Remember how careful we were when the prices shot up? How much consumption decreased? We can do this.
-----------
But that's only one small side of the equation.
When the prices jumped, it was the start of what you see now in the economy. We watched a lot of small businesses close up shop. People stop driving and traffic goes down - shops close up and even now, many haven't come back. People who use all their money for gas, have less for other things which has an impact on everything from coffee shops to repair shops. Consumption is still down lower than it was years ago but this is partly because of the millions of unemployed not in the system.
The ideal, long term solution is public transportation - trains, but that's been known for a hundred years. In a society where people must work a variety of shifts and with little or no public transportation available, they must get to work by car. All people do not live in cities and can't live in cities; all are not able to car pool either.
I think it's ironic that the same companies and governments that tell us how great a hybrid car is, are the same icons of industry that shut down the electric car and public trolley's a hundred years ago because it was more profitable for them to do so. When they decide they can make profit off something else, then we'll see a big switch to good public transportation but until then people have to do what they must do in order to keep going.
I'm pissed at big companies who get away lax safety measures and regulators that are either corrupt or inept. In this case, they now point to the company who made the back up safety hardware - a dead battery, a leak in the system- and the whole thing was just inspected before the explosion? Bankruptcy protection will probably come next and the capped payout equates to a weeks worth of profit for them, regardless of how much land, wildlife or people are affected. The pictures of dead sea turtles and dolphins are disgusting and that's only what we see washed up - imagine what will be kept hidden. sammieswife.