Scott Crytser, Charlotte, NC, USA

I am doing the minimum in the face of the pending doom: I rabble-rouse and educate; I recycle; I keep up on the technology such as attending the Clean Air Car Fair this weekend in the mountains of North Carolina; and we drive a Prius.

We also just moved (again) to be near our employment. And that is an option that more people ought to consider.

I was able to move across the street from my last job and walk to work. Fantastic. And when I was determined to locate a better firm with better pay and benefits, I simply added the search for a good neighborhood into the equation. Not that hard.

I now have a mile and a quarter commute. Don't walk everyday like before. But I bicycle. And when I drive I am on the road about four minutes. My wife who has a 10 minute commute uses the Prius and I drive the Volvo. A tank of gas lasts over two months.

The home values for the working professional are probably under $300,000 if our experience is typical. That is an easy price range to find almost anywhere. In any town. So few people find strong links to their neighbors anyway, that cynically speaking, we're all interchangeable in that way. To hear folks talk, the schools all stink. So all things being equal at least eliminate a prime nuisance - sitting in stalled traffic for hours and hours each week.

Almost all of my co-workers are totally mixed up with their jobs. They drive over an hour each way all the way across town. They could have the same house across the street from the office. And take 40 or 50 more hours out of each month for themselves and their families. More importantly, the energy they might save would allow them to hold onto the weighty SUVs and macho pickups that they all drive to a man. A little longer.

The energy savings that it would mean for the US and the world would be fantastic if people would try to move in above their places of business. Not literally but within a mile or two.