Do You Heat Your Home With Oil?

If so, your home heating bill will increase by a whopping 24 percent this winter, according to a report I just watched on the Today show. Natural gas is expected to increase in price by 6 percent. All of this is tied into the astounding increase in the price of oil recently, which is up about $25 dollars a barrel - up by a third - this year.

Question: where is our fearless leader in Washington, (or for that matter, any of our leaders on either side of the aisle,) on this issue? The increase in the price of oil and the economic impact that this will have on average Americans and on our economy is a national disaster waiting to happen. Already I've heard dire reports about the effect that rising energy costs will have on consumer spending during the holidays. Something big is coming and it's not going to be pleasant, and our political leaders are missing in action on this. This is not the first time I've sounded the alarm here about energy costs. I hate to think about what will happen when gasoline reaches $4 (or even $5) a gallon. It's not a question of if, only when.

PHOTO: Another beautiful boat house along the Schuylkill in Philadelphia

Jim

Energy: We're Kidding Ourselves...

...if we think that the baby steps we're taking to conserve energy and control greenhouse gas emissions will make any real difference, writes Tom Friedman, in the New York Times. Why? Because oil use by developing nations is exploding and will continue to skyrocket:

Attention Kmart shoppers: the world consumed about 66.6 million barrels a
day of oil in 1990. We’re now consuming 83 million barrels a day. “Demand for
oil has grown 22 percent in the U.S. since 1990. China’s oil demand has grown
nearly 200 percent in this same period,” Margo Oge, director of the Environmental Protection
Agency’s office of transportation and air quality, told the Tianjin China Green
Car conference that I attended. “By 2030, the global thirst for oil is forecast
to increase by another 40 percent if we maintain business as usual.” Such an
appetite would devour every incremental green initiative we make.

We're in deep trouble. Oil will continue to get more expensive and harder to get, and global warming will worsen exponentially.

Is there any hope? Only if we develop some radical new technologies, writes Friedman. I've seen some reports of "Mr. Wizard" types who claim to be able to run their cars on water. Maybe we all ought to pay more attention in case one of these "inventors" actually has something.

Jim

Bush, Gasoline Prices, And The Energy Crisis

I made a two day round trip back to Philadelphia to pick up Dan and Nikko, our cat, and bring them out to Fire Island. It's fun to have the entire family together out here for the summer. The weather on Monday was spectacular. I hope it continues for the entire week and throughout the holiday weekend.

Do you wonder where Bush is when it comes to the record high price of gasoline? Has he made an address to the nation? Has he called his big oil buddies to try to "jawbone" them to hold down the price increases at the pump, produce more gasoline, etc? We know he's not in favor of conservation. Does he have any compassion for the American driving public in the face of record gasoline prices? It seems not.

We need presidential leadership, not a junior president, who is in the pocket of the big oil companies. A real leader will finally have the courage to be honest with the American public. We must rein in our outrageous levels of oil consumption. Automakers must re-tool and produce cars with much higher gas mileage, more hybrids and all-electrics. America must re-invest in mass transit. Americans will have to sacrifice by drastically reducing their consumption of oil, and by paying much higher prices for the gasoline they use. However, the profits should not go to big oil, rather, the money should be used for mass transit, research into alternative energy forms, etc. Breaking the back of our dependence on oil, especially foreign oil, will have the added benefit of defusing much of the causes for the hatred directed against America as a result of our oil-requirements-driven foreign policy and our oil-based wars, e.g., Iraq. We can do it as a nation, but we need leadership. Unfortunately, I don't hear any of the declared candidates for president being honest with the American public about the realities of our energy situation. Who will have the courage to finally tell the truth about energy to America?

Photo: a favorite trail through the Fire Island dunes...in the "meat rack"

Jim