>Sometimes it is easy to forget that petroleum is a finite resource. The recession, the decrease of the use of petroleum products and the low price of oil over the past year have lulled us into a petroleum glut-trance once more. Remember the prices of oil in the summer of 2007? Ouch. Most rational thinkers will agree that we will see those prices again in the near future if the laws of supply and demand have anything to do with. A report on NPR said that China recently overtook the US as the largest market for automobiles – www.npr.org. Guess what, the vast majority of those cars (in both countries) are still powered by gasoline. Dame mas gasolina!
The point of this is that we can either prepare for the slow reduction of the availability and affordability of petroleum products or we can wait until there is a serious crisis and pick up the slack in the future. We all saw how helpful the Copenhagen talks were (womp, womp), so I guess we are going to have to do something on our own. The website www.fuelmileage.com is helpful tool in comparing your cars mileage to others and has resources to increase the fuel mileage of your car. You can register on the website and download the application to follow your mileage over time. Awareness is an important tool in increasing overall energy efficiency in this country because the more awareness people have of their consumption habits, the more likely they are to change those habits. This is the whole premise behind the smart grid and metering of the electrical supply system in the stimulus package.
I was wary of the ending message of An Inconvenient Truth in that Al Gore was more a proponent of individual action rather than government/global action, but maybe he was right. After all, he knows government better than most. An international agreement, let alone a national agreement are proving to be illusive at best and impossible at worst. Until governments are forced to act because of drastic price inflation, deadly heatwaves and drought, mass migration and food insecurity all we can do is fight for the cause and make personal changes to help mitigate the problem. Dame mas eficiencia!