Could you go 100 days without oil?
My first response to this question was a resounding Yes!…though it would be incredibly, incredibly difficult and I wouldn’t really want to. But the concept is an admirable one, and certainly something to get us all thinking about the massive role petroleum plays in our lives—and how we might be able to reduce our consumption.
That’s the goal of Molly Eagen’s blog, 100 Days Without Oil, where she’s chronicling her three-month journey living petroleum-free. A graduate student at the University of Minneapolis, Eagen’s project seeks to “identify the dramatic design changes which will take place in our society as oil becomes more expensive/depleted.”
She’s tracking oil use (or rather, her lack of oil use) in seven areas: Transportation, food, waste, water, electricity, health/hygiene, and communication/entertainment. This means avoiding obvious oil-users like cars in favor of bicycling or walking, plus sticking to a strictly local, organic diet, but also using only the water she collects when it rains on her roof and using only electric energy from renewable resources. (Even though oil doesn’t play a huge role in electricity, Eagen points out that residents in her part of the country get most of their power from coal, which she sees as a younger form of oil.)
Going 100 days without oil is an enormous undertaking, to be sure, but given Eagen’s determination as well as her thorough research and planning, I think she’ll be able to do it. And we’re routing for her!
-Marygrace, KIWI staff writer
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