The Washington Post reported on the third of this month (October 2005) that people around the world are angry about rising gasoline prices. That's not surprising; nobody warned them that flat oil production worldwide would inevitably intersect with rising demand to create a sellers' market.

The demand for energy is highly inelastic in the short run. In order to reduce energy consumption it's not just people's habits that have to change; the entire infrastructure has to shift and that requires investment of large amounts of capital. In normal times, the shift is usually glacial. If one lives in a house 40 minutes from work, one cannot shorten the commute without moving closer to work or moving the work closer to home. The SUV cannot be exchanged with a fuel-efficient hybrid overnight, especially when the demand for SUVs has fallen off a cliff.

The result: one does without something else until adjustments can be made. People can combine shopping trips, take public transportation, spend several days per week telecommuting, turn up thermostats in the summer and down in the winter, eat out less, vacation closer to home, eat cheaper food, hang clothes on the line, et cetera. The savings will not be as spectacular as one might hope because many of the substitutes are dependent on oil and will become more expensive along with gasoline.

The change will be inconvenient if gradual; a sudden spike in energy cost, however, could lead to economic catastrophe.

It is inconceivable that the persons in charge of our national government have remained ignorant of these facts; they were apparent most likely in the '70s when the oil industry couldn't discover any more major oil fields anywhere in the world. It should have been patently obvious to the industry and the major intelligence services by the '80s, as the success of Hubbert's predictions about U.S. oil production sank in. By the '90s, it was clear that oil was driving foreign policy. Gulf War I and Kosovo were directly related to our need to secure reliable oil sources.

Why Didn't Our Leaders in Government Tell Us About This?

That is the big question. Now that the predictable outcome of this outrageous irresponsibility on the part of at least four administrations is becoming manifest, President Bush advises us to drive less. When the human race is faced with the virtual certainty that our energy-based civilization cannot continue to maintain even our current energy usage, much less increase it, as it has for the past two hundred years, all this president does is tell us to drive less! It is like a doctor handing us an aspirin and a band-aid for appendicitis or FEMA giving us football helmets to protect against a thermonuclear attack.

So what gives? There are three possible explanations for this dereliction:

1. The administration is populated by fools. This theory fails to explain why three other administrations were equally irresponsible.

2. The administration is populated by oil men who would stand to reap obscene profits from everyone else's misery. Although the lure of windfall profits is a plausible explanation for the Bush I and Bush II administrations, it fails to account for Reagan and Clinton. While both presidents shamefully cozened up to the oil industry, their administrations were not outright extensions of the oil patch, as is the current one.

3. Telling the people they will have to change their way of life is political suicide. This is the only reasonable explanation. The first principle--and often the only principle--common to all politicians is doing what is necessary to be reelected.

Further, the ancient Greek practice of killing the bearer of bad news is alive and well here in America. The political landscape of this nation since 1950 is littered with the carcasses of the political careers of politicians who were too honest or visionary for their own good, and the lesson is not lost on the rest. Our presidents, from Jimmy Carter on, knew perfectly well the disaster that was coming down the pike, and they remained silent, leaving the problem to their successors. The Congress knew, or ought to have known, also. The intelligence was available for the asking. Hubbert's curve has never been a secret. Anyone able to use Google can learn that the world is consuming between four and five barrels of oil for every barrel discovered. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we can't continue to do this indefinitely.

The problem, therefore, is ultimately ourselves, in promoting persons to the highest positions of national leadership that lack the integrity to tell us hard truths and in punishing honest politicians. Civilizations and nations often have a run of good luck, but, as any professional gambler can tell you, relying on luck alone is a losing strategy. This nation has been extraordinarily lucky over its past 200+ years and that streak of luck has exempted us from much of the pain and suffering the rest of the world has experienced. It looks, however, that we won't be able to rely on luck to get us through the energy crisis; if we do not take action immediately, we will undergo a most unpleasant and perhaps fatal session of reality therapy.