Oilpocalypse!

[ennyousai]

I'm a little surprised that the very plausible possibility of an energy crisis isn't making it onto the front pages of the Times. Most of what I've found is buried back in the opinion and editorial pages. I think Thomas Friedman's last line in this piece says a lot: And it says that if we don’t have a more serious energy policy, the difference

Comments

[weepingnaiad]

UGH. Let's just say that this all boggles my mind. Of course, I live in Oklahoma, an "oil" state... ha! and you can't get a more short-sighted group of people. As someone who remembers the 70s and the oil embargo and all that came with it, I have been so disappointed in not only our "representatives" who refuse to talk about reality and instead sell snake oil but also the American people who should know better

[ennyousai]

THANK YOU. It's incredibly frustrating to look at the situation as a whole and see all the missed opportunities. I don't get how the 70s weren't a huge wake up call. I mean, it pretty much illustrated how dependent we are on this one resource that is inextricably tied to some of the most unstable regions of the world. You'd think people wouldn't want to repeat that crisis again, and you'd think they'd be intelligent enough to realize that even though prices dropped after the so called crisis passed, oil is a finite resource, and that can't last forever. So why on earth wouldn't you want to develop alternatives?

Of course now, the world is operating at practically no spare capacity whatsoever. Blaaargh. So even if people get with the program, the sad thing is it takes energy and resources to retool the infrastructure and if those are extremely expensive and in short supply it will never get done and...

SCREW IT I NEED MORE WINE.

[imkalena]

I don't get how the 70s weren't a huge wake up call.

One word: Reaganomics.

And people WANTED to believe. They still do. *sigh*

[hyuga]

We should've listened to Jimmy Carter:

Instead, the truth was too scary. So Americans ran screaming in the direction of a brain-dead B-movie actor who told them what they wanted to hear, including ponies, rainbows, and cinnabuns. Because blithe self-indulgence fixes everything!