If you had to live without one of the following for a year -

[Dhurn]

Fossil fuels, because I have a wood stove to heat the house anyway. Showers would be cold, but I could heat water over the stove and sponge bath or something. Bike to class ~4 miles away. The biggest thing I would worry about is the pipes freezing, I'd probably have to use an extension cord and a blowdryer to keep them warm. Losing electricity and running water would be a much greater hassle though.

[Yirrah]

I'm guessing someone has already pointed this out but...Hydrogen is a combustible gas. It is also part of the water molecule. No Hydrogen, no water, no water, no...well. Life. So option #1 isn't really viable.

[Rukentuts]

I'm guessing someone has already pointed this out but...Hydrogen is a combustible gas. It is also part of the water molecule. No Hydrogen, no water, no water, no...well. Life. So option #1 isn't really viable.

Chemically it's different, because burned hydrogen = water. When you burn something, you are oxidizing it.

2 H2 + O2 = 2 H2O

[Hardstyler01]

Running water is probably the most useless of the three currently. Only minor problem is you would need to buy water in a store to shower, make dinner and all that. Only major problem without running water is where would we leave our shit. Hygiene would become a problem.

If we found a new reliable powersource we could do without fossil fuels perhaps. But we don't have one right now, so without fossil fuels transportation and thus the economy would go to hell. Stores would be empty so we would all starve rather fast.

Electricity is probably the most important of the three. Without it, our entire modern lifestyles would be gone. It would be like going back a few hundred years.

[apepi]

Running water, I have water right out side my house, all I would have to do is purify it myself.

[goobernoob]

if we don't have fossil fuels i would't have electricity here as the grid is powered by a coal fired plant in this area.
if i don't have electricity i don't have running water, i have my own well.
inversely if i had fossil fuels i would have electricity and thus running water since we have a generator.
as it is, none of those options are possible without sacrificing all of them.

[Puremallace]

I saw 1st one for the simple I work close enough I could ride a bike

[Gamdwelf]

I saw 1st one for the simple I work close enough I could ride a bike

but most energy is produced by fossil fuels and many plastics are made with oil so you can't have those either.

[Lovestar]

Showering + My computer.

What more does a person need? :p

[Decagon]

Well, it's negative something outside, and my house doesn't have very good insulation, so I'd likely freeze to death or be VERY miserable without natural gas. However, it also snows a lot in the winter, I couldn't live without electricity, no computers, no Decagon. However, without water, we could just buy lots at the store, or if that doesn't count, we already have about 5 months of water in storage, plus it snows a lot.

[Symphonic]

Option 1 means you can't fart either!

Showering + My computer.

What more does a person need? :p

Depends on if your water is heated from natural gas or not.

[Harry Botter]

Ill add more to my first post in here.

I could do away with all 3. I still have a manual well pump for water. I live in a forest/wooded area so I got heat and a way to cook there. I can also hunt very well and can my own veggies for storage. So I guess if it came down to it I could survive well.

Having said that. I would really would like to not to have to use my survival training as I love video games too much lol.

[checking facts]

#1, I never use them anyway, since I walk everywhere on foot lol

[smrund]

I vote for electricity. Running water is a must, especially when it gets cold where I live. While I could live without a car, I could subsitute oil, propane, or natural gas for a lot of the basic electric appliances, hell even just burning wood or coal.

[Kissme]

Assuming I could still do my job without electricity, I would choose electricity as it would be the easiest to live without, especially if no fossil fuels means no food brought in through fossil fuels or grown using fossil fuel powered vehicles and tools.

Electricity would remove the most entertainment value things (no TV, music, computer, etc), but it's also the easiest to do without. You can use an icebox instead of a fridge as well as increasing non-perishables in your grocery shopping and shopping more frequently. You go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier going to a solar cycle - would suck here in Canada, but it's doable. And you can BBQ or use gas or wood powered stoves instead of electrical stoves and microwaves.

And you'd still have entertainment. Spend time outside, visit with friends, board and card games, reading, etc.

Water would be second easiest to remove, although it would result in far more noticeable changes in life, especially in urban areas where you would only have bottled water.

Fossil Fuels would be nearly impossible to live without. No food tied to fossil fuels removes nearly all food. No efficient heat (can't do that in northern latitudes in urban centers). Grid locked transport. No plastics - which means no TV, no computers, no music etc anyways. This would have all the negatives of no electricity combined with additional problems. Anyone that chose this wasn't thinking things through. You can't bike without fossil fuel related things (grease, etc), you'd have no perishable foods that weren't local, no non local goods of any sort. Go through your house and get rid of everything that wasn't made within 100 miles. Then get rid of any remaining item which includes plastics and other synthetics.

Yeah . . . as much as our green ideology wishes we could just drop fossil fuels from the equation for a year, the way our lives currently are in the First World Nations, it's not feasible.