The Price of Oil: What Are We Talking About Exactly?

The rising price of oil is on a lot of people's minds these days. It hasn't quite hit $100/barrel yet, but it's getting close ($94 as of this writing). I was reading Elizabeth Kolbert's article about extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands in the New Yorker this morning, and it occurred to me, as I read that 4500 pounds of tar have to be dug and separated into their constituent parts to get enough of the bitumen that can be refined into one barrel of oil, that I had no idea how much oil was in a barrel.

I'd always pictured it like the one here -- it's the size we think of when we think of a generic barrel -- but that couldn't possibly hold enough oil to justify the expense of digging up the 4500 hundred pounds of tar, could it? An official barrel of oil must be much more massive.

Turns out, that barrel in my mind is an official barrel of oil, the one that costs nearly $100 now. It holds 42 gallons of oil, about half of which is destined to become gasoline. The rest is made into things like jet fuel, fuel oil, asphalt and lubricants. So, one barrel of oil yields about 21 gallons of gasoline, or about two-thirds of an SUV's gas tank.

The reason it's at all profitable to convert those 4500 pounds of sludge into a barrel of oil is that, all told, it costs about $30 per barrel to do so. It was only a few years ago that oil was at $38, making tar-sand extraction unattractive. The process isn't nearly as efficient as conventional oil extraction, though, so the environmental impacts are much worse.

Saving the Environment, Smelling Like Salad

I don't have much personal vanity, but for my hair. It's of the tousled/wavy/curly/frizzy/ messy variety, depending on the weather, which makes it impossible ever to look sleek and sophisticated unless I pay someone a lot of money to style it for me. I'm constantly looking for the shampoo/conditioner/gel/ spray/lighter-fluid combination that will make it look presentable on a daily basis, but every person who has ever cut my hair has exclaimed, "you have great hair!" as if they really meant it, and while I demurely thank them, inside I'm kvelling.

The perfect set of products may actually be those made by Devachan, a Soho salon that specializes in curly hair. The beauty world is actively hostile to curly hair. Before I started going to Devachan, the "great hair" comment would nearly always be followed by a plea that I should try it straight. At Devachan, they would not only be insulted if you asked to have your hair dried straight, they'd probably kick you out. They're hardcore, but it's nice to look around the salon and only see people with crazy hair like yours for a change.

Devachan is a bit cult-ish, though. God forbid you not want to sit under the low heat lamps for an hour with a quart of gel squished into your hair to achieve maximum Shirley Templedom. Their products, though, actually work better for curly hair than anything else, starting with something they call "No Poo", so called because they don't believe in shampooing curly hair, which they believe strips it of... something... essential... to curliness. I generally tune out the dogma while I'm getting my hair washed beneath the graceful mosquito netting that hangs above their sinks.

But the products are expensive, they come in big plastic bottles (recyclable number 2, yes, but I'm trying to cut down on my plastic consumption), and they're not organic. I don't know if a bunch of chemicals you smoosh on your head for a minute or two every morning have much of an impact on your health, but it stands to reason that less of them can't be bad for you, and might even be good.

There are several natural shampoos, but they're all in plastic bottles, too, and once you start down that path, you're into the "frees": cruelty, parabens, petroleum, FD&C color, SLS/SLES, etc. If you buy a bottle of something that doesn't have this list on the front, maybe you're not really going organic after all, and you could drive yourself crazy trying to work out which of them matters. Plus, they're all expensive anyway.

Oh for the days when I blithely used $1-a-bottle Suave and was done with it.

I work at an engineering firm, and we like to debate the NASA imperative to launch missions "better, faster, cheaper." Is it ever possible to get all three? You can get things that are good and fast, but you'll pay a lot. Fast and cheap, sure; but how good is, say, a McDonald's hamburger compared to a three-course meal at a four-star restaurant? And yes, you can get things that are good and cheap, but they often take a long time to procure or execute.

Which brings me to my evolving hair-care routine. It started with baking soda. Devachan is right that you don't really need to wash your hair. Every few days, my scalp gets a little itchy, though, and a handful of baking soda, turned into a paste in the shower and rubbed through, feels and works great. A big box of baking soda is cheap, plus it's cardboard, which seems a better environmental bet than plastic.

But curly hair can't not be conditioned. I'd read that people follow their baking soda with apple cider vinegar to soft and shiny effect, but I didn't believe it. How could something acidic do anything other than strip your hair? And since the claims made on its behalf seemed too miraculous to be true -- drinking it will cure allergies! acne! arthritis! and that's just the a's -- I couldn't help but be skeptical.

Ha. How wrong was I to have waited so long to try this? A few swishes of some organic acv from a glass bottle (not sure of the environmental impact of glass over plastic, honestly; it uses more oil to transport because it's heavier, blah blah blah), and my hair magically detangled. Once dry, it was softer and maybe even a little shinier than before. And though I used more of it than I probably needed to -- it's harder to control than a goopy conditioner, though I suppose I could put it into a squeeze bottle -- it's far cheaper than anything else I've ever used, except the Suave, and that's more expensive these days anyway. I even swigged a little of it to see if it would cure me anything, but so far I don't think it has.

My new routine doesn't take any longer than regular shampoo and conditioner, it's much cheaper, and it's better for the environment, possibly my own personal health, and dare I say, the loveliness of my hair. Ta dah.

Unfortunately, it makes my hair smell like I've been wearing the salad bowl as a hat.

My fiance said he hoped I wasn't going to start adding olive oil. Oh, but do you know my hair stylist said I should coat my hair in the stuff at least once a week and sleep through the night that way? My cats attack my head when I do it, but it does seem to do something nice to my hair. You don't mind, sweetie, do you? Pass the tongs.

The New York Times Hates Me

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times published an editorial about how Americans needed to use fewer plastic bags. Ireland, South Africa, San Francisco (that's not really America, is it?) have all either banned or taxed them.

I am very keen on this issue. It seems such a simple way to start to cut down on waste (and petroleum-derived waste at that). But here's the thing: Yes, state and local governments should encourage people to bring reusable bags to the store. But the bigger problem is that stores need to be willing to accommodate those customers who do that, and apart from Whole Foods, I've never been in a store that hasn't tried to snatch up my purchase before I can protest that I have my own bag, or don't need one at all.

Which is what I wrote in my very first Letter to the Editor.

I know they get hundreds of letters, and the fact that I hadn't heard from them within a couple of days made it pretty clear they weren't going to publish mine. But they weren't publishing any letters on the subject, so at least I didn't have to feel personally rejected.

Until today, when they belatedly ran this, from someone named Nathalie (there doesn't need to be an h in Natalie, does there?) in North Hollywood, California.

"Nathalie" thinks we need to be more like the French, who she recently visited and was impressed with. Well sure, be like the French, but the French have a long history of shopping at markets and such with a basket tucked under their arm; they may have Les McDonalds, but they do not have the vite-vite-vite culture so ingrained in their tetes that it's much of a stretch for them to stop using plastic bags. Also, "Nathalie" emphasized the role of the individual, which is what the editorial did. I tried to take the conversation a step further.

But no, the New York Times will not be challenged. Plus, they hate me.

Climate Change

The weather finally changed over the weekend, and we're now enjoying sunny days in the high 70s. And you know what that means. Instead of bundling on layers when I go outside, now I'm bundling on the layers when I get inside, in the office. The over-a/c'd office.

Seriously, if someone came up with a solution to the office air-conditioning problem -- why does it always have to be so cold and breezy? -- we'd probably save enough electricity to solve global warming within three years.

Confirming the Superiority of New York

I'm not usually one of those people who boasts about how great NYC is compared to other places. I think it's partly because I grew up here -- I'm so confident of the fact, I don't need to prove it -- and partly that I've lived other places, and so realize that there are a lot of other fine places in the world to live.

But today's report on New York City's Greenhouse Gas Emissions, which states that NYC produces 1% of the United States' greenhouse gases, while housing 2.7% of its population, seems to suggest we've really got something good going here.

Closer examination of the report, which I am still reading, reveals that our enviro-friends out in San Francisco emit 11.2 metric tons of greenhouse gases per capita, to our 7.1.

But then, the number for London is 5.9, so we've clearly got a way to go.

SOlipSism?

My hero Al Gore announced plans today for a 24-hour concert called Live Earth, taking place on all seven continents this July 7th, to raise the visibility of the issue of climate change. Though the acts have not been announced yet, it promises to be chockablock with big names. After all, is Madonna really going to turn down the opportunity to play a concert in support of a campaign called "Save Ourselves"?

I have mixed feelings about this idea.

Firstly, do we really need to involve Antarctica here? We already gave it a big hole in the ozone layer right over its head. Why not give it a break from Bono and his big sunglasses and all the carbon emissions they'll bring with them?

And really, Save Ourselves? (The campaign itself is labeled Save Our Selves, in order to get the neat SOS acronym, but I just can't bring myself to write it that way.) Could that be any more cringe-inducingly narcissistic?

I have very fond memories of the 1985 Live Aid concert this is clearly patterned after. Tell me you didn't sing along to "We Are the Champions" at the top of your lungs. Oh, poor dead Freddy Mercury; he was such a great performer.

At the time -- I was 17 -- it really did seem like we were, just by watching the concert, doing something about the famine in Ethiopia. And it did raise awareness of the problem, and funds to help alleviate it, and put pressure on governments to act.

But it's not like Ethiopia's problems were solved by it, and the public's attention soon moved on. A lot of big stuff happened later that year: Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time; Microsoft released Windows 1.0; Michael Jackson bought The Beatles catalog.

I wonder if Live Earth is going to be similarly inspiring and forgettable?

I don't know why I'm so cynical today. I had a lovely Valentine's Day, and the sun is still shining at nearly 5 o'clock. And if Live Earth introduces the idea of dangerous climate change to 2 billion or so people, it's to the good. Certainly anything that raises awareness, and potentially inspires action, is helpful. I just hope we don't have to sit through too many earnest appeals from Britney Spears (I smell a comeback!), who might not be able to find Antarctica on a map.

You have to figure Phil Collins isn't going to replicate his two-continent appearance this time. Even if the Concord was still flying, it wouldn't exactly send a very pro-enviro message, would it? Also, does anyone know who Phil Collins is anymore?

Two Minutes to Go

The Doomsday Clock has been moved forward for the first time in two years. We are now at 11:55pm.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists invented the clock in 1947, as a symbolic representation of the danger the world faced from major man-made catastrophe, namely nuclear war. If we get to midnight, it's because the world done blowed itself up.

In 1947, near the beginning of the Cold War and its concomitant arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the clock's big hand stood at 11:53. The closest it has come to midnight was in 1953, when both countries tested nuclear weapons. The Atomic Scientists then set it forward to 11:58.

The clock has moved forward and back over the years. The earliest it has been was 11:43 in 1991, when the US and USSR signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the official end of the Cold War. 1998's nuclear bomb tests by India and Pakistan and the United States' withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, among other things, brought the clock forward to 11:53, where it had started back at the beginning.

These two minutes announced today are the result not only of increased nuclear instability in the world -- North Korea, Iran, the U.S. and former-Soviet Union's non-diminishing stockpiles -- but of global warming.

So, for 60 years, this group of concerned scientists has assessed the main threat to the world's safety in terms of nuclear weapons, which, even in the democratic United States most people don't have any control over. But today they tell us that we're two minutes closer to total destruction in part because of climate change brought about by our own ordinary daily lives. Tick tick tick.

No-fly zone?

Now that we've had two sub-freezing days in a row, I've been thinking about how nice it would be to take a vacation somewhere warm. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Macy's has changed their windows from Christmas to bikinis overnight.

But to get anywhere warm, I'd have to fly. I'm not a big flier. Last year, I took one plane trip, to Denver to see my college roommate. The year before, I went to Puerto Rico in February. The year before that was London. In the years before that, I flew frequently for work as well as vacation, to Africa, to L.A., to Pittsburgh. That last was most definitely for work, though I'm sure Pittsburgh has charms that were hidden from me.

Last summer, the Bishop of London called air travel sinful and urged people not to fly for any other than emergency reasons. A recent estimate by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Manchester estimated that 7% of Britain's pollution is caused by airplane emissions (in the United States, it's closer to 10%), which may not seem that high, but there's evidence that high-altitude emissions affect climate change differently from those made on the ground, and forecasts for air travel in Europe are that it will increase substantially in the next 20 years.

How do you define an emergency? Attending your mother's funeral? Checking into the Mayo Clinic for heart surgery? Lying on the beach in the Caribbean for a week to reduce your stress to the point where you won't kill your boss? I'm fortunate that I don't have to travel for work anymore -- it's exhausting and disorienting after a while -- but if any one of the people in my company who do suddenly announced they weren't going to fly anymore, his job would be in immediate jeopardy.

I want to go back to Africa. I haven't been to Italy since I was in college and every time I watch A Room with a View or The Godfather, I have to restrain myself from booking a flight immediately. I've long wanted to visit New Orleans, and it seems like right now would be the ideal time: they need the tourist income, and after a few more bad hurricane seasons, it might be impossible to visit ever again.

I can buy carbon offsets to ease my conscience a bit, but how directly they mitigate the climate effects of flying is debatable. I imagine my finances won't allow for more than one far-flung trip a year in any event. I'm not ready to give up flying altogether. But I do think it's worth thinking about and maybe taking a closer look at the Amtrak routes.

How you know it's January

This was the scene just an hour ago in Central Park. Notice all the bare legs? The temperature got up to 74 degrees today. This is the first week of January, people.


Fortunately, there aren't any leaves on the trees, otherwise I'd have had to keep reminding myself I didn't move to Los Angeles or fall asleep until May.

Buy now, save (the earth) later

After two long days of shopping this weekend, I am just about finished buying Christmas presents. The same thing happens every year: I tell myself that this year things will be simpler, then I see one more thing that would be just perfect to go along with the other perfect gifts I've already bought, and simple goes right out the window.

My cube-mate and I have been talking lately about the new environmentalism, the one that implies -- if not explicitly comes right out and says -- you can consume your way to a greener future.

Buy bamboo cutting boards instead of plastic ones. Solar-powered backpacks, to keep all your electronic gadgets running. Organic cotton t-shirts, fair-trade coffee, organic and fair-trade iPod cozies. What happened to the reduce part of reduce, reuse, recycle?

I suppose if you're going to buy stuff at all, you might as well buy some of these things. I bought my sister-in-law not one, but two bamboo cutting boards, in fact. Other people are buying them, too. The most crowded store I was in this weekend wasn't Bloomingdales or The Apple Store, but Cog & Pearl, a Park Slope boutique that sells artisan jewelry, housewares and clothing, much of it made from recycled materials. There were so many people that I stayed only long enough to note, not for the first time, that scarfs made from old cashmere sweaters are not only very nice, but very expensive, and I should really make something out of the pile of out-of-fashion sweaters I will never wear again.

Now there's an idea... guess what you're all getting for Christmas next year. How's that for simple?