The bitter Fossil Fuel pill

No one wants to go on TV and tell the truth about oil and gas, which is that they have been 'way too cheap for too long, and that's one way we have built this roaring consumer economy. Instead, high prices at the pump and the furnace are being tossed back and forth in some sort of short-term gain game.

The fact is that the exit from a petroleum-based economy (along with rescuing the Press) is the biggest issue of all, and no party or politician wants preside over this inevitability, but everybody wants to get elected.

Just watch how the pols treat high fuel prices. It's pure cowardice.

... the subject of depleting finite resources; he was mocked and ridiculed.

I agree with all that you stated. Their cowardice will destroy us all.

not only as a good man but as President as well.

This has been going on since the oil shocks of the seventies. Those were the wake up call that should have alerted us to future problems. It was the Peak Domestic Oil shock, and it hit us hard. Carter and a few other visionaries started to wean us off of oil through tax incentives, the use of the bully pulpit, and investment into R&D. It was a noble start, but one that came to naught, for shortly after the Reagan administration came to power, they scrapped virtually everything Carter had started.

Rather, we went merrily down the petroleum path, relying more and more on foreign oil to fuel our country. Wind turbines and solar panels and conservation were for those weenie liberal hippy types who went back to nature(though if you looked closely, you could see that quietly the power elite were equipping their country homes with their very own turbines and solar panels)

Now we're more addicted to oil that ever before, and we're facing the stark prospect of having to go cold turkey. Instead of having half of our energy being produced by renewable alternative energy sources(that was the goal under Carter), we are having to scramble to even produce one percent. Meanwhile, the oil barons who run our government keep whistling past the graveyard, telling the public that everything is fine, it will all work out in the end, perhaps we should conserve a little, but whatever you do, don't go away from oil.

But the American public is finally waking up and are taking matters into their own hands. Those who can afford to are erecting their own wind turbines and solar panels. SUVs and pickup trucks are rusting away on dealers' lots, while hybrids, bio-diesel, and other alternatively fueled vehicles can't be made quick enough. Scooters and small motorbikes are experiencing a mammoth surge in sales, and carpools are once again popular.

So while this administration continues to try and talk up the oil based economy, a quiet but steady revolt away from oil is going on, and it is only going to get bigger the hirer oil prices go. People simply can't afford to pay the big bucks to fill their tanks anymore, so their finding alternatives. Same with home heating, as woodstoves are experiencing a resurgence in popularity. Sorry George, but the tides of capitalism are working against you and your oil buddies, and they eventually will swamp your little boat.

But sad to say, it is going to be a real painful transition for a lot of people, much more painful than if we had followed through with Carter's modest start. People are going to die, and as always, it is going to be the poor and those on fixed incomes who are going to pay the price. Hopefully some compassionate people on the state and local level will start offering some energy assistance to these folks, otherwise we are going to have the specter of seeing one of the most powerful countries in the world experiencing a massive die off among our populations most vunerable members. How very sad and tragic, for it was all preventable.

But at least Americans are starting to wake up, and realize what a line of shit they've been fed by those oily corporate greed heads. Hopefully, once the intial shock wears off they won't go back to sleep, but instead will continue forward and take this country completely off of oil. For all of our sakes, we have got to do just that.

in complete accord is that the grass roots will tend to move toward conservation. My view is that people's fear (being very effectively fanned by the corporate media) translates so readily into personal greed that they will do almost anything for comfort and convenience. As I write this I'm looking out onto a small-town city street and the Pacific Coast Highway, and more than half the vehicles rolling here, right now, are 1/2 ton and greater. WTF?