Science Forums 2

[Moontanman]

Luck has nothing to do with it.
I realized years ago that oil is a finite reasource and that the price of gasoline is, year over year, going to continue to rise.

Any one who didn't see this coming is quite a bit less than unlucky, not everyone is in the financial situation to buy the way they should and then you have a large proportion of the population that is simply locked into cars that are old and cannot be replaced due to lack of money or credit or some other reason. to suggest that anyone or everyone should have bought certain cars ignores reality. as much as I enjoy ignoring reality it never goes away.

Hybrids are not the only solution, any high effiency car will improve your situation. 34 mpg is far better than the average 20mpg.

You are of course completely correct but I have found that the people most guilty of buying gas hogs are the people who thought they could ignore gas prices because they made so much money filling a hummer tank with 50 gallons of fuel was no big deal. I do not have any sympathy for these people. I remember choking when gas hit $1 a gallon and I was a big proponent of methane powered cars but no one seemed to be listening. Gasoline was too entrenched to even think about a alternative so all the money was spent on making gas engines less polluting and this is where we ended up.

And yes, I agree that if hybrid or preferable all electric cars were available to everyone the world would be a better place
Do you realize how little of the US oil imports are from OPEC nations??
The price is determined by the free market. The price is spiking due to the fact that we no longer can produce enough to handle any major supply disruptions. So any fear of a geologic, weather or political disruption sends prices soaring.

OPEC still sets the prices, even the prices of non OPEC producers. No one is going to sell their oil at a rate less than the set price, it would be crazy to do that.