After reading the threads recently about the high oil prices and the back and forth about who's to blame for it and what to do about it I'm going to come right and say it that I support high oil prices and I think they might be a good thing. I understand this is a really unpopular POV but all of the bellyaching about oil prices and half-@ssed solutions coming out of DC are convincing me that a longterm rise in oil prices are what we need to kick us off of an energy source that should've long since seen its day like relying on wood. Unfortunately humans being the short sighted creatures that we are are unwilling to undertake great change unless we are forced into it. Well with expensive oil now is the the time to start making great change. Think about how ridiculous it is been to rely on a power source that: 1. Extraction of, transportation of, processing of and use of is very hazardous and damaging to the environment. I mean just consider why can't we run an internal combustion engine indoors? We're dependent upon a motor that poisons us. 2. That has pretty much driven our foreign and military policy since some of the major sources are in places that have a lot of other problems to begin with. 3. For that matter oil wealth hasn't proved to be as great of a blessing to many of the countries where its found. For instance Nigeria, being an extractable resource it hasn't fostered longterm development like say developing a new infrastructure or technology but has instead too often proved an easy way for corrupt and unresponsive regimes to make a quick buck instead of honestly facing indemic systematic problems. 4. Access to cheap oil for so long has created an unsustainable development pattern that is damaging to the environment, segregating too society and also wasteful of not only energy but time. We have the technology to make oil obsolete and its just a matter of getting the collective will to start implementing those. Right now we have within our means as consumers to reduce the amount of oil we use through, and I know this scares many of you, Conservation. Even in a city like Houston there are still ways of reducing your overall energy conservation. Again though none of this will happen unless we get the kick in our wallets of high oil prices. So instead of all these half-measures that just prolong our addiction to a harmful wasteful energy source lets start kicking the oil habit. So let oil go to $5 a gallon to me that's going to help us cut down on burning oil like raising cigarette taxes $2 a pack cut down on smoking.
I agree completely. Anything to reduce our dependence on antiquated fossil fuel technology, and rid us of all this ridiculous traffic and replace the automobile with actual *gasp* mass transit.
i hear ya. but i can't go there. there's too many low-income people whose lives are affected adversely by this. when you have to make decisions with very little disposable income, this eats into that.
With regard to high gas prices, if people are unable to drive as far for commodities, market forces will dictate that entrepenours open businesses closer to neighborhoods - even completely within suburbs. It may suck for a little while - but the eventual un-sprawling will occur.
I would be supportive of them if other methods were seriously being sought to power our cars, boats, planes, lawnmowers, etc. but I just haven't seen this happening. I would think these large prices would spur the interest and pursuit of newer and cheaper technology.
The pain of transitioning off of oil is inevitable. I agree that its better to get 'er done now. I always said we'd see some changes if we paid what Japanese or Europeans pay for gas. We might as well lead the world in alternate technology instead of paying someone else for it.
I don't deny at all there will be great pain. I'm counting on that pain to motivate people to change. Yes low income people are screwed but given the volatile nature of oil and that its a finite resource its inevitable they will be since they're stuck with our current oil infrastructure. So they, and the rest of us, will get screwed by high oil prices sooner or later. I contend that if we don't address it will be much worse later. Now is the time to start addressing this problem rather than stick our head in the sand or put band aids on it. Just saying that well we have to think about how this will eat into the disposable income is like saying we should supply heroin to addicts so they don't use up all of their money buying it from exorbitant dealers.
We are just going have to rethink a real need for some things like lawnmowers etc. It's just not alternative energy, but alternative ways of thinking and living. (but I don't mean an alternative lifestyle )
Keep the price high. Repeal the Bush tax cuts -- at least the majority of which went to the very wealthy. Use it to start a crash program for new energy and to help with the pain for poor folks, without encouraging them to just keep with the old gas guzzlers and the soon to be discared SUV's. Drag out the old Jimmy Carter speeches of 30 years ago in which he said the coming energy crisis was an urgent threat to national security and then have the GOP apologize to him for demagoguing that as inferior to the sunny bs of ol Ronnie Reagan leading to the present mess. Explain how they are sorry, that we did not react how Brazil did back then, which is now off of imported oil. They can even blame it on faulty intelligence for all I care. They can hide Cheney's involvement in destroying Carter's program.
Rimrocker, if you see the Movie "The End of Suburbia" about peak oil, you will be selling your NM home asap, unless it is in downtwon Albuquergue, Santa Fe or wherever.
It's on the market... I had a buyer set to close at the first of April... he backed out on March 29. After much legal nastiness, I got a little extra beyond the earnest money and get to start over again trying to sell the thing.
I agree with your reasons, and hope that the good you talk about will come from it. What I don't like about it is the fact that oil companies are profitting at the expense of all the rest of us. I don't mind profit earned, but saying that there are all these other factors that make it necessary for the oil to cost that much, when it clearly isn't necessary. The oil companies were already profitable. Furthermore it is the policy they helped Cheney right that is part of the problem, and now they are making a killing because of it. If there was a way, to hold them accountable, and stick it to them while keeping the prices high, then that might be worth it.
I use a push mower to mow my lawn. The only motor on it is me. It takes longer but I get a decent workout doing it.
