<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 3:58 PM, David Tomaschik <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:david@systemoverlord.com">david@systemoverlord.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
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I'm sure this flies against what everyone else thinks, but I actually<br>
think the price of gas is too low. The government really needs to<br>
stop subsidizing big oil, because the motivation to move away from oil<br>
as our primary energy source is not enough at current gas prices.<br>
Whether or not you believe in "Peak Oil", the facts are: oil is a<br>
non-renewable resource, it is becoming increasingly inefficient to<br>
extract the oil that does exist, and every dollar spent on imported<br>
oil is a dollar leaving the U.S. economy. Regardless of your beliefs<br>
on climate change, it is clear that urban pollution is mostly due to<br>
internal combustion engines, and that urban pollution is a significant<br>
contributor to asthma, chronic bronchitis, and other respiratory<br>
diseases. Some scientists believe that smog may also contribute to<br>
heart disease and cancer.<br>
<br>
Continuing to rely on a resource where primary sources are in unstable<br>
regions such as the Middle East and some parts of Latin America, a<br>
resource that damages the environment, a resource that drains the<br>
American economy, is just not smart. Mainstream America is incredibly<br>
short-sighted, looking at next month, next quarter, or next year, and<br>
not at the next decade, the next generation, or the next century.<br>
<br clear="all"></blockquote><div><br>I agree the cost to the consumer is too low. $10/gal should be the target pump price and the tax money used to raise gets spent to build working mass transit. Will it hurt? Hell yeah! But we have to think longer range than next paycheck at the leadership level, i.e. the congress critters. There's few places that produce oil that are democracies or friendly or have decent standards of living for people not on the payroll of the oil co's. Granted, Main stream America also shot themselves in the foot by refusing rail expansion (yay NIMBY speak!) . As a society that is growing, we can't sustain the individual driven 2 ton metal gas hogs and all the problems they involve forever. We have to grow up and start a better process.<br>
<br>We've yammered here before about trains and I'll yammer again, I LIKE the monorails they use Disney. Fast, quiet, moves a gazillion people each day. Expensive to build but cheap to run. At $5/g tax, those hummers around Atlanta will pony up the rail cost pretty fast! :-)<br>
</div></div><br>-- <br>-- <br>James P. Kinney III<br><br>As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as
they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the
outcome.<br>- <i><i><i><i>2011 Noam Chomsky</i></i></i></i><br>