Re: Time to cut our dependence on and therefore our interest in the...


"Alan Lichtenstein" <arl@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:xdqdne9-z7pO7ZXeRVn-3A@xxxxxxxxxx
> Jerry Okamura wrote:
>

>>
>>
>> If the predictions are correct, the price of the stuff will rise, so at
>> some point in the future, the average person will not be able to afford
>> the gasoline they use...it is just a matter of time, unless we come up
>> with an alternative to oil.
>
> And you think that's a good thing?

It does not matter if it is a good thing or not does it, it will happen if
we run out of enough oil to meet demand. The same question can be reversed,
i.e. is it a good thing to "force" us to pay for any government initiative
which we do not approve of. Is it a good thing to "force" us to pay more
for a car, in order to "conserve" gasoline. It would seem to me, whether it
is "good" or not, depends on whether we as individuals approve of the money
we are "forced" to pay.
>
>>>>>Fact remains, our society and lifestyles have been built around the
>>>>>personal transportation vehicle and unless we are going to make
>>>>>wholesale changes in those lifestyles, which I assert are highly
>>>>>undesirable, your solution is impractical. It is shortsighted to
>>>>>simply think of the issue a making choices in transportation. It
>>>>>isn't.
>>
>>
>> No it isn't. If people stop buying automobiles that use so much
>> gasoline, then industry will respond. First people will stop buying
>> those gasoline powered cars. Then the auto manufacturers will retool,
>> and start selling alternatives, or they will go broke.
>
> What alternative, Jerry, what alternative? Jerry, you just don't wake up
> one day and say, "Oh, we need a new power source to replace the internal
> combustion engine, and then, poof, we have it by dinner time." It takes
> DECADES, Jerry, DECADES to develop a completely different power source in
> which oil is NOT in the food chain.

That depends on how serious a problem it presents it seems to me. And it
also seems to me it also depends on how fast the shortage occurs. If it
happens over a period of time, then prices will rise over a relatively long
time, which will give the auto manufacturers (as an example) time to start
making alternative modes of transporation. They already sell hybrid
cars,and electric cars, just not a whole bunch of them. It may take four or
five years to ramp up to large scale production, but that it seems to me,
also depends on how big the demand is, and what happpens to the demand for
gasoline powered cars.


.

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