Most Americans Worried About Fuel Prices (70%)

[struggle4progress]

Polling Data

Over the next six months, do you expect that increases in the price of gasoline will cause financial hardship for you or your family, or not? Do you expect that will be a serious hardship, or not serious?

Sept. 2005 Apr. 2005

Will cause financial hardship 70% 51%
Serious hardship 41% 30%
Not a serious hardship 28% 20%
Not sure how serious 1% 1%
Will not cause financial hardship 30% 48%
Not sure -- 1%

Source: Ipsos-Public Affairs / Associated Press
Methodology: Telephone interviews to 1,002 American adults, conducted from Sept. 6 to Sept. 8, 2005. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/8904

[phantom power]

1. I bet that doesn't include the secondary casualties.

First wave: Everybody has less disposable income. Those who didn't have any to begin with are immediately screwed.

Second wave: as people purchase fewer goods and services, employees who were initially making ends meet start to get laid off.

[NNadir]

2. I was under the impression that Americans would just buy solar powered

cars.

I mean we're only 3 years away from Ralph Nader's 1978 promise that "Everything will be solar in 30 years."

What me worry?

[struggle4progress]

3. Let's blame Ralph! That's, um, clever ... eom

[NNadir]

4. No, let's blame people who operate by fantasy in general.

The fact is that the people whining the loudest on this site about fuel prices and the shortage of fossil fuels are the very same people who oppose nuclear power. They are in fact exactly the same people who spout endlessly about the most expensive and unreliable form of energy known.

www.solarbuzz.org

Now I'm going to do what you can't do if you are in International Society of People Who Can't Do Third Grade Math: Calculate!

From solar buzz we have the price for solar energy 21.12 cents per kilowatt-hour. There are 3,600,000 J in a kilowatt-hour and 120,000,000 in a gallon of gasoline, or 33 kilowatt hours. Thus, not even counting the cost of energy storage which, is by the way, expensive, the price of "solar gasoline" would be over 33 * 0.21 = $7.04/gallon.

So why all the fucking weak minded crying? Today's energy prices are roughly 1/2 the prices that the solar only twits are insisting on.

Solar only people, spoiled brat elitists all, offer nothing than the same bullshit that holy Ralph offered 30 years ago, to no fucking effect.

Now, if I was spouting pipe dreams rather than dealing with reality, I would might wish to avoid pointing up my responsibility when the ostrich comes home to roost in the sand. But hopefully I would have enough integrity as not to pretend I give a fuck about energy costs.

If there is one anti-environmental anti-nuclear spoiled brat fossil fuel apologist who has a way to provide energy at lower prices than gasoline that is now being constructed, that now provides a significant portion of the world's energy demand, we'd all love to hear all about it. But if its going to be more twittery about what "could" happen in thirty years that is identical to the same twittery that was advanced thirty years ago, please spare those of us with minds.

In the mean time I have no problem pointing out that the rich white trust fund boy belly aching for what it is: Lying.

Any environmentalist worth his or her salt is not hoping for easy consumption of oil. Oil should be expensive, simply because the future cannot afford it, because of a little tiny thing called the "atmosphere."

[struggle4progress]

5. Fuel efficiency, public transportation, conservation, alternative fuels ..

.. Why there's just no end to the terrible sorts of things Ralph has been pushing for decades!

How fortunate that a whole generation of hardworking activists I know failed to accomplish these things, despite years of fulltime effort!

Now we can blame them for our problems! D@mn Ralph and d@mn all the rest of them! They prophetically told us what America needed to do to avoid being exactly where we are now -- and America didn't listen!

Bad, bad Ralph! :crazy: