Attention: TDR Forum Junkies Folks, it feels good to let off steam occasionally by griping about Big Oil, OPEC, fuel taxes and such-like (and all of these do have small effects on the price of fuel), but ya gotta bear in mind the main problem: the Good Lord only made so much oil, and He done went outta the oil-makin' business altogether a coupla million years ago (without asking my opinion first, unfortunately). Meanwhile, we're pumpin' and burnin' more and more of the stuff every year, and with China's and India's economies booming the way they've started to (that's a lotta new gas pedals!) its only going to get worse. Unfortunately its an unbreakable law that when more and more money chases less and less stuff, the stuff will become more and more expensive... and that's what's happening today.
It wasn't too widely reported, but last year was a landmark in human history: for the first time, the amount of oil the human race pumped outta the ground exceeded the amount of new oil deposits it discovered... that is to say, we've started on the way down to runnin' out. Sure, it'll take a while yet, but things only get worse from here.
Meanwhile, we're doin' just about squat to improve our situation. The good news is that energy conservation has helped a lot... today, it takes about 50% less energy to earn a dollar of GDP than it did 30 years ago, mostly due to more efficient equipment (electric motors, trucks and planes, lighting and heating systems, email, etc). Using energy efficiently has a huge impact on keeping the price of oil down. The bad news is, most of those efficiency gains happened a decade or more ago... I don't think anyone would argue that there's not much more we can do to conserve energy - look at the new 50 MPG passenger cars, and look at how few people actually own one... but our elected leaders are sitting on their duffs instead of making energy efficiency a national priority.
As well, if God ain't makin' any more oil, then prolly we should start taking up the slack ourselves. We can grow our own oil, dang it -- do a search on 'biodiesel' to learn more. But today biodiesel is a drop in the bucket, mostly because our politicians choose to subsidize tobacco farmers and lawyers, but not biodiesel producers.
So yeah, definitely, please e-mail your congressman ( http://www.house.gov/writerep/ ), your senators ( http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm ), and the president ( -- email address removed -- ). But don't just gripe to them about the sad state of things... nobody cares about what ticks you off. Instead, demand productive solutions: real efforts to promote energy efficiency, and real efforts to promote alternative fuels like biodiesel... . action, not just election-year lip-flapping.
It wasn't too widely reported, but last year was a landmark in human history: for the first time, the amount of oil the human race pumped outta the ground exceeded the amount of new oil deposits it discovered... that is to say, we've started on the way down to runnin' out. Sure, it'll take a while yet, but things only get worse from here.
Meanwhile, we're doin' just about squat to improve our situation. The good news is that energy conservation has helped a lot... today, it takes about 50% less energy to earn a dollar of GDP than it did 30 years ago, mostly due to more efficient equipment (electric motors, trucks and planes, lighting and heating systems, email, etc). Using energy efficiently has a huge impact on keeping the price of oil down. The bad news is, most of those efficiency gains happened a decade or more ago... I don't think anyone would argue that there's not much more we can do to conserve energy - look at the new 50 MPG passenger cars, and look at how few people actually own one... but our elected leaders are sitting on their duffs instead of making energy efficiency a national priority.
As well, if God ain't makin' any more oil, then prolly we should start taking up the slack ourselves. We can grow our own oil, dang it -- do a search on 'biodiesel' to learn more. But today biodiesel is a drop in the bucket, mostly because our politicians choose to subsidize tobacco farmers and lawyers, but not biodiesel producers.
So yeah, definitely, please e-mail your congressman ( http://www.house.gov/writerep/ ), your senators ( http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm ), and the president ( -- email address removed -- ). But don't just gripe to them about the sad state of things... nobody cares about what ticks you off. Instead, demand productive solutions: real efforts to promote energy efficiency, and real efforts to promote alternative fuels like biodiesel... . action, not just election-year lip-flapping.
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