> You can view everything as half-empty or half-full. It is your choice on the mindset but I prefer looking at the world as a positive place. We are in the greatest times in the history of humanity and fuel prices going up will do nothing but propel us forward.
I suggest watch what happens in New Zealand. We are a small country with terrible public transit and even worse highway infrastructure, entirely dependent upon our automobiles.
Gasoline is over NZ$2.00 per liter and going up daily, with no respite in sight. Almost all of it is imported pre-refined.
We are seeing these trends already:
1) More people moving to bikes
2) More motorscooters
3) More motorbikes
4) Lots of hybrids
5) Fewer SUVs and large cars
6) Huge spends in rail and bus infrastructure
7) Huge spends in highway infrastructure (go figure!)
8) Increasing instances of work-from-home and telecommuting
9) Less domestic air travel
10) Huge spends in telecommunications infrastructure
11) Fascinating innovations in battery technologies
12) More solar panels
13) Electricity shortages
14) Pressure to reform tax on fuels
15) Fascinating innovations on alternative diesel-like fuels
And to cap it all off, Kyoto is going to start to bite really hard.
We are a small country and we can therefore adapt really quickly. That is why we are often used for market tests by major multi-national companies.
What is going to happen in America will be tested and perfected here, first.
But we don't want to do those things. Thus only alternative is alternative ways of fueling the things we DO want to do.
We had a President about 35 years ago, who wanted us to do pretty much those sorts of things. He lasted a single term, but the Skunk is still stinking up the country.
Notice I left off hybrids. Hybrids are a way of doing what we want to do, but using less oil to do it. We are now producing hybrid SUVs. :).