Survey on Gas Prices- Do You Always Look on the Bright Side of Life?

Yes, it is correct that people are starting to change their habits. However, our society IS build on cheap fuel and we are entering the post cheap fuel era. There are going to be huge changes and it is going to change the way we live. For some it will be minimal but for most of the population it will be catastrophic.

"suddenly the world would be filled with small efficient cars, lots of mass transit, all food would be locally grown and every new home would be New Urbanist or multifamily, mainly in reborn Buffaloes or Detroits with a bicycle in every garage and an organic chicken in every pot. Oh, and CO2 levels would drop like a stone in this bucolic New Jerusalem." "

Not likely. Mass transit cannot "Suddenly" happen in most places. Good mass trans systems take decades to build. New eco homes take decades to build. New power plants take decades.

This is a 30 year hole we have dug ourselves into. We should have started this in the 70's.

We'll soon start paying the price for a hundred years of stupidity. Nuff said.

All of the above! It is good because people will change their habits, but bad in the short term because the less-rich will have a hard time changing their habits due to the high cost of doing so. Asking us to choose only one of the options is silly (I guess that explains the almost 50/50 split vote!)

Yes, we should have started in the 70's. But new power plants don't (or don't have to, at least) take decades to build. Japan on average takes just four years to build a nuclear power plant, from the first moment a plant is proposed to the time it begins normal operation.

No, CO2 levels won't drop, but emissions would. Is going to take a lot more work to remove the CO2 we've already emitted.

As for mass transit, yes rail takes years to decades to build right- and we should start now. But improving the bus system in many cities (which is often woefully inadequate, or viewed as only being for those who can't afford cars) could be done in a matter of a few years. Just secure the funding, plan the routes, buy the buses, hire the drivers, and go. Unlike rail, bus systems can be changed as data comes in about how people use the system. They are far less GHG-intensive than personal cars (though not as good as rail, of course), and can use alternative fuels more easily than other cars. There is no reason why a central bus depot, where all the buses refuel, can't provide biodiesel, vegetable oil, hydrogen made from water and green power, or any other fuel you like.

As for being a catastrophic event for people, this is only if they don't react responsibly. We need to make information available to everyone and if they don't take advantage of money-saving efficiency improvements, well, that was their choice. Perhaps there could be government-subsidized light-bulb exchange programs and such for the particularly low-income people in society who really can't afford the up front cost of newer technology.

We need to educate people to think past the sticker price of things into lifetime costs. Yes a dimmable CFL is $12 but over its lifetime it still costs $70 less than the $1 incandescent- that savings is equal to a week's gas! Yes, it takes a few seconds to unplug the TV and computer or a few dollars to buy a smart power strip, but that'll earn you $x per year, too, as will getting rid of that second refrigerator you use for beer and soda, or replacing it with a cooler that you use when you really need the space.

It's still going to take years for a city to get a bus system started. There is a lot of work that has to happen. You have to buy and build transfer centers, you have to organize routes, hire and train drivers, deal with the inevitable propaganda war that will result because someone's upset that such and such house is right next to a bus line and that it is going to be soooo noisy now, or such in such bus doesn't pick me up at my door step. THEN, you is inevitably have a few bad apples that take the bond money and use it unwisely or unethically then that will just prove to everyone that this was a bad idea to begin with and it should be scrapped! Bla bla bla.

I live in Dallas, TX and we have an excellent public trans system. But even today, there are people griping and complaining about this and that. Just a few years ago a few suburbs elected to drop out of the collation. (Surprise, now they want back in.)

A good public trans system is not something simple to come by. It takes years (probably a decade or more) for people to really come around and not remember life without it. If those suburbs would have just waited another 7-10 years, they would have a connecting rail system. It takes time to build these things.

Come on people, we see this every day in the comments, especially with regards to anything to do with cars. America will always have the people who will staunchly refuse to change their ways, and those people are obviously the majority. We'll see lots of people who are willing to make little changes and little concessions, but to make big changes like switching to public transit or moving closer to work or trading in the monster truck, and they act like you're asking them to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or leap tall buildings with a single bound. I think they'd sooner vote for the communist party if it meant that they would lower the price of gas (and everything else).

The government will sooner or later make everyone live on the streets! I heard that the government is going to give $600 to every adult in every family by a sertant amount they make a year. The government will just end up with the money again anyway.