Now THAT is the right start to getting us out of this mess, and is the real free market at work. But don't tell it to "conservatives" (my gawd, how they've twisted that word!). To them, this cause-effect notion is as wacky as trying to improve your mileage by keeping your tires properly inflated. C-R-RAAAZY!

Reminds me I saw a big late model Lincoln yesterday with a McCain sticker on one side and on the other, something like: Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less for Gas. That is SO wrong on so many different levels. But there's an industry front group, 527, or whatever that's mobilized on this.

Also, if I'm figuring right, this deduction of gasoline is about 3/4 of the upper estimate of what we could get offshore (400,000 bbls/day), except that it's immediate and costs almost nothing. Saves a lot of lives too!

Let's home this point can be driven home to TDOT. After all it's our money, as somebody said.

Less miles = drivers must be unhappy with their options.

Time to build new roads!

[/joking]

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

China's oil imports were up 14.9% this April compared to the same period in 2007. India's oil imports are up about 11% in August 2008 compared to 2007. The figures I have for India are based on dollars, not quantities, so I had to haphazardly reverse engineer that using $64/barrel for 2007 and $120/barrel for 2008. Oh, and OPEC member Indonesia has been a net importer of oil since 2004. The world is getting wealthier, and those newly middle class people want cars. Those cars still run overwhelmingly on gasoline, heated homes, and air conditioning.

We might be able to parlay our net reduction in miles driven to slowing the local growth of asphalt, but global oil consumption remains up year on year with all the bad things that entails.