Reply #10: Here is my view

[kristopher]

(From my journal) Most of the oil production is controlled by state entities. Sometimes those entities act to address world problems related to crude production. What if, instead of a petroleum shortage due to geologic constraints, we are looking at a world community acting to put the US on an energy diet whether we like it or not.
They spent the 80s and 90s turning the production of this societal lynch pin into an affair informed by newly enhanced (computers) understanding of economic behavior of people. (Did you see Syriana, and get the main point of the movie?) The price of gasoline is now DOUBLE the highest predicted for now at the time of Kyoto, while coal is 1/4 of the price predicted.
I interpret that as coal being our non-reaction and the price of oil being their response to our non-action. I mean, we were expected to take action on this issue. We've made a lot of "good for the world" arguments to all of these state players about why they should pump oil every time our economy gets a cold, but under both clinton and bush we were buttheads and abdicated our leadership role on CC (a proven global crisis) to focus on our coal industry and then, to top it all off, we invaded IRAQ for fossil politics under the guise of responding to 911.

If you had control of the oil spigot, what would you do; continue to feed a bloated powermad but necessary beast, or tame it and put it on a healthy diet?