> It is not only your own direct gasoline and electricity bill that tell how much energy you use.

I noted this with my remark that rail (we have six Class I railroads*) and water (ocean and barge) can bring all essentials to us in energy efficient ways.  How much and how fast modal shift occurs is still an open question.

Yes, there is the larger question as well for all the "indirect" energy use.

* Union Pacific, CSX, Burlington Northern-Santa Fe, Norfolk-Southern, Canadian National, Kansas City Southern

You may not be aware, but in order to grow most of the food that you bought in those stores, a whole lot of fossil fuels is needed.  

It will be harder to live in the next 10 years mainly because most of the people have been accustomated to low endosomatic enerfy use.  Growing a garden will be applied first, then permaculture will probably get on rapidly.

Being a Cisco professional (among many other things) I can tell you that powering the whole internet infrastructure takes lot of energy.  Even Google complained about the enery cost of computing last summer.  In order to compute all the stuff they do, they need lots of power.  For that power, the liquid fossil fuels needs to be up and running.

You will probably be able to live good, but you will have to do more that just surfing on the web in order to do so.

You may not be aware, but in order to grow most of the food that you bought in those stores, a whole lot of fossil fuels is needed.

Wolfric, I am sure Alan is very aware of the fossil fuels needed to bring food to the stores. Have you read any of his posts? He is one of the best contributors to TOD...