The world’s worse intervention into the US economy is to tax fossil fuels to subsidize hybrid cars or renewable energies. Since the early 1980′s electric vehicles are impractical, unless you only drive about 50 miles per day, and even so, how do you recharge the battery system?? by plugging into the electric grid which offsets the so called gains of having an electric vehicle. Everyone is wrong to think OPEC manipulates the global oil market prices. It is basic economics 101 supply and demand, with hundreds of separate corporations participating, and no one corporation or individual, or groups of corporations or individuals can manipulate the global market. What happened was, when China was adding 10,000 (ten thousand) new vehicles each week to the highway systems, and the oil production rate remaining constant, oil prices skyrocketed. When the global economies collapsed and no one was driving much, the supply stayed the same but the demand dropped. This is what caused gas prices to drop. What IS a hoax and a manipulation, it the myth that CO2 is causing any global or regional influences on temperatures. If CO2 were more than doubled to more than twice today’s levels, empirical evidence shows that temperature variants would be no more than 0.05 of one degree C, and the variant would only be realized a night. To influence temperatures by only one degree C, according to the climate change experts, there would need to be 1 billion tons of CO2 added to the atmosphere. Since man made CO2 levels are 30 million tons per year, then the planet would need to eliminate all fossil fuel burning including heating, more than 40 per cent of all electrical production, and all vehicles operation including transportation of goods and foods for about 33 years. The Russian, Middle Eastern, European, and British science community (except for a hand full that promote climate change), and tens of thousands in the United States to include Bachelor of Science and doctorate degrees in all fields and disciplines (The Petition Project – use your search engine to find it and read the report for yourself), still are interested in reading the empirical evidence that shows a trace element, CO2, actually can, could, is, was, or will cause temperature variants. The science does not exist. It is only anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that claims climate change by anthropogenic (man made) means. The documented peer reviewed empirical science evidence absolutely indicates that CO2 does not influence temperatures, but temperatures influence atmospheric CO2 levels, by preceding CO2 variants from 600 to 2800 years. Got that?? Temperatures change before CO2 levels. That CO2 drives temperatures is only an illusion when viewing charts of the last 750,000 years temperature and CO2 levels. It is such a large time scale, the minor variant that temperature rise precede CO2 rise, only gives the illusion that CO2 influences temperatures. High levels of CO2 is what allowed for herds of tens of thousands of dinosaurs weighing tons to tens of tons. High atmospheric CO2 levels caused massive growth of flora, which is the base of the food chain. Globally, higher crop yields per acre are realized than ever before in human history, (I repeat human history but not planetary history) because of the slightly elevated levels of CO2. CO2 is only slightly elevated to 385 ppma, because CO2 levels have been from 1200 ppma to 7700 ppma in the last 600 million years, with n average of about 1300 ppma over the 600 million year time line. This is documented empirical evidence documented by a wide range of fields and disciplines. Keep in mind, levels of CO2 at only 200 ppma will cause growth of all plants that require photosynthesis will be halted, and at 150 ppma, all plants the require photosynthesis will die, including all food crops that require photosynthesis (which is most food crops), and without other non food flora, then other food sources will die off, including humans. What will anything have to eat without atmospheric CO2 levels below 150 ppma, and if at 200 ppma, when the current flora is eaten, no new growth will be realized and life as we know it will come to an end. Do you want to limit, regulate, tax, or sequester CO2 now?? By the way, Mr. Gore states a “wide sampling of 10 % of all articles of a publication” were used to derive a consensus. Is a wide range of 10 % more quantitatively than a simple 10%, and from only one single publication of thousands of the science communities. And the conclusions used of the 928 articles are in question. It would be like asking 10% of the neighbors their opinion, and concluding the whole planet thinks like them. Show me the documented per review empirical evidence on a quantum physics level that CO2 is a problem, and I will publish the findings in all the science journals world wide. It does not exist.

Jet fuel can be produced from coal cheaper than it can from oil if oil is $35 a barrel. The cost of energy from coal is TEN TIMES or more lower than the cost of energy from oil now, so the price of coal is a small price of the jet fuel. Very low grade cheap and waste coals can be made into jet fuels, but even at a very high price of $100 a ton, the energy cost of jet fuel from coal would be competative with that of oil at $240 a barrel even if half the coal energy were wasted in the process. But the wasted energy can usually be used partially for power generation. If there were full energy efficiency, one tonne of coal has the same energy as 4.88 barrels of oil. The average price that Peabody got for its coal was $20 a ton in 2007. The waste of natural gas by flaring in this country and especially foreign countries and the costs of transporting and refining may even make the CO2 cost of making jet fuel from oil higher than the CO2 cost of making jet fuel from oil. ..HG..

Best regards from Washington state and have a nice day!
Andrew – Aloe Vera Distributor

I do think our “behavior” is based upon low gas prices however.

2008 showed that Americans will adjust their behavior quickly if gas prices go up.

If a long term organized plan to increase gasoline taxes is introduced, American manufacturers as well as American consumers will be able to to make the adjustment over time having less impact on the economy.

In fact, such a plan will be a boost to the economy as it generates incentives for consumers and gives auto manufacturers time to develop fuel efficient cars knowing that the consumers will want to buy them.

Who needs LA and New York anyway? They don’t contribute to our economy. No, what’s unrealistic is raising gas taxes.

Its going to take a lot longer to switch from oil than some green advocates think. the draconian measures some advocate will only produce massive economic and social turmoil. when Americans get scared they veer to the right , big time.

We have to take price out of the equation. Remember if the government was responsible they would charge consumers and producers for protecting oil assets and any envr cost that could occur that inflicts damages to a societies welfare. But here is the problem, we are an economy based off of cheap energy supplies. If we start messing with prices per barrel everyone will be affected by this not just cars but in everything you buy (assuming real wages stay the same or fall). If you do decide to charge more for petro uses you need to develop an alternative to absorb the shock of added real costs of petroleum. In this case we are talking about transportation issues but the point is for an economy as a whole and consumers short-term thinking we must find ways to eliminate the comparisons between oil prices and EV costs. This is not easy to do but we must realize that it will always be in governments interest to help promote cheap energy (mostly political considerations) even w/ envr. factors so prices will always be artificially low and that enables short-term cost vs benefit decisions among consumers. So again price of petro needs not be the issue because there is no winning solution with this….

Oil is low now because demand is low right now. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but there is kind of a world wide recession going on right now. And with +9.5% unemployement, anything other than seasonal demand isn’t going to pick up.

On the down side, because of all the economic stimulus programs put out by all the western governments this year, when unemployment does start dropping, inflation will start rising and oil (along with other commodities) will skyrocket.

With winter coming, I don’t expect oil to drop anytime soon. I’ll bet money it hits $85 a barrel before the year’s end. In the spring, if unemployement is still over 9%, the price will drop back down. If unemployement is below 9%, the price will keep climbing.