The Long March Home Log - updated 25 Jun 2007

Since declaring my intentions 7 March 2007, I managed to walk to work an average of 3 days each week until 12 May 2007 (the last day of classes at the U. of Arkansas). Since 12 May 2007, I have averaged walking to work 4.7 days each week, greatly exceeding my stated goal of 1 day each week. The figure below presents a log of my mileage to 25 June 2007. The steep blue line is cumulative miles I have walked to-from my workplace, presently just over 350 miles. The magenta line represents the estimated gasoline savings (in U.S. gallons) since beginning the Long March Home. To date, this amounts to only about 19.9 gallons - modest, to be sure, but take note of this: I last filled my car's gas tank on 16 May 2007. Since that time I have used only half the fuel in the tank. At this rate of consumption, I will not fill it again until approximately 1 September 2007 - that will be 3.5 months on one tank of gas! If I could keep that up for an entire year, I would fill my tank less than 4 times. Now imagine if 10,000 Americans did the same thing. Then imagine 10 million Americans doing the same thing...it is not hard to then imagine our loved ones marching home from war.

Periodically I will update this post so others can follow my progress and, perhaps, be inspired to join me.

Devaluing Humanity in a War of Diminishing Returns

Presently, the war for Persian Gulf oil costs $9B per month + the cost for each barrel (totalling about $4.2B/month @ $65/BBL). If Congress approves the $120B package for the next year, the oil war will cost $10B per month (what's an extra billion dollars per month?) + the cost of oil ($4.2B/month assuming $65/BBL) or about $14.2B/month for Perisan Gulf oil. The actual monetary cost per barrel of Persian Gulf oil is about $220/BBL (ca. $65/BBL + our monthly military expenditures), not counting the 'value' of human lives (some estimates suggest it costs $6.5M to train and equip a single soldier; this times 160,000 troops in Iraq = $1B; so, I guess by comparison, life is, indeed, cheap). To date, the 2007 casualty rate is on track to meet the exponential function as I've described it below, thanks to "the surge" and the "insurgents" (of course, I am not including the lives of Iraqis in these calculations). It is beyond time that we develop a culture of conservation. What are you willing to do? One really needs to wonder what other good could be done with billions of dollars each month.