[ There's far more in Hijexx's analysis than I hope to address easily, but one point stuck out at me and I thought I'd mention it... you write

"Yes, some of the stuff is the same thing some people of a party would say, like saying "conserve energy!" But is that really a political statement? To me, it sounds like common sense. To me, reducing consumption makes sense as a sound policy. To others though, that believe the market should allow you to consume more if you are willing to pay for it, that's fine too. But it fails to account for the big picture. It's a myopic view. It's a faith that technology will just magically bring in an equally efficient oil substitute at the same rate that the oil becomes infeasible to use and sustain the growth rate we have been accustomed to with oil."

I'll start by agreeing that energy conservation is almost certainly the best short term response we, as a society, can have. Arguing so is political only because it's impossible to separate beliefs from politics, or at least I've always thought so. You vote your beliefs... the politics are inherent in that. Anyway, that's not the key thing i wanted to say.

You mention the market here, and note that most market analyses fail to look much beyond the current environment. This is, I think, interesting, and mostly true. I think it's a given that the markets act as a feedback mechanism on consumption... prices increase as supply decreases. I'll take it as a given that demand won't decrease, and will almost certainly increase, so we need more supply, from alternate sources.

I'm finally at my point which is the question of wether the feedback mechanism offered by the market, coupled with the subtle effects activism on the part of people like yourself, will ultimately exert the necessary pressure to instigate alternate supply in time, or wether the market will delay too long.

I tend to believe the former... that the feedback will occur with time enough, if barely, to acquire alternate sources of supply. It seems you would take the opposite opinion... that it's already probably too late to acquire enough alternate energy supply.

I'm not sure there's an answer, and perhaps it doesn't matter... in the time we have, we should probably agitate for reducing energy consumption and development of viable alternatives to oil, regardless of if we think it'll get done in time. Is there another choice? -k]

RE: As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies