🚀 go-pugleaf

Bravo for this post.  My great grandfather was a staunch Republican
too, and he'd agree. For Americans with 4% of the world's
population to squander 25% of the world's
limited oil supply, as if there's no tomorrow, is immoral
from a social justice perspective, and from a political and
an environmental perspective, it's insane.

However, higher gas prices ALONE will not be enough.  If we
just let gas and oil prices rise, one thing we'll do is encourage
the global energy industry to produce a lot more fossil fuels.
It's not unthinkable that this could then lead to a temporary DROP
in energy prices again, and the sales of more SUVs and Hummers.

This sounds paradoxical, but it is pretty much what happened
in the early 1980s when world oil prices were soaring and the US
had just decontrolled the oil industry - thanks to a 1978 decision by
the Carter administration, oddly enough, and not the Reaganites.

Especially with Iraq and Iran engaged in a bitter war, world oil
prices in the early 1980s soared to something like $27 a barrel or
more, then suddenly plunged in 1985 to roughly $13/barrel.  It
wasn't global scarcities or global surpluses that did this, but
the vagaries of Middle East politics and disagreements within OPEC.

But in any case, "energy conservation" powered by high prices suddenly
became un-economic, big cars started to come back into fashion, and
the US embarked on the trend towards gas-guzzling SUVs that we see today.

Given the high degree of oligopoly and global cooperation/conflict
that characterizes the global oil market, relying on price trends
alone to promote conservation is a mistake. Higher prices, taken
by themselves, help the oil companies to boost their revenues
and their power, which may not be that good for the environment.

They also screw the poor and those living on fixed incomes,
and they don't guarantee that private enterprise and government
will make the large investments needed -- in mass transit and
in residential housing patterns, for example -- to make a "green"
and sustainable energy future possible.

So if we do embrace higher energy prices, let's make damned sure
that there are safeguards put in place to keep lower-income people
from being ruined in the process -- if only because we don't want
them being mobilized against "environmental elitists" by the 
corporate polluters and amoral economic conservatives of the future. 

Meanwhile, let's use the power of government to make other
essential changes as well -- more public investment in mass
transit systems, higher fuel efficiency standards for new
cars mandated by law, higher federally mandated standards for
the energy efficiciency of large appliances, and maybe some
government-funded pilot projects on making it easier for people
to live near where they shop and work.  

Federal subsidies for promising new alternative energy technologies
and tax breaks for "green" alternative energy development would be good,
too.  

When these measures are combined with higher fuel prices, they
might enable American society to make use of some "market mechanisms"
to promote better energy policies -- but without becoming slaves
of a so-called "free market" in energy that are largely controlled
by the largest corporations on earth, and not by the average individual.


nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com (DonQuijote1954) wrote in message news:<4e4a3f58.0408030903.74d7535e@posting.google.com>...
> Once upon a time, a race of dinosaurs roamed the Earth...
> 
> http://pub36.bravenet.com/forum/3021914257/fetch/330301/
> 
> dinosaur food should cost more 
> common sense, no?
> 
> > The real solution? Make cars safer by moving them over long distances via
> > railcars handling them individually on an automated system.
> 
> The real solution is to INCREASE THE PRICE OF GAS. Stop subsidized
> roads and gas. THEN ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION WILL NATURALLY BECOME A
> REALITY. And a bonus benefit will be greater security...
> 
> 'We keep being told we are at war and yet no one is sacrificing for
> the cause. Everywhere I turn I see Hummers and SUVs with American
> flags waving from antennae like banana republic touring cars and
> "United We Stand" and "We Support the Troops" on the bumpers.'
> 
> June 10 
> 
> Gas Guzzlers 
> What will we be driving "Day After Tomorrow"? Why we need higher gas
> prices.
> by Alan Bisbort 
> 
> Hooray for higher gas prices. Yes, you heard me correctly. I'm glad
> the price of gas is going up. I'm glad that The Day After Tomorrow is
> the world's number-one box office hit. The weaknesses of its plot
> notwithstanding, the film is the sort of bang-on-the-head most people
> need to wake them from their daydream. Will people make the connection
> between disastrous impacts of global warming and fossil fuel use? I've
> given up trying to figure out what it takes to make people see the
> truth, but anything that wakes them from their stupor long enough to
> consider a new idea is a good thing. But about those gas prices. I'd
> like to see them go even higher. Am I a masochist? No, a realist, a
> pragmatist, or call me what you will. I was raised in a household
> headed by a self-made American colonel who came of age in the Great
> Depression and understood, to the very marrow in his bones, the adage,
> "waste not want not."
> 
> Like father, like son. My father was a lifelong Republican of the old
> and improved stripe, and there were many things on which we found
> common ground, including fiscal responsibility, conserving and
> protecting our natural resources, honoring promises, paying back debts
> promptly (actually, not incurring debts if possible), doing an honest
> day's work in exchange for an honest day's pay. My father lived to be
> 92. Throughout his long and active life, he was appalled by the waste
> of Americans. The root of Americans' blissful ignorance, my father (an
> engineer) was certain, was its cheap gas. Nowhere else in the world
> was it so cheap, so taken for granted. He didn't make too many friends
> sharing this thought with colleagues.
> 
> By what birthright do Americans think it is fitting and proper that we
> squander the world's finite supply of fossil fuels? What delusion
> about our superiority do we have that allows us to consume 75 percent
> [I think it's 25%] of the world's natural resources while comprising 5
> percent of the world's population? Looked at from a purely religious
> perspective -- one that Americans insist they abide by -- we are all
> equal in the eyes of God. But we act as if we really believe what
> Orwell said in Animal Farm , "Some animals are more equal than
> others."
> 
> Taking it further, I'd like the price of gas go even higher, with the
> currently proposed 50-cent-per-gallon tax hike to be used to
> underwrite the start-up costs of a viable long-term national energy
> policy that will tap into alternative fuels and reusable energy
> sources. Advocating for this hike, the University of Maryland's Robert
> Park noted, "We need conservation. High gas prices are already pushing
> SUV sales down, but it was OPEC that pushed the price up. If we plan
> to declare war on every country led by a bad guy, we'll need tax
> revenue. We could also think about making CAFE [corporate average fuel
> economy] standards apply to all passenger cars, even if they're SUVs
> and weigh as much as cement trucks. As the price of gas goes up, the
> air gets cleaner, people return to the inner cities, traffic is
> reduced, less time is wasted commuting."
> 
> The price of gas should also be gauged at the pump to reward those who
> drive more fuel-efficient cars, so that someone who drives, say, a
> Toyota Echo would pay 2.50 for the same gallon of gas that would cost
> an SUV driver $4, and, conversely, the driver of a hybrid car $2.
> Hummer drivers would, therefore, pay the highest price for the dubious
> status these cars apparently provide. (Gas prices for transit trucks,
> buses, mass transit, and other vehicles performing vital roles, would
> not be affected by these price hikes). This isn't punishment. It's
> called an incentive system. And it's about time.
> 
> During World War II, Americans pitched in by carpooling, planting
> victory gardens and rationing gas. Signs were posted everywhere that
> read, "Is This Trip Necessary?" and "When You Ride Alone You Ride With
> Hitler." Few people got on their high horses about an individual's
> inalienable right to be a glutton, and those who did were quickly
> shouted down for the jackasses they were. In short, people got the
> message, and cooperated. Seldom, in fact, has there been a more
> unified American populace.
> 
> So what's the difference today? We keep being told we are at war and
> yet no one is sacrificing for the cause. Everywhere I turn I see
> Hummers and SUVs with American flags waving from antennae like banana
> republic touring cars and "United We Stand" and "We Support the
> Troops" on the bumpers.
> 
> Oh, but this war in Iraq is not about oil, is it? In case you missed
> it, the Muzhir al-Dulaymi, spokesman for the League for the Defence of
> Iraqi Peoples' Rights has said that the United States is
> systematically liberating the Iraqi people from their oil.
> 
> "A daylight robbery is going on in Iraq. I have first hand information
> from sources in al-Bakr port in southern Iraq, and in the Turkish port
> of Jihan, confirming that three million oil barrels are being taken
> out of Iraq on a daily basis," Dulaymi said, adding that the Bush
> administration, and its oil company supporters, are benefiting from
> the process.
> 
> http://thomasmc.com/0610ab.htm
> 
> http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote