I'm pretty sure that the price of gas is never coming back down, no matter what happens. On the plus side, this means fewer SUVs and trucks-used-as-cars, it means more hybrids/electric cars, and ultimately less polution. The down side is obvious, the fuel prices are hurting the poor and middle class directly and causing inflation in goods and services, with no solution or end in sight.

Here's my fantasy:

Every rooftop in America covered with solar panels.

The entire state of Kansas turned into a wind farm.

The entire desert of Nevada turned into a solar collecting farm.

I think these small steps would reduce our dependence on oil and coal power by 100%.

Any other ideas?

Triple the price of dirty fuels - - nothing promotes conservation like $$$...

Get power companies like FPL to stop charging EXTRA FUCKING MONEY to use greener energy. If you want to sign up to use wind power, you get charged more money every month.

There shouldnt really be a crisis. USA has something like 100years worth of coal, and apparently still 260+billion barrels of oil off the coast of alaska which oil companies havent been able to drill due to the government to keep the prices up.

Good. Coal is one of the largest polluters of our environment and oil is not a sustainable resource.

They'll continue to do that until there is enough available. Office Depot (who we use for our office products at my office) charges like 10-15%+ extra for "green products" because they are still a novelty. Once it becomes the norm that premium will disappear.

1) Encourage urban revitalizations. Perhaps cut local property taxes. This would help twofold: people would/could drive less and walking might increase and thereby food consumption might be lowered.
2) Build more nuclear. I remember reading Asimov books as a kid and they had nuclear everything. Watches, cars, ovens, etc. I realize that much of that is currently impossible under existing technological constraints, but we could be doing more.

How does walking decrease food consumption?

I say invest money into more public transportation. Maybe increasing funding for the railroad and build rails between cities that don't currently have them. We should copy Europe in that regard and it would at least help in the east coast between places like Boston and D.C. I am still iffy on Nuclear power. Not because we could have another Cherynoble or Three Mile Island, but what do you do with all the waste?

North America had quite an extensive public transportation system pre-1950's when auto manufacturer's successfully lobbied to have it all pulled out to boost car sales. (There's a quite a good documentary that includes this suppressed history called The End of Suburbia.)

There are some Canadian shots in there...

the 401 highway and The Go train.

People who lead sedentary lifestyles often consume more food. Have you noticed how fat people are? I suppose one could continue walking and eating a ton, but it doesn't seem that likely.

I opted into greener energy and I agree with you. It's ridiculous that they charge more for it, especially today. It only discourages people from using it.

I don't know how this company works, but could it be that it simply costs more to produce this type of energy?

Let's ask wal-mart, they're the leading company in sustainability.

The funny thing is, this current 'crisis' is what I was begging for about 2 years ago. What I mean by that is, I have long felt that the government should tax gas HEAVILY, and dump all of that money straight back into building infrastructure for hydrogen based cars. Basically paying companies to convert gas stations to half and half.

Alas, now it's an impossibility. But we could have done that, and then now, when gas skyrockets, slowly take the tax off as gas increased to allow consumers a break.

I'm with Julia. Walking more requires more energy, and thus more food would be consumed. I think it'd be more likely that healthier food would be consumed, so consumption of fatty foods and fast foods would decrease, but not food overall.

Quite frankly, I don't think there would be much change in diet at all. People who are intentionally walking for health reasons, yes, they will change their diet. But if you are walking just because you live close enough to work to walk and want to save on gas, you're not thinking about changing your eating habits.

That was Al Gore's proposal 8 years ago and he was crucified for it. Of course, Gore was absolutely right (and continues to be), but higher gas prices is such a difficult issue because it is essentially a regressive tax.

But the time to do it would have been THEN, when gas prices were relatively cheap and we had a long lead time to develop alternative energy. Now, thanks to inaction across the public AND private sectors, we're stuck between a very unpleasant rock and hard place.

Yeah, I totally agree, there was a time and a place, and it's passed.

As far as the current crisis, there is nothing we can really do, there is no easy fix. Our economy and various companies will adjust to the new reality, new products will evolve to deal with it, we will adapt and we will move on.

There will be no major changes, only gradual ones.

Build more nuclear plants.
Expand wind power to areas where it'd be most beneficial.
Build more refineries and make more use of active ones.
Explore and drill for oil where there are known quantities.
Eliminate ethanol based fuel that interfere with the food supply.
Focus more on making more efficient and cheaper electric and hydrogen flex cars.

Wow. 260+ billion is not sustainable. At all.

A year or two ago when prices initially spiked about $3 that would have helped.

Now, not so much because the prices are driven by the rampant oil prices.

I don't want to think about what the government should do, as it invariably makes the wrong decisions. However, if I were an investor I would invest in the following:

• Wind (full disclosure - I work for a major wind turbine manufacturer and wind farm developer)
• Solar - if we can make it cheaper, we could stick it everywhere - the roofs, traffic lights, hell even cars themselves
• Inner-city development - like KidRock said, with smarter urban designs, people can have the convenience of walking everywhere without feeling crowded. This is already happening, by the way, at least on Philly.

P.S. Please don't pay your power company for green energy. You are simply throwing your money away: 1) the power company obviously can't divert green energy directly to your hours and 2) it shouldn't make any significant impact on their decision to use wind or not. Wind energy is already competitive with coal and other sources due to Federal tax credits. What you're paying for is basically the ability to say "I support green energy by giving $7 a month to someone", not any real impact on energy decisions.

Yeah, the urban movement is big in Atlanta too with a lot of developments opting to have more common services (dry cleaners, take out, nail salons) built into the buildings and promoting everything in small blocks. It is working too so far but we are really just reaching the tipping point I think of where this is becoming more and more common.

Even suburban areas are adopting the more "lifestyle centers" which are much more compact shopping centers instead of the old standard multi-acres, 1/2 mile long projects that used to be common.