[DesuMaiden]

My family only has 4 people. I have a sister (who is 18) , my mom and dad, and of course me. Yet despite having only four people in our family, we have two cars. I don't think that's very environmentally-friendly. Plus, my family produces a lot of plastic and paper waste.

I don't think my family's life style is possible to maintain in a post-oil world. Do you have any suggestions on how my family can live in a post-oil world?

[Guthrum]

Buy four bicycles, and learn how to look after them. Buy four small, good, very light weight backpacks. Seal your doors and windows tightly and properly. Buy Hudson's Bay blankets for each bed in the house. Replace your light bulbs with low lumen LEDs (no one needs 60-watt equivalent lumens everywhere). Install a wood fireplace and have a cord of wood on hand. Keep your paper waste to burn in the fireplace or use as composting in a food garden. Start a food garden - nothing spectacular, just onions, garlic, tomatoes, radishes, carrots to start.

And congratulations on being aware enough to see the issue and to ask the question!

[JuanP]

The most environmentally friendly thing you can do in your life is to not produce biological offspring. If you are a man, give some consideration to getting a Vasectomy instead of having children. That's the best thing anyone can do for the environment, nothing else comes even close.
If you need to raise children to be happy, work in a school, volunteer to help them as a Big Brother/Sister or Boy Scout leader, or consider adopting instead of breeding.

[MD]

you and your family won't live in a post oil world. That's not what "peak oil" is all about.

[GregT]

you and your family won't live in a post oil world. That's not what "peak oil" is all about.

That's right. Peak oil is not about a post oil world. It is about a world where oil is either too expensive, or not available, for the average Joe. You and your family don't need to worry about living in a world without oil. You only need to worry about living in a world without oil, for you.