Oh, are gas prices up again? Driving an electric car it's difficult to really notice. Fortunately the high number of peak oil and "conflict around the world" articles can alert me to this important fact.

But honestly, not that big a deal right now. Demand destruction is underway, and the $4.00-$10.00 prices will encourage more fuel efficient cars and less travel. Oddly enough the ones who will take the biggest hits are the highway support funds, which won't get enough money from the Priuses of the world. Ah well, perhaps it is time to abandon roads like we abandon strip malls.

Which will bring back 4WD trucks, which will boost oil usage which will help the highway funds. See, it all works out.

CZ

20-25% of all energy to produce our food, most of which goes to feed millions of people in other countries. Want to save at least 15% of all American energy use? Stop exporting food. Mostly stop exporting food to the very Arabs raping you with oil. The produces at least a third of worldwide food. Cut the 33% of the people in the world you feed who aren't Americans. Let them sort out their own food requirements

Let's get this out of thee way first: It's called "the crash course" not because it's doom and gloom "we're all gonna crash and die" stuff, but because the entirety of the course represent a 3 day seminar boiled down to a 3 hour online presentation presented in easily digestible 5 to 20 minutes chunks. A crash course. Get it?

The segment on peak oil runs around 17 minutes and the full text accompanies the video at the link:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-17a-peak-oil (or click my sig.)

The segments of the crash course are entertaining and informative, not dry and boring. And the presenter makes clear during the rest of the course that he is in fact optimistic we can overcome the obstacles that we face in terms of the economy, the environment and energy if we deal with reality and get busy now.

Proof that it's not doom and gloom? Here's a direct quote from chapter 18: "The only way these challenges can become insurmountable is if we let them, by ignoring them for too long."

So...take the crash course. Start with peak oil. But be sure to go back and start from the beginning. It's good stuff!

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

The next elections are going to hurt the Democrats, and Obama may not even be a two-termer.

They need to move now to put our economy on a track that makes the US energy independent. No matter the cost, we need to lower our dependence on foreign oil.

It's OK to set up the system to EXPLOIT imported oil when it's CHEAP, but the system needs to easily segue to non-traditional energy sources without severe economic damage (like another recession).

Energy superiority needs to be akin to military superiority. Perhaps we need an energy Manhattan Project--colossally expensive, but freeing us from dependence on foreign oil. Whether it is US Oil, or clean coal, or nuclear, or wind and solar, or a combination.

Energy independence has received lip service for half a century. Now is not only a great opportunity (cut over when demand is flat), but it might be our last opportunity. When the whole world is also scrambling later, we won't have any advantage to only start looking at that time.

As oil gets more expensive it becomes more cost effective to use alternatives and those alternatives can be researched more and therefore become more cost effective. Prius's and compacts have replaced SUV's as the "hot" cars. Companies that specialized in creating and selling high-profit gas guzzlers are going out of business fast. Americans are driving less, buying more fuel efficient cars, and using energy more efficiently. And the technological advances resulting from our demand for fuel efficiency will be passed on to other nations as they advance. China will have access to fuel efficient options that 1950's U.S. drivers couldn't dream of - and incentive to use them because of serious air quality problems. As battery powered cars become cheaper batteries will become less expensive than fuel.

Even public transportation is becoming more efficient, with natural gas and electric buses quite common. Capitalism dictates that people will choose the cheapest option. We're fixing this problem as it happens.

The supply is not shrinking. Measures have been taken to keep the price from dropping too low and shortages have been created. They were blatant about it after the 1974 "shortage." How can the oil companies make money otherwise?

You folks can save a lot of typing by simply posting "Don't confuse me with the facts" the next time the subject of peal oil comes up.

I apologize for being, well, condescending, but those letters are all wet from living in De Nile. You're both apparently entirely unaware of the scope of the problem/issue, engaged in what amounts to magical thinking and/or wishing for some sort of deus ex machina resolution...which is the same thing as magical thinking which makes me redundant. Whatever.

Please follow the link to the Crash Course segment on peak oil:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-17a-peak-oil (or click my sig.)

Hopefully that will inspire you to start from the beginning of the crash course:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/

I know that being condescending is not the best way to encourage people to learn, and I am sorry, but I am long since out of patience with "magical thinking" and (for lack of a better term) aggressive ignorance and stupidity.

Most of the information of our impending deep doo-doo situation with regards to dwindling oil supplies has been available for decades. In the face of decent, though incomplete, facts and reasonable models what have we done? Exactly what we are doing, which is damn near nothing good. We still use monstrous cars to move our over-large bottoms around town, heat or cool our buildings to 72-75F, use clothes dryers indiscriminately and generally consume like pigs. I sometimes feel that today's youth would have a good case of self-defense for the extermination of their elders when I consider what we have done to the only planet that we know of that can support them.