Crafting with Kids

If you sometimes sit back in your chair and watch, with an element of incredulity, the violence that inevitably breaks out whenever climate related political summits occur, then you can see an element of the tension that is slowly but surely building up around the world. Now we are coming to understand how unsustainable our lives are. Nobody can justify this kind of violence, and it makes us think how these individuals can be so angry and driven, but then when we look at all the material that scientists now give us and realise that our crazy lifestyles really are alien to the sustainable future of our planet. Most of us realise that we now need to aggressively cut down on our energy use, both individually and collectively, and to take a major element of responsibility for what we do. Greenhouse gases are building up in our atmosphere due to our use of those traditional fossil fuels – gas, coal and oil, raising our Earth’s temperature and threatening considerable harm to future generations unless we act quickly.

Politicians are slow as usual and we cannot understand why they are not acting more quickly. It was frustrating to see very little of tangible use emerge from the recent summit in Copenhagen. As individuals, we all know that we can make a difference if we take action and really focus on how we use transportation on a daily basis. Public transportation is very underused and we tend to scoff at the idea of carpooling, riding a bicycle, or even walking! If environmental reasons are not enough to cause us to constrain our use, we should remember the events of 2008 when gasoline prices spiked considerably.

Our cars, trucks and buses are huge polluters of the environment and the automotive industry in the United States in particular is slow to shrug off the vestiges of an era when gas guzzlers were totally acceptable. It used to be okay to drive a car that was way too big, cumbersome and inefficient for our actual needs and as much as anything else, when gas was only 50 or 60 cents per gallon.

Now we know that biodiesel fuel represents a much more palatable option. The fuel is derived from agricultural products which are generally widely available. It is produced by mixing vegetable oil or leftover fats with methanol through separation. If you are suitably inclined, making biodiesel at home is a good option. Generally, homemade biodiesel, as B100, can be used in your diesel engine vehicle with no modification, although a majority of vehicles these days operate on a blend of biodiesel and conventional petrol diesel (B20, B40 and so on).

Bio diesel may be yet to catch on in popular opinion, but as we look at ways to cut back, think about hybrid vehicles and ways to live our lives in more sustainable fashion, more and more emphasis will be put on renewable energy forms. When this special fuel does eventually become widely available to people all around the world, we will have a much better chance at slowing the incredible rate of global ecological change.

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