What is the best solution to gas/oil crisis?

[TheFarseer]

Poll question: What is the best solution to gas/oil crisis?

[texastoast]

1. Really well-planned public transportation

Meaningful PT for everyone who "must" live in the suburbs.

Even better, Smart Growth redevelopment of inner cities.

[TheFarseer]

10. I've added public transportation

eventhough I think that has it's limitations and really can't be considered a solution by itself.

Although I will agree, urban sprawl is killing us on gas consumption.

[wuushew]

2. ZPG

[Lady Effingbroke]

25. I agree.

The "elephant in the living room" that no one wants to talk about.

[theophilus]

27. Really, NPG.....negative population growth or however you say

allow population to decrease by two or three billion. Slowly and sanely, of course.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. impeachment.

[Nicole]

4. Public transportation

that is subsidized by the oil companies when their profits are exorbitant.

[Ian David]

5. Rapture

After The Rapture, I'm gonna find me a Hummer with a pile of empty clothes in the front seat.

[rkc3]

8. Have you asked any of your neighbors if you can have their house

when it occurs?

There's a guy up the street from me with the bumper sticker about his car careening off the road when it becomes driverless. He doesn't find it amusing when I ask if I can have his house. You'd think these people would be happy to let someone have what they've "left behind."

[Ian David]

15. You know what would be fun...

Get up extra early on Sunday morning and leave piles of empty clothes along the sidewalk in front of his house.

Don't forget to leave shoes, too!

Bonus points: A pile of clothes, a dog leash, and a dog sweater.

He'll walk out the door and think that a dog got raptured before he did!

[rkc3]

18. With a little stalking on my part - I could get his schedule down pat

and figure the best time to do that.

That would be funny.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Uhh... not to state the obvious, but

Get rid of the need for fossil fuels, and we have no more crisis.

Move away from the automobile culture by encouraging companies to create telecommuting jobs and by creating mixed use, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods that combine employment and residence with a good mix of retail. Electricity can be generated using solar, geo-thermal, tidal and wind. New technologies for clean power sources should be fully funded.

Personally, I think this is a much better route to take.

[anarch]

9. the need for fossil fuels in industry and agriculture

scares me a lot more than the automobile culture, in the long run. I expect the automobile culture to die a painful death, and very soon, too.

[leftofthedial]

7. I would never advocate harming anyone, of course, but

one solution would be to kill all the wealthy and the oil and auto industry execs

take their money and invest it in alternative fuels and transportation research

[Dr.Phool]

11. Nucular powered cars.

Either that, or big rubber bands.

[JVS]

12. Rationing but with low prices

[WI_DEM]

13. Getting out of Iraq might help and then put a portion of the money

we are spending fighting the war towards mass transportation and alternate energy sources.

[Warpy]

14. Restoring Federal funding into alternative energy sources

especially renewable energy sources. Investing in processes like thermal depolymerization to reclaim all the potential in stinking, leaking landfills across the country.

Fully developing passenger rail service again. I think most people would rather go by train than fly unless they're in a huge hurry. I would love to have returned from Florida after my pop died by rail, but it just wasn't practical. We're finally getting north-south passenger rail off the drawing board here in NM after many decades. I'll probably take rides to nowhere when it starts, use it a lot when it gets as far as Santa Fe and Las Cruces.

Downsizing our cars will work as well or better than going to hybrids. Remember, hybrids have a limited battery life and a battery disposal problem which may negate fuel savings over the life of the car.

Conservation, as always, is the key to surviving until alternatives are in place. Planning our trips so we do errands in a circle instead of back and forth across town helps. Slowing down on the highway and letting all the dickheads go 90 in the left hand lane will save a lot of fuel on long trips, allow us to watch the scenery and have a better chance of getting us where we're going in one piece.

We know the drill. We did it all 30 years ago.

[TheFarseer]

28. thermal depolymerization

I'd love to see a bunch of those plants in Nebraska. F*ck Texas and Saudi Arabia, we can make our own. Except we don't have any vision as a nation and we damn sure don't as a state.

[TexasLawyer]

16. ending the war in Iraq

and stopping the saber rattling over Iran would bring oil costs WAY down.

Strengthening the dollar by decreasing the trade and budget deficits would be another biggie. The value of the dollars that we've been paying to the Saudis over the last few years has seriously eroded. To achieve the same buying power foreign sellers have had to raise prices. The erosion of the dollar v. other currencies does play a part in today's skyrocketing prices.

[applegrove]

17. Let the price of oil rise so that alternatives find a market.. in these

next 20 years while the west has a comparative advantage in science!!! Big box stores are not going to be for conservation.. they are going to be for war. But hey - what is wrong with local? Local depots. Ordering online?

It is all out there..

We could all wait 15 years and pay for wars.. and then have oil prices rise to a point where American business shows its stuff!! It would just be that the Indians and the Chinese would be equal to the task. At that point.

Our choice reallly.. when we make "the change" (previously known as menopause, or the lifecyle of a woman who has to drastically adapt to various functions in her life).

[Greyhound]

19. Nationalize the oil industry. n/t

[mwooldri]

20. In the long term, biofuel has its place. with solar energy too.

Biodiesel can be manufactured from corn, and most gasoline engines can be converted to work on ethanol. Make enough of the stuff and there goes a good chunk of our dependency on fossil oil.

If every home is equipped also with solar panels, that would go a long way to reducing our demand on electric generating plants. Combine this with more efficient lighting and appliances then you can have a household, especially in rural areas, that would not need any electricity from the electric company.

Wind power can also help... but there needs to be at some point some source of energy that's always going and can start up and shut down quickly to cope with spikes in electric demand. Nuclear can cope with the background demand for electric but America is to coal as Saudi Arabia is to oil - i.e. we got a lot of it. Gasify it and use that in power stations for the peak supplys, until everyone can have personal power storage units in their home.

Mark.

[LaPera]

21. INCREASE THE MPG for ALL vehicles...That Bush did away with...

immediately upon taking office...OIL fucking administration!!

Use more and more gas and BushCo is richer & happier, especially at these prices.

[bullwinkle428]

22. Conservation #1, followed by hybrids. Hybrids certainly have their place,

but there are limitations. Here's a good article illustrating this, written by an auotmotive journalist who definitely does not come from the wingnut perspective, as many of them do - I've been reading various automotive publications for the past 30+ years, and can confirm that!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/opinion/16kitman.html?_r=1&oref=login

Just needed to edit to add that I believe that the CAFE standards need to be raised gradually, resulting in a significant decrease in total petroleum usage.

[Xenotime]

23. I just got back from a conference where..

Mexico, Brazil and other countries are drilling....

[opihimoimoi]

24. Bring back RICKSHAWS

[SmokingJacket]

26. Little of everything, a lot of some things...

More telecommuting, better public transportation, more fuel efficient cars, smaller cars, more carpooling, more research on alternative fuels... if we did ALL that, it would make a huge dent in the problem.

But I think the answer will be in a new car that uses something else altogether, like water, that will be invented by the Chinese shortly before they kick our ass into the next century...