By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

The ‘Toothpaste Theory’ of petroleum usage

Let me wax prophetic on you for a second. The planet will run out of oil one day. How about that for a prognostication!

Of course the date that happens depends on us; our oil conservation methods, our new drilling technology and our dedication to sacrifice humans adorned in gold-lame Adidas sweat suits to appease the fuel gods and keep the refineries full of light sweet crude for the foreseeable future. While laws and morality have thrown up some roadblocks on the road to human sacrifice town, which in my opinion is probably the most surefire way to solve the energy crisis, there are at least two ways we can get more days out of the planet’s remaining oil supply and they are rationing and maximization. For the best way to illustrate what I am talking about take a look in your bathroom for some easy to understand examples.

Just think about the planet’s energy resources like a couple of everyday personal hygiene products. For example, when you have a tube of toothpaste that is just about empty, and a trip to the grocery or drug store isn’t in your immediate future, you conserve and maximize. The amount of Crest you slap on the old Tooth Polisher 3000 is rationed to just enough to get the job done. You figure out the perfect amount just enough to get your teeth clean and fresh, and you get the most out of the dwindling resource – the toothpaste tube.

Think about the way you used the toothpaste when you first got the new tube, laying on the minty goodness in overdone globs out of proportion with what you actually need to clean your chompers. Hey, I’m way guilty of this, acting like the toothpaste supplied in a new tube will be around forever and not thinking of the future and what I will do when the toothpaste runs out.

Well I think the global fuel consumer is well past the heyday of unscrewing the top on a brand new tube of world energy supply, so now is the time to use just the right amount to get the job done without wasting the dwindling resource. There is also another part of the solution when it comes to the last days of your toothpaste supply, and that is making sure you get all the paste out of the tube.

Some people roll the tube. I for one am fond of using the edge of the bathroom counter as a scraping tool, forcing the dentifrice down the tube to the spout, making sure none of the teeth-whitening mintiness goes undiscovered and unused. This process goes hand in hand with rationing the remaining toothpaste, as it should with the world fuel supply. We should be cautious of the planet’s remaining energy and judiciously use what is left. At the same time, technology must be used to make sure we don’t leave any fossil fuels behind in places we might have when the living was easy and the crest was flowing.

While we are comparing global fuel resources with bathroom products, it comes to mind that the way we use shampoo also fits the energy-saving mold. A fresh bottle of shampoo causes one to be flippant with his use of hair soap, but when you get toward the end of your bottle of pro-vitamin-frizz reduction-color safe-sensitive scalp-moisturizing shampoo, you tend to be conservative in how much of it you use.

Some people say we are getting to the half-way point in the world’s supply of fossil fuels so it is time to use just enough to get by to make that big bottle of Pert-Plus dinosaur bones last us just as long as possible. Eventually, in one or a thousand lifetimes, we will be at the end of the oil bottle, trying to squeeze out the very last, just the way you use a shot or two of water in the bottle to try and rinse out the last of the shampoo. To put that day off, we need to learn that it is OK to shampoo, but not to do so much rinsing and repeating.

Now for my solutions, I have two ways I believe we can slow down the world’s energy consumption and possibly disarm the current energy crisis. Both of these solutions are based in the world of recreational fuel burning. I’m not talking about Friday night cruising in your car or joy riding the boat around Dauphin Island, I’m talking something more nationwide and possibly more close to the American psyche. I’m talkin’ reforming NASCAR events and monster truck rallies.

First let me take on the sacred cow of NASCAR. I’m not calling for the elimination of stock car racing, but I do see the sport pitching in and doing its fair share to help reduce gasoline consumption. If NASCAR just reduced their racing speeds to the much safer and more fuel-efficient speed of 55 mph then think about how much gas would be saved and how many more hours of race time the fans would get for their dollar. The program could be called “Backin’ Off It For America,” and individual drivers could show how much they loved the country by putting their race cars on cruise control and winning by being the best lane changer or having to stop fewer times for gas.

While just a flicker in the shadow of stock car racing, the world of monster trucks is also a nitro- and gas-fueled entertainment source to be reckoned with. Slowing down the speeds is not the reform needed in this type of moto-tainment, but there are a few changes that can be made to this spectacle to help conserve energy resources.

First of all I suggest that “Grave Digger,” “Maximum Destruction” and “Bounty Hunter” choose to run over smaller cars and possibly even go-carts and Segways to limit the amount of gas they need to burn to entertain us. If the big four-door sedans the monster truckers use as demolition props today were replaced by Citroens, Neons and ‘80s model Corollas, that much less gas would be required by said monster trucks to squash them and the crowd would cheer and we’d use a little less of the world’s toothpaste tube of energy.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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