ignorance and lies

"People lie," is what Bob Woodward said. And no better example than today's Wall Street Journal article about oil consumption. It appears Americans are cutting back on their gas guzzling habits. That is the good news. But we also read the following statement:" Economists and policy makers have puzzled for years over what it would take to curb American's ravenous appetite for fossil fuels. Now they appear to be getting an answer: sustained pain." REALLY?

Are we really to believe that economists and policy makers are that stupid ? They did not know ? They did not know that the only way to reduce gas guzzling was to raise prices ? Give me a break. Either they are morons or they think we are morons. Or they lie. Of course, the only way to get people to stop "indulging" in stuff is to raise prices. We should raise prices. Politicians, if they had any guts would peg gas prices at no less than $5 a gallon.

Unfortunately, the truth is quite the opposite: they want us to consume gas. They love our oil addiction. Because it makes some people really, really rich. It is the drug of the modern era and it serves no higher purpose than to enrich the pushers. No other drug, not crack cocaine, not heroin, not alcohol, not nicotine, causes as much damage to humanity as cheap oil.

It would be one thing if people used oil and other fossil fuels in a sensible way. If we actually derived some tangible benefit from it. But we don't. More than half of it goes wasted. Pure waste. It gets burned to sit in traffic, to heat and cool houses that stand empty, to light the night sky. These "uses" benefit nobody. Nobody derives any pleasure or well-being from it. Quite to the contrary. It pollutes the air, is responsible for high rates of asthma, eye irritation, and countless other problems.

Of the remainder, the part that we actually "use," more than half is consumed in an absolutely wasteful manner: to power oversized trucks called SUV's, to heat and cool oversized houses, to keep green lawns in the desert. To fly and drive around aimlessly, etc.

And that would not be such a big deal if only a few dozen people did it. But 300 million is no small number. Consuming a fuel supply that took millions of years to accumulate in a few centuries is not a smart thing to do. Even if we believe we can get out of this mess through innovation and technology. Given how careless and wasteful we are, casts some serious doubt on our judgement and intelligence. From the looks of it, it appears we are not that smart after all.