Page added on August 9, 2008
… Look at yourself right now. You’ve probably got on a shirt, socks, shoes, jewelry, maybe even some pants. Do you have any idea how much all of that weighs?
If people really loved America, they would strip down, leave their clothes at home, and drive around buck naked. That would decrease the weight of our cars, which would increase our gas mileage so dramatically that we probably wouldn’t have to drill for any new oil!
Genius, right?
Of course, my idea has about as much of a chance to make a real difference in our energy crisis as the suggestion that Barack Obama recently made.
“Making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing,” Obama said. “But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much.”
When The Associated Press asked Obama’s campaign for the figures they used to make that claim, they couldn’t produce any — but plenty of other people have.
It turns out that about two-thirds of vehicles already have properly inflated tires. That means we’d likely save somewhere around 800,000 barrels of oil a day if everyone else also complied. Meanwhile, the U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that there are about 86 billion barrels of oil in the areas that we’re not allowed to drill. You do the math.
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