See http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics for arguments to use in persuading skeptics that we have a serious problem and it's only getting worse. What remains remarkable to me is the seemingly total lack of discussion about other unintended consequences of burning fossil fuels, especially lung disease. Long before we had terrorist labels, people in Atlanta already had their own color codes as to whether it was safe for small children, the elderly, or those whose respiratory diseases (and probably others like heart disease...I don't pretend to know because I am not a medical doctor).
Why isn't the mainsteam media focusing on this? It must be a real mystery to conservatives who love to say the mainstream media is liberal (they might mean "anti-extremist" as in right wing radio talk shows which are clearly extremists).
You know, it's all kind of mind boggling. I don't know how well off the coal industry, but we all know the oil companies could buy the state of California if the wanted to, and probably through in Canada for good measure.
If Congress threatens some politically expedient way to tax oil companies in an election year, that will not be the long term answer. What I don't understand is do the oil companies need financial incentives to plow into alternative sources of energy, or are they willing to take the "windfall" profits and do the job?
If you told someone in 1976 that we'd still be getting the same ballpark figure in vehicle mileage, they would think you were crazy. I confess that my brethren in academia seemingly should have done something by now. At least I know they are trying. Here's the irony: the next Bill Gates might be the one who produces a modestly priced hudrogen engine and a distribution channel to make it readily available. For the latter, does anyone actually believe that gas stations can be modified to include Hyrdogen "pumps?"
Hyrdogen-powered cars could go down as one of the most rapidly adopted technology in the history of diffusion of innovations research. Many or most of us would feel the pressure to change. I'm not an engineer, but I am a pragmatist. If there is no money for research, it may not be addressed. Conversely, if there is money to burn (sorry, couldn't resist), them there are dollars available for research.
Perhaps the first hydrogen-powered automobile and/or the person or organization that makes it succeed will become the next Rockefellers.
By far the greatest payoffs for high gasoline prices include driving less (it's actually happening), the oil industry having the resources to invest in R&D with their current windfall, and the shock in the marketplace about wasting a fossil fuel and polluting at the same time.
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