Bob Herbert (NY Times) on Energy Conservation..

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/opinion/05herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Sometimes the most logical, most obvious solutions are the most difficult to see.

While the presidential campaign was mired in the egregious and the trivial last week, there was a hearing in Washington that addressed what should be a critical component of the nation’s energy strategy. It got very little attention.

Put aside for a moment all the talk about alternative fuels. They are no doubt important and the wave of the future. But the fastest, cheapest, easiest and cleanest step toward a sane energy environment — a step available to all of us immediately — is the powerful combination of efficiency and conservation.

That was the message delivered again and again at a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee that carried the title, “Efficiency: The Hidden Secret to Solving Our Energy Crisis.”

Two political leaders who are no longer very fashionable were on to this long ago — former Gov. Jerry Brown of California (derided as “Governor Moonbeam”) and former President Jimmy Carter, who presciently said of the energy crisis in 1977: “With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetime.”

..snip

I'd say more like we don't hear about this because there's not some huge sector of the business world poring mega-$$$ into our political system that will benefit.

But that is the only way that we are going to solve the energy issue. Unfortunately, when the people running the country are oil men, who feel that conservation is a virtue and not a policy, we are never going to get anything done.

:shrug: