And if you have ERORI of 2, than your bill for gas, fuel and electricity has also risen significantly. Especially NG has risen many times more than the rise in gasoline. Of course, this is the curse of the low EROEI.

I don't have the necessarry data to make the calculations, but I can just WAG that if gasoline goes to $4-5, ethanol will not need subsidies. A much more energy wise (but politically impossible) measure would be instead of subsidising ethanol to tax gasoline to that level and remove the subsidies completely. If it remains feasible - than we have a energy and an economic winner.

Leanan,
   What do any of those groups have to do with sustainability?  I am not arguing for or against any of them but that is like saying "A lawn maintenece business should hire employees who like all types of vegatables"
The two are unrelated.  PO is real, when you tag on extreme political porkbarrel you will lose your sale to the commoner.  If I said the death penalty is good for PO because of the AC required to imprison detainees for life, I bring in a distasteful subject. 99% of america does not care about PO or has not heard it.  When you guys pitch your argument you have to convince them.  I don't think you all get it. If all the TODers and all of the other Bloggers about PO powerdown its not even a drop in the bucket.
   I threw a rock in the water when I was eight years old while fishing with my gramps. He cuffed me in the back of the head and said "Don't scare the fish!"  Comprende?

I read the initial followup posts to this. My reaction was a little different. I often wonder if the mainstream political parties amplify these exact issues: gay rights, right to life, right to death to avoid talking about the really thorny BIG issues. As in: energy, healthcare, our trade imbalance, industrial outsourcing, the role of the military... What I think of as core.

Haven't we beaten the bushes long enough with gay rights, God, marriage, evolution and terrorists? We are getting sidetracked each and every election now. For this cycle, 2006, the agenda has moved to immigration.

When, where, how and why did immigration become a top-of-mind issue?

Be careful what you wish for.

As a result of several recent studies of the political attitudes of academics by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture[1], Klein and Stern,[2] and Rothman and Lichter,[3] it has been generally established that the representation of perspectives that lean to the left on college faculties is greater by an overwhelming margin than perspectives that may be called conservative, and that this margin ranges from 7-1 to as high as 30-1. As Professor Paul Krugman conceded in a column in The New York Times, "It's a fact, documented by two recent studies, that registered Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives make up only a small minority of professors at elite universities"."[4]

Anecdotally, I worked as a medical researcher at a university for 13 years, and during that time identified very few right leaning academics.

After all, corporations are consumers too. They buy a lot of stuff! Not only goods, but services. And individuals sell services. They're all economic actors, and if one actor gets less efficient and thus needs more goods/services to produce the same output, it's true it "benefits" the providers of those goods/services, but the net effect is a wash, since it's bad for the actor who gets less efficient.

The only way to increase our standard of living (or prevent its decline in the face of resource depletion) is to improve efficiency (a.k.a. productivity). Conservation is an aspect of that, since it can mean getting the same job done with fewer resources. (It can also mean using less and "producing" less.)

I picked the words very carefully and the one I used was "conservation". You are talking about efficiency which is a whole other business.

Our whole economy and society are built around the opposite of conservation - consumption. The more you consume the better - therefore we have commercials, drive-in stores, easy-motoring Suburbia and even stimulation to have kids via the tax policy.

I lived most of my life in a country that uses probably 1/10 of the resources we use here in the US... a country without Priuses or CFL bulbs all around (for obvious reasons). Therefore I think conservation has a lot more potential than efficiency - and the latter has also the problem of marginal returns. You can trade your SUV for Prius, but after the Prius do what? Take a bicycle down GA 400?

What's the Matter With Africa?

About how Africa ended up like it is.

Darwin's Nightmare

And why things haven't improved.  

(Hint: sustainability and infrastructure play a big role.)

The UN.  The US Government/presidency for the last 30 years more than that really. The British, The French, White people.

Now the mismanagers are tribal warlords swinging machetes.  The food is there but is hoarded and sold to buy guns. Miserable continent from Cairo to Capetown.

If we feed them they'll breed, then later their kids will starve. It is better to let them starve now.

If we invest in teaching them agriculture, they'll breed then when they have enough $ they'll buy guns and kill all the neighboring tribes.  

The best thing America can do for Africa is cure or create a vaccine for HIV, then start helping them.  Anything before that is wasted capital.

Does anyone remember the Grey Panther Party?  It might be renamed the Grey Avengers this time around.

My guess is that as things get more difficult, the younger people will become ever more angry at the older generation that has pissed away the planet and yet still feels entitled to suck resources dry for more medical care to live longer and better and have more and better orgasms while they are at it. Still pissing away the possibility for the young to have anything but a life in Hellish conditions, we discuss politcal parties and the possible formation of new parties.

I know that some high school students are becoming aware of resource depletion issues, as are many people in their 20's.

The political process is pretty well bankrupt.  The social cohesiveness we need is pretty well shot.  Kevin Phillips ("American Theocracy") notes that we in the USA lack the intellectual integrity, the political will, and the economic resilience to face peak oil and resource depletion.

We need to try to transform politics.  At the same time, we need to effect a cultural change that dwarfs the likes of anything we've seen so far.

This is like an evolutionary step. The outcome is certainly not settled.  The way to go is to keep spreading the meme, the Word, by living as well as conversation.

Live it out, talk about it, and leave the outcomes to the process.

Transformation may suprise us all, happening in ways and at speeds that truly leave us dizzy with wonderment...if we are fortunate enough to be around to see the newborn life.