If we really were going to conserve....

[FormerOstrich]

there are a lot more ways than to cease non-essential driving.

I am surprised more people haven't been outraged about being asked to curtail driving. Are we not to take vacations and enjoy our national parks and monuments. Leisure driving is out but sitting in eight lanes of traffic at a crawl twice a day is essential because most corporations don't want to adjust their way of thinking to tele-commuting, satellite offices, flexible schedules, etc. Every public building requires a sweater year round.

Is limiting non-essential driving really the most effective way to conserve?

Let's face it...we are a gluttonous society. Let's take a look at packaging. I'm not talking about the safety features such as the plastic covering over cottage cheese (remember that all started back with the tylenol scare). I'm talking excesses.

Recently I bought an extremely cheap watch. The package it was in was incredibly intricate. You'd think it was housing a rolex. At the deli I bought a slab of ribs. They came in a tray with a lid. I think a saran wrap would have sufficed. It is waste. It requires petroleum to create this waste.

I am not sure exactly why but I find the request to restrict our movements to only when you are working for your corporate masters to be unsettling. Especially when there are no real efforts to conserve. None. zip. Nada.

[KitchenWitch]

1. Excellent points

I am surprised more corporations do not avail themselves of the telecommuting option...I would think it would save them quite a bit of overhead.

[Nay]

11. Telecommuting would save some overhead, sure, but the real

impediment to telecommuting is that it makes your bosses uncomfortable--how are they to monitor your every move and treat you like a flunky if you are not present? Why, the managers would actually have to manage projects instead of lording it over the help. They'd have to assign actual work and keep track of its progress, instead of getting to peep down your blouse. And they would forever be irritated at the mental picture of you in your jammies, kicked back and listening to music or a language tape or whatever, instead of them being able to force you to pay exaggerated attention to the holy job they have so graciously allowed you to fill.

[KitchenWitch]

15. True - micromanagers would not get to micromanage

But the thing is, in this day and age, There are many types of jobs that can be done far more efficiently from home, where one does not have the distraction of various co-workers and/or managers interrupting work flow.

Of course this depends upon the industry. Healthcare, for example, is an industry in which the workers (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare workers) need to be present to do their jobs. Service sector jobs are also ones in which one needs to be present. But by and large, office jobs can be done on a telecommuting basis, but this would require changing how management views all workers...instead of some workers being hourly and some salaried, all would have to be salaried, and more flexible in nature.

[Nay]

20. I was only talking about those jobs that are ideal for telecommuting--

the office jobs. The micromanagers could not stand the thought that you might, say, finish all the work assigned in LESS than the time the mgr had allotted, and you were at home to do your own thing when you were done. At the very least, the mgrs want to force you to be present in their offices so they can make sure you can't "cheat" them of "time."

[KitchenWitch]

21. True

I am not disagreeing with you...I am just taking a utopian view of things...

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Well well, there are many layers

and driving is part of it, but you raise an important point, why? hey they are gonna privatize the national park system so what are you gonna drive to?

Yes I am cynical at this stage, rather cynical

Oh and cars, are I think, about 40% of our daily energy consumption

[FormerOstrich]

6. I am cynical, too.

Oh and cars, are I think, about 40% of our daily energy consumption

Yes, they may be 40% of consumption but that doesn't account for the drag or demand we cause. All of the plastic products consume energy resources but most likely not included in the consumption calculation. Which is exactly why you won't see it addressed. I view it are we (as a society) looking for real solutions across the board or the low hanging fruit to move on to another topic.

[ladylibertee]

3. I completely understand how you feel.I think that people are

outraged, but not surprised and that may be why you have not seen a lot of talk about this.I mean,we are pretty much going to do what we want regardless.I just think that most are looking at this like a "New Yorker" Bush asking us to conserve and we're saying "Get Outta Here" LOL.Maybe. I don't for sure.

[sandnsea]

4. Pumpemup.org

http://www.pumpemup.org/

"..born in 2001 when 9 year-old Savannah Walters, concerned by proposals to drill for oil in the Arctic, learned that the U.S. could save as much oil as would be produced by the new drilling if drivers simply pumped up their car tires to proper inflation levels."

If George had paid attention to the 'focus group' on the Arctic Refuge the other day, he'd have known about Pump 'Em Up and could have offered something so simple that a 9 year old understands it.

[FormerOstrich]

5. That's right!!

I forgot all about that. Of course, there is the lowering of the speed limit, too.

It's quickly approaching that only the wealthy can afford leisure travel. Our world shrinks some everyday....if not for the internet!

[sandnsea]

7. I can't afford it

Spent the last few years waiting for the day my last one graduated so we could travel, go to a protest once in a while even. With the price of gas, that's all gone. And that was before the hurricanes. I just pretty much give up. Between the cost of health care, housing and now gas, there's no money for anything else. So I get to sit in my house until I die, wohoo.

[Lindsay]

8. What gripes my soul most at the moment

is that we're told to curtail unnecessary travel while the Preznit flies all over the south for his photo ops.

Couldn't set a good example, now, could he?

[bigbrother05]

9. Remember Sept.11th

Go shopping, Sept.27th conserve, wise words from our leader. The two contradict themselves in a time of crises.

[unblock]

10. haha, the year-round sweater -- i used to wear one in the TEXAS SUMMERS

in fact i kept a sweatshirt at the office when i worked in texas because they always over-aircondition and of course didn't give me the ability to adjust it in my own little corner of the floor.

so i had to don a sweatshirt. in texas. in the summer. to keep warm.

:eyes:

[jmowreader]

12. Some reasons why corporations won't embrace telecommuting

Ego. You've seen Brazil, right? The scene where Mr. Holtzmann walks out and sees the production floor and the 500 people working for him? Well, Mr. Holtzmann is thinking to himself as he watches these people do essentially nothing, "I used to be one of them...now look at me!" Very hard to do that if all your employees are sitting at home in front of their computers.

Apparel. You know y'all fucked the Telecommuting Movement when you announced that by using telecommuting, you could do your work in sweats, unprimped hair, no makeup and no shoes, and be Just As Productive As If You Were Dressed In A Suit And Pumps! Don't you know that you're supposed to dress in a businesslike fashion when you do work for this company?

Equipment. Telecommuting is restricted to paper-pushers. If you need to interact personally with customers you can't telecommute. If you need any big equipment to do your job you can't telecommute. If you handle government secrets you can't telecommute.

Appearance of fairness. If your company employs 500 production-line workers and 50 paper-pushers, the company thinks that the production-line people will be jealous of the paper-pushers if it lets them work at home. (In reality, the production-line people hate the paper-pushers and would turn their offices into a big breakroom with a pool table in it if they sent the paper-pushers home.)

Control. The boss can't see exactly what you're doing every hour of the workday if you telecommute.

[durablend]

14. Don't forget the obvious one

Why are they going to pay you to sit at home in your underwear at home all day while they could pay Habib in India 1/100th of what you're making?

[jmowreader]

19. That's a different issue

Habib would still be teleworking, even if he came to the sweatshop. Headquarters isn't in Mumbai.

I've never held a job that could have been telecommuted. They were either direct customer contact positions, jobs handling/creating state secrets, or jobs that required $125,000 machines that couldn't be moved. I think a very large number of people are in the same situation.

[mdelaguna2000]

13. How about those stupid autoflush toilets?

With the motion censors? So people don't have to touch a handle? The ones at my workplace flush at least 2 extra times before you need them to. What a waste of water.

[FormerOstrich]

16. I hate those...

and they have them in a lot of airports. When I use to travel a lot I would frequently change clothes before boarding. You wouldn't believe how many times you flush removing the corporate dress and putting on sweats for the trip home.

[bleedingheart]

17. well even the new "water saving toilets" don't save water

many of them can't flush everything in one flush...so people are flush two or three times...and how is that saving water?

[LostinVA]

18. What I told my old apartment owner!

She put in low-pressure shower heads and water-saving toilets. So what happened? Instead of a five-minute shower, I had to take a 15-20 minutes one to wash everything out of my hair (my hair is very thick). And, I grew up with a well, and only flush if it's not "mellowing." But, I had to flush the "water-saving" toilet at least twice for ANYTHING to flush. Ergo.... just take Navy showers, that saves alot of water right there.