Throughstone #9: Sustainable Living…Splitting the Difference

One barrel of petroleum holds the energy equivalent of approximately five (5) years of one human’s labor. To be more technical, a barrel of oil is equivalent to 1700 kWh of work potential, while a human expends about 0.6 kWh for an average day of work. Take that a step farther, and the average American today receives about 50x the goods and services than an individual in 1800 would have accessed (compared to 14x for the average global citizen). 

Those are sobering numbers for a modern yeoman-wannabe. Suddenly, cutting your own firewood by any means other than a one-person crosscut saw (good luck finding a partner these days for a more efficient two-person saw!) starts to water down dreams of sustainability and self-sufficiency. Time for more flannel and fewer shaves to enhance the cosplay. 

While I’m an ardent proponent of pursuing more ecologically-balanced lives, I also prefer a more honest casting of the enterprise. First of all, we’re Americans, so we’re already off the charts. Most any effort is a step in the right direction. However, no matter how radically we try to reduce our ecological footprint, it’s always a matter of splitting the difference.

Our family heats mostly with firewood, with the exception of propane for radiant floor heat set at 48° in the basement, so our dependence on fossil fuel appears low, until we account for the petroleum fueling the woodsplitter and the loggers.  At least I saved some 0.6 kWh workdays to write this post. 

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NOTE: Energy numbers gleaned from Nate Hagens’ consistently excellent work, captured here and also elsewhere in his The Great Simplification podcast that is well worth a follow and hours of listening. 

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Thoughts?? Your wisdom is appreciated in the "COMMENTS" box below!

“Throughstone 250” is a purposefully constrained blog project. As a long-winded Southerner constrained by Vermont’s limited porch season and the Yankee penchant for paragraphs of three words or less, I’ve opted to aim for semi-daily reflections of precisely 250 words for the foreseeable future.

250 means something right now. Maybe more than we anticipated. It’s symbolic but incredibly important…and a 250 word count seems much less constrained than a 5-7-5 syllable count for a haiku. 

Like many others, I’m struggling to make meaning out of these tumultuous days. I’ve always found it useful to try and write my way out of tough spots. Looking for throughstones is just one more effort to try and generate some meaning from the mayhem.

More free-ranging rambles here, if you’re so inclined: https://www.freerangeprof.com/blog