gas prices

The energy issue has become central in the presidential campaign and we see little to suggest that either candidate will engage in a real discussion about the real choices we have. The fact is that the era of fossil fuels is coming to an end. There are too many people and too much need for energy for this to continue for very long. How long? More than a decade and less than a century. Why should we care? Because we probably can think of better things to do with petrochemicals than burning them for fuels. Because we shouldn’t be handing this problem to our children to solve.  read more »

Over the past weekend we got to hear President Bush, Senator McCain and then Senator Obama all supporting drilling for oil off our coasts. Both Bush and McCain maintain that the way to reduce gasoline prices is to develop more supplies of oil. They argue, and polling shows people believe, that drilling for more oil will lower prices. Although Obama is not crazy about drilling in fragile environments, he's willing to allow some drilling in exchange for a bill that would promote alternative energy.

For a brief moment I admired the artfulness and subtly of Obama's perspective-a little carefully controlled drilling can't do much harm, as long as our policy encourages renewable energy.  read more »

I'm on vacation this week, enjoying the sun, surf and sand here in Long Beach New York, where we've had a small summer home since 1987. I'm on the West End of town, where the biggest problem over the last few years has been the proliferation of second and third cars and the difficulty of parking on the narrow and crowded streets: Until this summer. This summer the big news is the price of gasoline. In the last year and a half, the price of gasoline has doubled. In January, 2007 gasoline was less than $2.20 a gallon, today it is well over $4.  read more »