IAP Political Forum

http://www.truthabouttoyota.com/

My response:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/algore2008/

Congratulations to Al Gore on winning the Nobel Peace prize!

http://freerice.com

Location, location, location.

Where do live and where do you work? These are questions those who wish to reduce their impact should ask.

Personally, I make a point to live and work in close enough places together where I can walk to work. Great for my health, and I'm in the perfect position to tell both tree hugging hippies and SUV driving yuppies to shove it. Gaze on my low carbon out-put and weep, biatches.

I live in a small - medium sized town, and am fortunate enough to be a able to walk everywhere. The office where I work is 2 blocks from my apartment, the campus where I take classes is a 5 - 10 minute walk away, and theres a grocery store 5 blocks away. There are a few good watering holes within a five minute walk, temptation to drive drunk is practically non existent. The best part, there's a trail-head to a major trail that allows one to hike hundreds of miles in either direction within a ten minute walk from my door. The old railroad grade is such easy walking that in the summer, you see mothers pushing strollers miles out from town in the afternoons. It's been almost a week since I last drove anywhere.

Life is good. If there is any one piece of advice I could give people, it's make yourself as auto-un-reliant as possible. I'm not saying you should shun vehicles, just that you're life will be more fun if you reduce your dependence on them.

I'm also a big fan (and I've seen you mention this before too Chovy) of telecommuting. I think it's a great idea on a number of levels. It's nice not burning up gas every day, much cheaper. The quality of the work experience is often very good for the employee and the employer. Some people can be quite productive in the comfort of their own home. If someone has kids, I think it's great for them to be home in the day, even if their kids know not to disturb them when they're working. It's very good for kids to see people working. It provides a positive role model.

I currently work from home 3 days a week. My commute is around 1:30 hours each way...I'm starting to take public transit though since they offered free wifi -- and I don't have to drive.

So, now you can actually get work done on your way to work?

That's pretty cool, no rest for the weary though.

I've had a few jobs where I had to travel over an hour each way. The time it sucks is when you don't have anyone to ride with you. The gas bill also starts to stack up. I had an hour and 15 minute (but variable depending on the job site) drive to work five days a week when Katrina hit. If you drive a long distance to work, you really feel it when gas prices jump.

I remember you posted an idea about telecommuting incentives (tax breaks) for businesses. It's a great idea, a win-win situation. I'm also a big fan of public transportation systems. Road construction is a paradox. Urban planners will wrestle with it, knowing that it's the way to free up congestion, but that new roads will attract more drivers. I think the psychological effects of spending 10+ hours a week driving to work are underestimated by some people too. I didn't realize how terrible it was on my nerves until I didn't have to deal with it anymore.

Another Ill post!  8)

How much of your low carb lyfestile do you attribute to chance; and how much do you choose?
Do you live in a place that's conducive to walking or riding? Or someplace like the cities of the Southeast or Midwest where it's almost impossible to live, work, and shop in the same stripmall cluster?

I'm thinkin' environment plays a big part in how Americans tend to view the range of personal choices available to them. That and inertia...

I wonder if a 4*10 hour work week would create efficiencies that would offset the extra free time available to the motoring public and actually result in a 20% reduction in commuting?  I bet $200/bbl petro can provide a lot of incentive...

sure, i think if telecommuting 1 day a week would reduce traffic congestion by a lot.

I "choose" in the sense that I only work for companies that allow me to telecommute a few days a week. I have a bad neck and driving is both expensive on gas/medical bills, and causes me pain, plus is a complete and utter waste of time.

I live about an hour from silicon valley, so I do have an opportunity to take public transit as well, just takes about 2 hours -- on the other hand I can read/sleep, surf the web, instead of dealing with idiots on the road.

Carpooling is another option, facebook has a group for it where you can find out people in your area, and what they're into -- I personally don't want to have to rely or be responsible for someone else, which is why I haven't done carpooling yet.

Thanks allpoints.

Id say it's definitely a choice. But I wouldn't have made it if I hadn't wound up here attending school the first time around. I really enjoyed living here the first time. The fact that it's fairly pedestrian friendly played a major role in my choice to live here.

I agree with what Chovy said. Don't accept any less than you intend to get. If you're good enough at what you do (and this goes for many lines of work), the company/boss will make whatever concessions (within reason) necessary, especially easy ones like allowing you to do computer work at home.

In my case, it's taken a while to get this setup going, and it was definitely planned. As strange as it may sound, years of driving 45 - 1:15 to and from work every day actually has helped  me in my "low carb" lifestyle (I'm applauding you for cleverness, btw). It was all that driving that convinced me I need to place a high priority on these goals.

Some of it is chance though. Realistically, I'll go wherever or however far I have to to pay the bills, and I'm quite lucky to have been filling a bartender friend's shift when I served a beer to a geologist. I was unaware that the company he worked for was right down the street, he told me to go apply.

This type of luck comes around much more often if you're actively looking for it though.


This isn't to criticize those who are unable to do this though. When I was driving to work, I was working as a carpenter. I realize that the construction field especially necessitates a lot of driving. I definitely don't hold it against anyone for consuming what needs to be consumed in order to get the job done. I just hope for them they have someone to share the gas bill and the ride with.

Sure, there are professions that require a certain amount of driving. For those of use lucky enough to have a "cush" job where we sit in a cubical -- we can easily reduce our impact by taking public transit (even just one day a week, as long as its consitent) or working from home (when possible) will have a huge impact.

The first thing I had to get over was 1 hour commute vs. 2 hour commute when comparing ideal drive time and public transit. I quickly realized the benefit of not having to drive -- I read on the route, and the local system even has free wifi on many of its buses. 2 hours of free time to surf the web or read is better than 1 hour of useless driving.

Spot on. Oil already $90US Barrel and climbing.


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The only problem with this idea is that it assumes that the extra day will be spent at or very close to the house (or at least very minimal driving). I used to work for a company that did 4 10's. We had the option to work Friday and even Saturday. I usually worked about half of the Fridays, when I didn't it was usually because I wanted to go somewhere out of town to see music or to visit friends.

Either way, I'm a fan of ten hour days. They're more efficient.

By that logic, a twelve hour 48Hr four day week would be even more efficient, especially for commuters of longer distances.  ;)


Regards
Terry


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I like the 4*10 in theory...would be nice to have a 3-day weekend standard. I find I don't leave the house all that much on the big holidays.

Usually, it's more profitable for the company as well. If you've ever broken a typical eight hour day at the office down to fifteen minute intervals of what got accomplished and how much time was spent with daily routine stuff, you've probably been amazed at how inefficient it can be. Those extra two hours have a very good work/routine daily stuff ratio.

I guess a lot of people wouldn't go anywhere on that extra day off, so it probably would cause less exhaust. Also, I do like the idea that if the exhaust output isn't going to be lowered in a certain case, at least more of it will go to having fun than getting to work.

We've been doing SCRUM at work, and they estimate it to be about 50% efficiency on average. In an 8 hour day, you really only get about 4 hours worth of work done.

SCRUM?

Never heard of it. One job I had we had to track our time to the 15 minute interval everyday on an excel spreadsheet. Filling out the spreadsheet could take 15-20 itself sometimes if the day was complicated enough.

Still a good idea though. It is good to be conscious of what's getting done. Our office was more factory-line production oriented. I don't know what the average was, but I would estimate we each got about 7 hours of work done on an eight hour shift (usually less for management, we had this one manager that drove out to staples every other day) on a good day. Being able to see very plainly where our time was going was a great help in an effort to improve efficiency.

SCRUM is an agile development paradigm...short, one-day tasks for each sprint (usually 2 weeks).

I did the timer thing with my computer, I setup a few tasks for projects, and then I could start/stop a timer for each one independently. It gave me a great idea of how much I spent coding, and how long it actually took.

I had it stop after 2 minutes of inactivity.

What we were doing was a little more streamlined than writing code. Tasks were very straight forward. We compiled features from 3d aerial imagery for mapping. There were also some editing tasks, data format transfers and qcqa. Basically, it was a data entry job, but actually pretty fun as the data was 3d and you felt like you've been flying above the earth all day, mentally at least.

Actually, what we were inefficient about is when we had to do stuff like writing code or building custom tools for our software (CADD and GIS programs). That's ok though, because anything you can do to automate things will save time in the end. Writing code requires lateral thinking. Sometimes you have to back out of it and look for a way around your specific problem.

Now here's an idea about how maps can save energy. I would encourage anyone to get a road map of the place and surrounding area of where they live and put it on their wall. Use a marker to draw over all the routes they take in a week. Draw lines thicker every time you drive it in a week. Also keep a table of where you went, and how much gas, money and time you burned up.

When you see it laid out in front of you, sometimes you might see more efficient routes to take, and ways to combine trips. Sometimes, just seeing how much money you have to spend laid out in front of you will help you squeeze more efficiency out of your travel. I've had a few jobs where I drove a longer way because I didn't realize until later that there was quicker way. Google maps has a pretty easy setup for planning and examining different routes.

Even 2 less miles (or less 15 minutes idling in traffic) twice a day can add up. 

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Been there done that. We carry a city map in the car. I suggest all do so.  ;)


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Well, now you can get directions from Google Maps at the pump, so why carry a map?

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In Australia Chovy??!!  ;D
(or any other Nation)  ;)


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actually, i think it is Mtn. View only.

Here's a cool video about the entire problem:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/

(http://www.storyofstuff.com/banners/217x188_SoS_Banner005.jpg) (http://www.storyofstuff.com/)

I look at it this way. I make 'X' amount per hour. If a shortcut for mileage does not save me enough miles to make up for added time then it is not real shortcut.

I generally take the freeways as much as possible, the difference in stop and go driving compared to freeway miles is better for the car, your pocket and your nerves.

Your post went the way of the Donner party so I rescued it Chovy

Sure, freeway is better, assuming your not in stop-n-go traffic on the freeway -- However in the case (like my commute) side streets are less impeded, then it makes more sense, even though time-wise it is about the same.

Wouldn't having more humans hurt the environment more than help it?

there's also http://freebombs.com if you prefer. For every IQ test you fail, they drop 10 bombs on a 3rd world country.

Reading this makes a lot of sense for those of you that fly a desk all day, and don't have to get out to interact with customers, vendors, etc. But for the rest of us that can't code from home (not singling you out, Chovy), and actually have to commute, there's not much available.

I am fortunate, there's a commuter train station less than 1 mile from the compound. There's also a confluence of mass transit bus stops within a 1 mile radius.

HOWEVER-- not one of them will get me remotely close to the 15 miles away that work is. Even if I commuted into Baltimore, as I used to, it required over an hour combined on a heavy rail then light rail setup. Or I could drive in using about 15 minutes. Same with the current gig- the closest commuter rail station is over 5 miles away. I'm not hoofing it in 5 miles or for that matter biking. I'll drive to work, and thats that. And I have to put premium in my ancient Teutonic tank. So believe me, at $50+ a fillup, I'd love to take public trans in if it made sense.

Unless there was a cohesive public transportation setup that got me within a quarter mile of my destination, I'm not doing it.