Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Soap Box

Among the many things that keep me awake at night - homework, super-staph, war, AIDS, global warming, genocide and homophobia - the peak oil crisis has been on my mind a lot. Petroleum is a finite, non-renewable resource which fueled the fast-moving 20th century. As in most races, we seem to be zooming to the inevitable finish line. We're not actually certain how much oil remains in Saudi Arabia; this information is carefully shrouded. In this hemisphere, the desperate urge to fuel up has us drilling in increasingly obscure, dangerous and hard-to-reach places to meet the demands of the American consumer. It looks to me like the gas gauge reads empty, and we're just hoping to make it through the winter on fumes.

As of Tuesday night at around midnight, oil prices were at a record high of nearly $98 a barrel with forecasts of them being well over $120 in a year. With a large number of Americans already living paycheck-to-paycheck, commuting and dependent on heat and imported foods, this does not bode well. Who knows how much oil will cost in five years? It won't be about miles-per-gallon and SUVs, it will be about availability of basic necessities. I worry that the class divide will deepen further to separate those who can eat well and stay warm and those who cannot.

However, it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. Leaving aside the political and cultural intricacies that brought us to our sickening dependence on crude oil, approaching the problem from a designer's perspective can provide one with a sense of optimism. It's quite simple. If bad design requires a resource that will not be readily available to function, such as oil, then good design does not.

Want to talk about a darn good energy source, how about the sun? Without the sun's generous rays, there wouldn't even be oil to burn in the first place. There wouldn't be ethanol, corn, wood, people, warmth - anything. With a little bit of thoughtful placement of architectural elements, it's entirely possible, and even sort of easy, to keep a building warm enough to live in, even in the god-forsaken Maine climate, without burning anything. With a bit more of the harvesting of the sun's bountiful energy - say, in the form of gardening - the dependence on oil to transport food from distant lands becomes obsolete. Glass, rocks and gardens? This doesn't seem too intimidating or futuristic to me.

I've read projections that predict a petroleum-free society in upward of 50 years. The futurist predictions for this society often look high-tech and sterile. The people who live in this sci-fi society are kind, compassionate and don't pollute. Out of necessity and simplicity, we may see a post-carbon world much sooner and, as such, we should design our lives to meet the challenges of our limited resources head-on.

Adrianne Hess is a new media major who likes that old-time energy source, the sun.

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