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From: inc@fluke.UUCP (Gary Benson)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Dave Barry - Postpetroleum Guzzler
Message-ID: <489@tpvax.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jan-85 14:03:44 EST
Article-I.D.: tpvax.489
Posted: Wed Jan  2 14:03:44 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 05:08:04 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 104


	    *-  P O S T P E T R O L E U M    G U Z Z L E R  -*
 
						-By Dave Barry

[Reprinted without permission
New Shelter, Nov/Dec 1982]



    I don't want to be judgmental or anything, but if you still heat your 
home with oil, you are a worthless piece of antienvironment slime. Oil is
what we ecology-oriented persons call a "nonrenewable" resource, which means
all of it was formed billions of years ago by dinosaurs that fell on the
ground and rotted. The dinosaurs were eventually covered with sand, which
was in turn covered with Middle Eastern countries, and all this weight
caused the dinosaurs to turn into oil. 

    The problem, of course, is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form
oil with. Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form
oil using other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle
Eastern countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats, etc.,
but so far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous
bulldozer-rental bill and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. None of the
animals turned into oil, although most of the laboratory rats developed
cancer. 

    This means that the oil you use to heat your home has come all the way 
from the Middle East by a very complex and wasteful process. Here's how it
works: every day, millions of barrels of oil are sucked out of the ground,
removed from the barrels, and pumped onto huge ships, which sink instantly.
The oil washes up on shore and is collected in buckets by people with filthy
legs who load it into fuel-oil-company trucks, which deliver it to your
house. Since this is a distance of almost 13,000 miles, much of it over
water, only the toughest and fastest trucks get through, and they burn up
most of the oil on the way. Geologists now believe that if we continue to
consume oil at the current rate, we will use up all of the earth's oil
reserves by tomorrow afternoon at around 3:30. So you'd better find some
other way to heat your house, pronto. 

    One excellent way is to use wood. Wood is highly ecological, since 
trees are a renewable resource. If you cut down a tree, another will grow in
its place. And if you cut down the new tree, still another will grow. And if
you cut down that tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a
mutation with long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it
will sit there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when
you come back. 

    Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when
a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly,
lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the cavemen  stared
at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood heat!" The other
cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with
stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the
cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went
way up. 

    To heat your house with wood, you'll need a good wood source. The best 
wood sources are woodpiles, which can be found in most suburban backyards in
early fall. You should gather your wood very early in the morning, wearing
dark clothing and a loaded sidearm. You should try to gather hardwoods, such
as veneer, because these extinguish themselves automatically seconds after
you light them, which makes them very safe. You should avoid the softwoods,
such as cork, because these burn far too easily. You can cause a piece of
softwood to explode into flame merely by dropping it on the ground. 

    Now you'll need someplace to burn your wood. You should not use your 
fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion,
fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. Really, that's what scientists
believe. In fact many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their
houses in the summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August
day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist
sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily. 

    Instead of a fireplace, you should heat your house with a woodstove, 
preferably one that is airtight. To test for airtightness, leave a smallish
animal that your children have not grown fond of, such as a chicken, inside
the stove for several days. You can use the chicken later to clean your
chimney. 

    If you don't want to go the woodstove route, you should consider solar 
heat. Solar heat comes from the sun, which is really nothing more that a
nearby star, which means it could explode at any minute. In the meanwhile,
though, the sun is giving off scads of energy in the form of rays, which
slam into the earth at nearly the speed of light and bounce back into outer
space, where they illuminate the moon, form comets, etc. But these rays can
also be trapped and used to form heat. If you could retain just
one-billionth of the rays that hit your house every day, all of your
appliances would melt. 

    There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect 
the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the sunlight
that hits your neighbors' homes, too. 

    The other popular alternative home heat sources are wind, water, 
nuclear power, and beer. When I heated my home with oil, I used an average
of 800 gallons a year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an
entire winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer. 


-- 
Gary Benson ms232e -*- John Fluke Mfg Co -*- Box C9090 -*- Everett WA 98206 USA
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