As we enter the third month of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I have been trying to determine how to respond personally. It is difficult to watch a disaster of this magnitude unfold and not be drawn to action. 

Last week, a government panel released a new estimate that 60,000 barrels, roughly 2.5 million gallons, are spewing into the ocean each day. In the United States, we use an incredible 20,680,000 bbl/day. The BP daily spill rate, while mind boggling, would supply the US demand for only four minutes. Demand for oil in the US and Canada is about 3 gallons per person per day, while in other industrialized nations it is less than half of that and the world average is .5 gallons/day.

Should I join the pickets at the local BP gas station? Should I take a few weeks off and go help save oil-soaked pelicans and sea turtles? Should I help lay oil boom or suck oil off the beaches? Or, should I end what George W. Bush called my "addiction to oil?"

I have decided that my response should be to attempt to reduce my oil consumption to below the world average of .5 gallons per day. This is relatively easy for me on the transportation side, because I can bike to work in less than 20 minutes and I can take the #5 bus that stops about 100 feet from my house, and the university has a ZimRide ride sharing network that can help me find a carpool just about anywhere. For this "sacrifice" I will be healthier, lighter and make new friends at the bus stop and in the car pools.

The more difficult piece is determining what my other activities contribute to oil consumption. For example, I am pretty sure that the early corn on the cob I have been enjoying and those bananas on my cereal did not come from Indiana. I will be expanding my garden and relying heavily on local produce from the Farmer's Market for the rest of the summer. The science of the petroleum content of food is not well developed and the amount of petroleum that goes into food and manufactured products is often difficult to get a handle on.  The amount of petroleum required to raise a steer, for example, ranges from 18 to 280 gallons, according to what it eats and where it came from and who is doing the estimating. I think it is safe to say that buying local and regional products and living in a walkable community, close to my work, on a bus line, is a reasonable strategy to move in the right direction.

When I purchase plastics or similar materials that have high petroleum content, I am contributing to the demand for oil, which leads oil companies to drill for oil a mile below the surface to get down another 18,000 feet to reach dwindling supplies, which leads to high risks of the kind playing out on the evening news each night.  When I throw anything away that could have been reused or recycled, I am contributing to the tar balls rolling up on the beaches of Alabama. When I purchase goods that have to be shipped great distances, I am complicit in oiling pelicans to death in the Gulf of Mexico and fouling 120 miles of coastline to date.

When I add to our national addiction to oil, I am personally responsible for the BP oil disaster and I am contributing to increased national security risks due to dependence on foreign oil.

I vow to curb my addiction. No more than half a gallon per day, to start. Perhaps I can learn to live "beyond petroleum" with research, ingenuity, and practice.