Thats what i think it will take for hard headed Americans to do what they need to do but cannot do.

-develope new energy sources

-stop supporting the oil executives that bankrupt middle class

-cutdown on pollution

-it would then give Americans the impetus to do what they should have done 20 years ago

-it would increase conservation and best of all the government would be forced to quit playing to the oil execs and look elsewhere

No, I don't think that it would stop people from doing anything different but, riding a bike instead of a car...

Hey Shannon, you don't think the increased cost of goods would change anything? like paying $20 for a head of lettuce? Or baby formula? How do you ride your family to vacation on a bike? All airtravel would stop... well, the airlines would go bankrupt... faster than they are now.

Can you explain your reasoning please?

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S.O.S. ------ United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Precicely. Just one more example of why liberals are the kings of unintended consequences. They seem to think only on the most shallow level and then act based on feeling rather than thinking deeply into a subject and considering the consequences of any particular action. The list of social disasters as a result of shallow liberal thinking is nearly endless. With gas at $3.00 a gallon I can already see the cost of goods increasing, what the hell do they think $12.00 gas would do?

If the goal is to move from fossil fuel to more environmentally friendly sources of power, the surest, and quickest way to get there is to make it financially attractive to get there. If there is a considerable profit motive involved, the solutions will come fast and furious. The trick is not to punish everyone in an attempt to reach a goal (the socialist way), but to reward those (even if they are only a few) handsomly for achieving it for us. (capitalism at its best)

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"It's not alive, It's not alive, It's not alive. Because I said it isnt', there's your proof jerk." ...lexi

"As far as your logical fallicy shit - shove it. I am a woman."...naturemomma

Pale, first of all, Eli has been a conservative for most of his 83 years. So your knee-jerk shallow assessment of him based on hos last post is so far off base... I can't even think of an appropriate parallel.

The whole point of the $12 a gallon wish is that it would FORCE us to get off our lazy pampered spoiled arses and shock us back into the types of temporary sacrifices that the greatest American generation endured voluntarily and as a matter of patriotic course.

As for your second assertion, the incentives are already quote massive. For example, the feds will reimburse you $9,000 dollars of the cost of a solar setup. You earn (I can't remember the exact figures) several cents per watt hour that you produce in the form of tax write-offs from the fed, in addition to what ever your state kicks in, many are quite generous. Everyone wants instant gratification before they'll even considering getting off the couch. If the 70's were the "me" generation, this is the "me now" generation. This attitude is hampering our ability to maintain (or recapture) technological leader ship in the world. Energy production and distribution is going to make the Internet/PC revolution look like a fad economically, and we are going to let some other scientist from some other country swipe that glory from our shores.

We does there need to be "considerable profit motive"? Why not just a profit motive? Why not do it because it's the right thing to do? Why not do it for the glory of your great country? Why do we have to feel like lottery winners in order to motivate us?

If that's the attitude, we deserve the twelve dollar a gallon gas prices.

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S.O.S. ------ United We Stand, Divided We Fall

The simple fact that $12 gas will cause the greatest harm to those who can least afford it is testament enough to the shallowness of this thought. If this is an anomoly, I will apologize after I have had time to look at more of his writing.

The point is that it wouldn't work..simple as that. It would cause untold economic damage to all sectors of the society and cause the greatest damage to the poorest of us.

$9,000? You call that a handsome reward? Is that where your thinking leads you? Bill Gates has made billions because he gave us a way to interface with our computers in a way that made sense. There was a need, and he provided the answer and was handsomely rewarded. If you think that cold fusion, or hydrogen fuel cells are going to come from the likes of a $9,000 tax break, then you are not thinking much more deeply than Eli

Where do you get this "us" from. The people who posess the intellectual wattage required to even imagine the mechanism by which cold fusion, or hydrogen fuel cells, or solar panels that are an order of magnitude more efficent than what we have today, or room temperature super conductors might become a reality are not a dime a dozen. If history is any indicator, we get maybe one or two such people, in any given field, in a generation. With a one in three chance, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that our most brilliant minds, the ones who might have changed the world, died a month or so after they were concieved.

When it comes to moving our technology forward by quantum leaps, there is no us. We can't make it happen no matter how hard we try because even if we all got together and tried as hard as we could, we couldn't even imagine what the mechanisms might look like. The great leaps forward in any field come from one or two brilliant minds, and to deny them the rewards that they would deserve because "it just doesn't seem right" is no more than cutting off your nose to spite your face.

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"It's not alive, It's not alive, It's not alive. Because I said it isnt', there's your proof jerk." ...lexi

"As far as your logical fallicy shit - shove it. I am a woman."...naturemomma

First of all, $12 dollars is an arbitrary number. I would have thought $3.00 would have been enough to shock us awake. The point is, maybe it needs to move a bit higher.

So tedious.... Just as you did on the abortion thread, you are inferring things I did not say. DO NOT put words in my mouth, that conservative tactic just pushes me to leave my civility at the door and do my best to shame you instead of fostering reasoned debate.

I DID NOT SAY it was a handsome reward, it's merely adequate incentive. You also ignore the ongoing payout for energy produced at both the state and federal level. You're attempt to discredit by oversimplification of my argument fails again. The example I gave was on a wholly individual level and was not meant to be applied to major research projects, your logic borders on the absurd. but I know from my previous encounters with you that you are the type that needs every little detail spelled out to keep you on track with the line of thought being presented. Talk about your shallow perceptions. Tedious. The technologies you mentioned are in the pipeline, but do indeed need more attention and funding.

As for your Gates analogy, are you saying there's no need?

Any reason to stick your agenda in huh? Nice off handed reference to abortion. But it doesn't fly. Back in the day, when the population of the earth was a half or even a tenth of what it is now, there was no shortage of brilliant people. The ability to foster innovation and great thinkers relies less on your theory of birth ratios, but largely on the collection, dissemination, and facilitation of knowledge. Physics and material sciences are not insurmountable subjects for the average intellect. Have you read anything besides abortion pamphlets and stats in the last dozen years or so? Say... oh I don't know... a scientific peer reviewed journal like Science or Nature? Trust me, there is no shortage of brilliant minds out there, MIT and the like are enjoying record enrollments. On second thought, look it up for yourself. The two biggest obstacles to solving these problems has nothing to do with your short sighted all encompassing abortion agenda and everything to do with education and facilitation. And by facilitation I mean getting American companies to move off their century old business models and get behind the energy revolution full bore, not as a half arsed attempt at public appeasement to protect their dogma.

Defeatist. Don't apply your inability to conceptualize these mechanisms to the rest of us. For those of you who have a hard time with it (not everyone is of a scientific mind, and that's fine, we need artists and economists too) your role is not to come up with the next "quantum leap" but to support the folks who do get it through education and policy. If science isn't your bag, fine, but don't imply that everyone needs to understand the nitty gritty in order to move forward.

I truly don't understand your last sentence in the context of the topic. Is this another reference to abortion? I don't see anyone trying to deny anyone else of their "rewards" in any field... aside from dogmatic business practices. Anyway, you're wrong... almost every "great leap" in history has been a race between research groups to get there first. You only remember or read about the ones that won. The reason for this is because we are so good at collecting and disseminating knowledge that several groups tend to come to the same epiphany at roughly the same time. The biggest obstacle to research historically and now, is funding and free will to follow where the information leads instead of tailoring it to meet corporate agendas. Who's the shallow thinker? There are exceptions, such as Einstein, but they are certainly not the rule.

Maybe you should stick to the one topic you know. Sorry, I'm being facetious, please stay and learn. It's only through learning that you will be able to set aside you prejudices, of which you certainly have a few.

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S.O.S. ------ United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Exactly.

Your average consumer would not be the only affected entity if fuel was to reach that price (actually, they would); everything from groceries, to air travel, to building construction, etc.... would be affected.
We have to began to realize that such thinking can and will have overlaping consequences.

I am all for alternatives, trust me....

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"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred Allen

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith

I think Americans live in a fog. I think Eli was making a point that unless people are drastically effected they will not demand change. If it cost you 400$ to fill your tank of your SUV then even Fox news would not smile and overlook Bush's 9 billion dollar tax break to oil executives.

You missed my point I know the effects of 12 per gallon gas and what that would do. i think it might give America the shake up they need. The pain of the costs of goods would capture everyones attention. They would then THINK before they vote in their leaders. Gay marriage would not be the distraction of the day.

By the way I am not a liberal. I am a person who values truth.I will vote for the candidate that gives me truth and moral and humane leadership over the partisan game most engage in.