High prices may curb global warming
If Americans aren’t motivated by environmental concerns they are at least moved to action, or in this case into just staying home, by the damage to their pocket book.
The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.
Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less — that’s 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.” Records have been kept since 1942.
According to AAA, for the first time since 2002, Americans said they were planning to drive less over the Memorial Day weekend than they did the year before.
Hopefully gas will hit $15 per gallon and then America will be the greenest country on the planet. Meanwhile others are claiming peak oil to be a hoax and blame rising prices on market manipulations.
Washington is trying to shift blame, as always, to Arab oil producers and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The problem is not a lack of crude oil supply. In fact, the world is in over-supply now. Yet the price climbs relentlessly higher. Why? The answer lies in what are clearly deliberate US government policies that permit the unbridled oil price manipulations.
The world is not in over-supply, if growth continues exponentially as it has in the past, we positively have reached ‘peak oil’. Yes, prices are being manipulated to the benefit of big oil and to the detriment of almost every other industry but what these reports show is conservation, more than any other tactic, renewable resource or, gasp, nuclear power, will have the biggest impact on the economy and the environment.
Thank you for this M. I've been asking on The World and The Forum for the Editorial Board at The ...
http://www.larryvanelsberg2010.com/index.html 
Thanks, Den, this is very useful 
Comment by mudstump on 27 May 2008:
While I have been trying to conserve for some time now, I have been thinking of more ways I can “not use” oil/gas. I got my bike out with the idea that I would ride over to my girlfriend’s house. Well, I rode about 2 miles and had to turn around after realizing that this was a little too ambitious for my first ride in about 5 years. I wanted to be able to walk the next day. Now I’m in training. Looking for a bike that is a little easier on my body. I don’t like being bent over with all of the weight on my wrists and then having to crick my neck to look forward. Can you tell I’m getting older???
Comment by magix on 27 May 2008:
Just keep at it. I ride from 30 to 40 miles per day and I am ‘older’. Biking is really pretty easy on your joints ‘cept when you crash and then it has been bad on my wrists and my ribs.
Little things add up, like not using the dryer so often, LED lights and buying local produce that is not shipped hundreds of miles. Also, and I am terrible at this, using reusable grocery bags and not those horrid plastic things (I forget my bags almost every time).
Comment by mudstump on 27 May 2008:
Magix – I do use my cloth grocery bags. When I am in Portland I shop at Whole Foods and they donate 5c per bag to charities they have listed at the cash register. I like that idea. It’s too bad we don’t have a similar program at Coos Head Foods where I shop in NB. I need to talk to someone about bikes. I have a mountain bike and that might not be the best choice for someone my age (50..don’t tell anyone.) A bike with more narrow tires maybe???
Comment by magix on 27 May 2008:
I ride a mountain bike too. You can put thinner tires or road treads which will make it easier. Learning to down shift and use your gears is the real solution. You can climb the Eiffel Tower if you shift right.
My favorite bike shop is Moe’s he can maybe work on your bike for you. They also have something called a comfort bike with higher handle bars but I have never ridden one of those.
Comment by mudstump on 27 May 2008:
I like the sound of that…”comfort bike” ..kinda a dreamy like. An oxymoron for sure. I will check out Moe’s and see if he can help?? Thanks.