1. Reduce your personal oil consumption and conserve. Start getting used to it.
• Downsize your family to one fuel-efficient vehicle; carpool and rideshare.
• If you must drive, plan the timing to avoid heavy traffic and congestion.
• Purchase items made locally instead of from afar. Support localization.
• Plan errands so you aren’t hauling a 2 ton machine with you every time you just want a gallon of milk or “something for dinner”, or need to pick up the dry cleaning.
• In advance of each errand, mentally calculate how much the motor fuel will cost for that trip.
• Improve the insulation in your home and drastically improve your home’s efficiency.
• Adjust your thermostat to reduce energy use. Get a programmable thermostat.
• Replacing your light bulbs now with long-life compact fluorescents , over the life of that compact florescent bulb, you will save the energy equivalent of 500 pounds of coal.
• At least INVESTIGATE the State and Federal credits for installing solar panels, solar hot water, or purchasing highly efficient appliances, like EnergyStar appliances -- see if they can work for you.
• Plan to convert your home away from natural gas or heating oil for space and water heating soon.
• Reduce your use/purchase of products made from oil (like plastics and petro-chemicals)
• Reduce your use of electronic devices. Get power strips and switch them off when idle.
• Design and build, and insulate efficiently, to minimize energy requirements
• Use manual tools instead of power tools (lawnmower, weed eater, food processor, etc.)
• Reduce and eliminate your debt. An economic crisis could cause lenders to call in loans. The absolute worst thing you can do is to borrow to pay for basic living expenses...like for groceries or gas.

2. Think and Support “Localization” versus “Urban Sprawl”
• Lobby community leadership for walking/biking community designs, versus sprawl
• Move closer to work or work closer to home. Better yet, telecommute or go to a reduced work week (four 10-hour days.) Go ahead, ask your company. Explain why.
• Support farmers markets and CSA’s. Purchase/utilize locally produced products and services (w/in a 100 mile radius : conserves fuel and keeps your dollars circulating in your community.)

3. Get Involved – Become an activist (at least in your own home)
• Educate yourself on the peak oil issue, and understand the implications
• Educate yourself on how oil shortages will specifically impact you and your city
• Talk to others in your family and community about it – encourage a dialog
• Get to know your neighbors – now.
• Start a garden at home now; learn bio-intensive methods; learn to preserve food for storage.
• Identify wasteful behavior and be courageous enough to speak up about it
• Pull people along with the idea of conservation rather than push it on them
• Submit ideas to your local community leadership on ways to prepare for the post peak oil world, and then follow up and track what they are doing. Vote accordingly.
• Lobby your community leaders to spend heavily now on renewable energy, electricity-based mass transit, and improving localized agricultural practices (like community gardens, farmers markets, CSA’s, more effective land-use and zoning practices, etc.)
• Lobby your community leaders to reduce spending for more roads, urban sprawl and inefficient infrastructures, or policies that encourage or require long-distance consumption.
• Keep your dollars in the local community wherever possible. Re-localize.
• Think about everything you do in relation to how your life will be affected after oil hits peak production.

In speaking with public officials I have learned that letters from constituents really do make a difference in their decision-making. So send them already.