The Beginning

I'm going to start by saying I'm no expert.  I have spent most of my life so far living in a comfortable bubble (hence the title of this blog).  I was aware of global warming, doing my best to offset it by recycling, but honestly not thinking I could do much more.  Recently I had a son, and my bubble shrank.  I, of course, want the best for my son.  I feel that I have had a good life so far and I want his to be at least as good.  Looking into the future with his well being in mind and what is likely to happen in his lifetime, I am terrified of what I see, both with global warming and with how dependent we are on non-renewable energy sources. 

My bubble had already been shrinking when my mother in law posted this article, which went pretty far to get rid of the rest of it: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Scared yet?

Something that hadn't occured to me until my husband brought it up is fossil fuels running out.  Global warming is scary enough but the idea of running out of what our society depends so much on is terrifying.  Take my situation.  I work over two and a half hours from where my husband is going to grad school.  That means that we live about halfway in between, with an hour or more one way commute for each of us.  There are no electric cars that have that type of range, and no mass transit from where we live to either of our destinations.  We are totally dependent on our cars right now.  Even if we lived closer to where we work, which is something we plan to do once he is done with school, the infrastructure of our country is totally dependent on fossil fuels.  How does your food get to the grocery store?  How do farmers grow as much food as they do?  By using fossil fuels.  What will happen when the supply goes below the demand, which it's bound to do in our lifetimes?  I would hope communities would band together, become self sustainable if they haven't already done so, telecommuting would be the norm if you didn't have a job you could do in your immediate area, and we would "all get along".  But the cynic in me sees people with more strength or weapons taking what they want and leaving those who can't defend their land or persons in situations where they will either not survive, or use so much force that they kill them outright.  I may be overreacting.  I hope I am.  But the idea is still terrifying.   If we keep depending on fossil fuels to keep our economy and society working, when the supply becomes an issue, 3rd world countries will be in better shape than we are since they are not as dependent on fossil fuels for their survival.

So, what can we do?

My family lives in a small condo, even with our commute our carbon footprint is small for a family of 3.  We pay extra for our electric company to offset our energy consumption by buying it from renewable energy sources (wind farm), we turn our water heater on once a day to take showers and run the dishwasher (with an infant that actually saves water over washing by hand), do laundry in cold water, and take water saving showers by turning off the faucet while we soap up.  When my husband graduates, we hope to buy some land closer to where we work and build a house that functions off the grid by using green materials as well as solar, geothermal, and wind technology to produce power.  We will garden and hopefully by then electric cars will be affordable and practical.

I am looking for ways to do more, and hope I will find a community of people who are willing to work to get our government to acknowledge the need find alternatives to fossil fuels so we not only help the environment but protect ourselves from the inevitable shortage of fossil fuel. 

This blog is going to be about my journey to find out information about the issues of global warming, alternate energy sources and renewable energy.  I'm writing this blog mostly to organize my thoughts and my information.  I'm going to pop my bubble of complacency and just seeing what happens. If anyone wants to join me in my search, feel free to follow my blog.