrels can be put to good use. They fill very quickly during our regular rain storms and can provide us with all the water we need for at least six months out of the year. We use the water for everything except drinking. That has reduced our consumption of municipal water to below 50 gallons per day for a family of four. Using the water to drink is possible but it takes a rather expensive setup and constant monitoring. That, I believe is asking a lot and we are nowhere near needing to go there.

Apart from saving water, which is scarce today and projected to grow even scarcer over the next decade, rain barrels can also help with mud slides and overflowing storm drains. Much of the water in urban and suburban areas falls on roofs. Much of it falls within a very short period of time as California storms tend to be very intense. All of that translates in to torrential flows that can cause a lot of damage. Ironically enough residents here seem to believe that damage is inevitable and part of the deal. It shouldn't be.

Storm drains are a major expense for cities and tax payers. Much of your local tax money goes towards storm drains. Building them, maintaining them, and cleaning them. Every year many city crew work weeks go into cleaning drains that easily clog with dirt, dust, leaves, and debris.

If citizens did nothing but capture the water from their roofs during a storm and then release it slowly (and preferably over their vegetation) we could save tens of thousands of dollars in storm drain maintenance. We could prevent many of the feared mud slides that destroy homes and that nobody can insure against. We could prevent flooding that causes further havoc and destruction.

All of that can be done by simply cutting your downspouts and directing the flow into 55-65 gallon drums. A screen cover takes care of mosquito breeding. If you have a big roof, you may need a few drums in series, as one minor storm will easily fill all those drums in less than one hour.

The more uses you can find for the water the better. Easiest is to irrigate the yard (or your lawn). Next comes toilet flushing, which is a major environmental disaster and very easy to fix. However, people may not like the idea of doing so with buckets. It is trivial to install a small alternate flow head that fills the tank automatically, but it takes some expense and creativity. You need to build a parallel system that can use rain water and regular water. Also very easy is to fill the washing machine with a bucket (esp. top loaders that wastes water galore).

Rain water is very clean. It does not contain harmful chemicals and it is quite soft too. Once the roof is "washed clean" after the first storm of the season, the remaining water is some of the highest quality water you can get (if used immediately). If you plan to store water for more than a few days, you will need to take precautions to prevent bacterial growth. But that only matters if you plan to drink the water. For all other uses, only mosquito abatement is a concern. That is handled with a screen cover. If in doubt,  you can add some special mosquito tablets from the hardware store.

Time to get your rain barrels America.

dow 7000?

Mr. Smith, a professor of economics and a Nobel Laureate wrote an editorial in today's WSJ. It is entitled, "There's no easy way out of the bubble." Mr. Smith tries to clarify how we get into bubbles, and why it is so hard to get out of them. Like a true academic he references a paper he wrote in 1987 that showed through simulation how boom and bust cycles are inevitable. I wonder how many readers will go back to that November 17 issue of the WSJ to read up on bubbles. You never know.

Boom and bust cycles are an example of overshoots. People try to optimize their returns and in doing so they inevitably overshoot. As more people enter the market prices go up, attracting even more buying. Eventually we run out of headroom, but people are still buying. By the time these people realize what is happening, the situation is badly out of control.

Then suddenly, a few leave and everyone follows at once driven by ever increasing fear. The fear makes matters worse and leads to a severe and prolonged drop. Overshoots are at least partly due to lags, these inevitable time delays that are part and parcel of everything we do.

I have described these phenomena before in the context of pollution and greenhouse gases. The same mechanisms are at work there, and people will reproduce, waste resources, and pollute until their whole habitat collapses. Like the housing bubble, that will happen when enthusiasm and optimism are at their highest. Things will look up and people will tell one another how they will always keep getting better. And then one day, the "buyers" will disappear.

These societal collapses too, it seems, are inevitable, and there is plenty of evidence around to illustrate that point. Angkor Wat, Easter Island, the Maya, you name it. All these civilizations went into a big bubble and then collapsed. Only here, it wasn't the collapse of some real estate and paper, it was paid for in blood. It wasn't the equivalent of the Dow collapsing, it was the actual population.

Will people learn? I doubt it. The only thing we see over and over again, is always expanding bubbles that do ever more damage. The same applies to the environment. Now we are or very close to on a planet-wide scale. When that bubble collapses, it will be a disaster of unheard of proportions. We may not even survive as a species.

But why worry? Let's get back to the "real stuff" and worry about our 401k's. With the Dow heading for 7,000, there will be plenty to worry about for most of us.

no great depression (yet)

The financial news is split these days. On the one hand there are the headlines and front page stories telling us how bad it is and how we need to do something. On the other hand, there are the editorials and reviews reassuring us that this is not the Great Depression revisited.

To give credit where credit is due, the optimists and reviewers have more data to support their cause. But just how good is that data? We are told that during the Great Depression, unemployment stood at 25% and thousands of banks failed. In the Spring of 1929, 300 banks failed. That was almost six months before the stock market crash. In 1930, a thousand banks closed. By 1932, the Dow had lost 90% from its peak in 1929. Surely we are nowhere near these numbers.

That was at a time with no unemployment compensation, no FDIC to ensure deposits, and no stiff drinks to soften the blows. Nobody would even acknowledge that there was a problem and according to the WSJ, Herbert Hoover insisted that the "fundamental business of the country.. is on a sound and prosperous basis." Where have I heard that recently?

Surely, we must have learned something from the Great Depression? And according to Richard Quest of CNN London, we did. We did and we can rest assured that we won't make the same mistakes again. "We'll just make different mistakes," he quipped last night when the Japanese market tanked.

Let me go on record now. Our problems are much worse than they seem. The housing crisis is in full swing. One in six Californians is "under water" with their mortgage. At the time when most of the option ARMs are still in their five year honeymoon phase, where you can pay as much as you please. Well before the real crash so to speak.

Every day the headlines correct earlier estimates, and label them "too rosy." Everyday new revelations are made and all are bad to very bad. Unemployment may only be at 7% but you have to go past 7 to get to 25. If we learned anything in recent weeks, it is how incredibly fast we can move from seemingly innocuous difficulties to outright collapses.

The constant flow of information we are exposed to is not helping either. It is undermining our confidence. Many are already suffering from information overload paralysis. A lack of confidence is the key enemy of the American economy. That economy rests on consumer spending. In other words, it is unsustainable. But I would much prefer if it wound down gently instead of failing catastrophically as now seems more likely.

If half the population can no longer afford to spend money, and the other half prefers not to because they don't feel confident, then we are on a very slippery slope indeed.

I've said it before, time to buy gold. Cash is just paper, and when confidence is lost paper has no residual value.

retirement advice from the experts

I could not help but notice that three "eminent" financial institutions sent me invitations to retirement planning and wealth management seminars last week. I have received many such invitations before, and they come in a variety of "packaging."

Some are mere cardboard flyers sent out to everyone and their brother as part of our daily dose of junk mail. Others are printed on fine stationary and seated in thick padded envelopes. Some even include handwritten sections. All are there to let me know about seminars that will teach me how to manage my (non-existent) wealth or to plan my (still-far-off) retirement.

Isn't it somewhat ironic that the very people who are either teetering on the edge of bankruptcy or who have already gone over, are proposing to show me how to manage my money? The very same people who are now screaming for a government bail-out. Presumably, their track record speaks for themselves? It speaks louder to me than their gilded names, exquisite logos, copperplate, and stylized images that are supposed to evoke a sense of security, stability, and wisdom.

Here are a posy of "experts," certified with MBA's from the finest business schools in the country, who could not even manage to keep a financial firm going. An entity with no real operations, no equipment or hardware to take care of, no elaborate labor contracts, no complex logistics. A firm where people bring money in the back and you lend it out to someone else in front, reaping fees, commissions, interest, and other benefits for simply moving funds around.

Not only do the fat cats on Wall Street need my tax money to survive in their moment of need, they have simply have no shame. They have the audacity to want to teach something they obviously do not understand. Which goes to show you that their one and only skill and the source of their riches, is deception pure and simple.

reducing greenhouse gases

A statistical report by McKinsey & Co has confirmed what I have been saying on this blog all along: we the American people are the key to a reduction in greenhouse gases. Not big business, not the government, not the Chinese or the Indians, but we, meaning you and I. 

It is not the government and so the election won't matter one bit here. Neither Obama nor McCain, nor anyone else for that matter will solve this crisis. Only you and I. We will need to learn to get by with LESS. We need to consume less, we need to spend less, we need to buy less, we need to drive less. We need to fly less.

Passenger cars are responsible for 17% of all greenhouse gas emissions. More than half of that is a complete and utter waste of resources. People drive too much, too often and in cars that are too heavy and too big for their needs. Most people would do just fine driving a small four cylinder car and cutting their driving in half. There is no reason for the monster trucks -some are called SUV's because it sounds better- that Americans like to drive. No use for off-road capabilities, or towing capacity, or the hundreds of electrical gadgets that are packed into those cars.

Two percent is in airline travel. Once again, most of that could easily be avoided. Few of us really need to fly across the country all the time. 

Residential buildings and appliances are responsible for another 17%. Here again, waste is everywhere. Homes are way too big, too far away from everything, most are free-standing, and nearly all are constantly either heated or cooled ten or more degrees away from the ambient temperature. These homes are packed to the gills with stuff, most of it useless filler, and much of it energy dependent and plugged-in 24/7. 

You don't need to replace your light bulbs. You need to turn them off. You don't need a more efficient dryer. You need to hang your laundry outside.

Another 28% is under our indirect control. It includes such items as sea transportation, agriculture livestock, landfill emissions, commercial vehicles, and commercial buildings and appliances. 

Summing it all up, 64% of all greenhouse gas emissions are under our control. That is nearly 2/3's of all greenhouse gas emissions.

And here are some more interesting numbers:

We Americans make up 5% of the world's population but we burn 23% of the world's oil. We directly or indirectly control 64% of our greenhouse gas production, whereas the rest of the world only averages about 43%. That difference illustrates how wasteful we really are. Not only do we use more per capita, more of our uses are related to our personal "comfort" (read gross waste) than in other countries.

Face it, we are fat and filthy.