Oil Standard
Check out this fascinating browser plugin:
Oil Standard is a web browser plug-in that converts all prices from U.S. Dollars into the equivalent value in barrels of crude oil.
When you load a web page, the script seamlessly inserts converted prices into the page. As the cost of oil fluctuates on the commodities exchange, prices rise and fall in real-time.
I’d love to see a plug-in that (somehow) estimates how much oil it took to produce/transport that product. So you could comparison shop based on environmental impact.
Or to see and Environmental Impact Score (EIS) at the grocery store:
Locally Grown Organic Apples: (tranported from Blaine, MN)
$4 lb
(0.6 barrels of oil on 3/23/06)
EIS 25
Chilean Apples (flown in to Miami and trucked to Minneapolis)
$2 lb
(0.3 barrels of oil on 3/23/06)
EIS 280
What is the better deal? 