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Feeling rather saturated with "green-speak" these days?

Carbon footprint, sustainable lifestyle -- lots of buzzwords are tossed around now by popular media that have been slow to acknowledge the fix in which we find ourselves or discern useful ways to address it. But as goes our governmental policies and leadership, as well as our own priorities and choices, so go the media. We've all had our heads in the sand. Now that the subject is more front and center, it remains to be seen what we're going to do about it.

I'm certainly no environmental expert, but clearly changes are on the horizon. It's downright scary, and we tend to avoid scary things -- especially when we don't know what to do about them. A basic, practical approach right where we live seems as good a place as any to begin.

In my family as in many, our days are dependent on car travel, beginning with one parent or the other taking our son to school. (Lots of people do this now, despite the inefficiency of the practice, to gain a little time in the morning since the school day starts so early and the bus ride across town takes so long.) Then we go to work -- in separate cars for our convenience because of differing work schedules.

I also pick up our son from school because he gains almost an hour in the afternoon by skipping the bus ride. Like most teens, he has lots of things to do before hitting the hay, and many of them involve being driven to and from specific activities. Then there are my activities at night, and my husband's, requiring an outing by car several times a week. This sometimes necessitates separate, energy-inefficient meal preps or eating out.

Only infrequently can we combine efforts and share a car ride. On a good week we shop for groceries once, but more often we make several shopping trips. I don't plant an extensive garden anymore and therefore don't produce much of our own food -- no time for it.

Why does time so heavily factor into these choices? Because cheap transportation has given us the freedom to layer activity upon activity, to respond spontaneously, to be imprudent. If gas and oil become sufficiently expensive and are in limited supply, how we both organize and spend our time will have to change drastically.

Like downsizing and consolidating all outings by car (such as those described above) or accomplishing them by public transportation, walking or biking. Convenience will take a back seat to what's affordable or possible. Even so, most activities and pursuits outside the home will have to be reconfigured to accommodate participants' transportation constraints or else fall away. The day of the long work commute will be over, too. We'll have to find ways to adjust.

Expensive fuel in short supply will severely limit the distribution and availability of food and other goods in ways we've not seen before. What can we do? The most obvious responses: a vegetable garden in every yard, buying from the local farmers market, pressure-canning or freezing food as was commonplace a generation ago, more conservative use of manufactured goods, taking the time to repair things rather than replace them and supporting new development of local goods and services.

Challenging, even daunting -- but overall, this scenario doesn't seem terrible beyond measure. In fact, it describes a somewhat familiar world, like the way things used to be in the not-too-distant past. Perhaps if we think of what's ahead less in terms of catastrophe and more as a do-over with improvements, we can move beyond our fear and denial, and get started.

Susan Stevens Huckle lives and writes in Blacksburg.