Reply #21: I'm not worried myself - more a sick "I told you so" feeling [View All]

[hatrack]

I've been reading and researching and posting about energy & environment issues for going on four years now here at DU, and this is pretty much what I thought it would look like. Fortunately, I've just finished payments on a hybrid car, and my wife can walk or bike to work if need be, so we're in decent shape.

But this isn't an "I've got mine" kind of post. There's an absolute buttload of people out there who are just hanging on by their fingernails, doubling up on jobs, trying desperately to get by on $8.50 an hour and hoping that their '86 Taurus or '91 Sentra can keep on going for a few months longer, and who really, REALLY don't need $3.00 or $3.50 gasoline.

I don't know how quickly change is going to come - now or three or five years from now - but it will come, and much of the change is not going to be particularly pleasant. I strongly believe that gas prices are not going to decline substantially from where they are now. I'd be willing to bet that we'll probably never see $40 oil again, and I'd bet big that we'll definitely never see $30 oil in our lifetimes.

The EU and Japan are kind of ready for a situation like this, but we've been fat, dumb and happy ever since Morning In America blinded us to geophysical and geographical reality. It's going to be ugly for a whole lot of people.