Reply #86: I try to take the train to work, and bike on both ends [View All]

[mindwalker_i]

I think you mean drive a car with high gas mileage, as in getting high miles per gallon.

People will use what's available to them, whether that's oil, solar, whatever. They/we will drive a gas-based car if that's all we have available, or use electricity from a fossil-fuel based plant if them's our choices. What government can do is give money for research into other ways of generating energy and cut the tax breaks for oil companies. The familiar argument would be that the lack of tax breaks would drive up the price of gas, but that's determined more by supply and demand - raise the price and demand will go down. Even if it didn't, so what? People will (again) say it sucks to be paying more for gas and will want alternatives more.

At the heart of it, in a democracy WE are the government, so it makes sense for us all to work through government to solve society-wide problems. The images from the gulf show the impact of this oil gusher and it's something the whole society needs to see. Then, hopefully, we will react as a society to find better alternatives to oil.

So the next time somebody says government should get out of the way of business, consider that they are really saying you (and all of us) shouldn't have a say in how business operates. They want to take away your voice in what they can do. This oil, banks, other polluting industries and hell, even cable TV show why we SHOULD have a voice in how companies operate: their screw-ups affect us all.