In article ,
"Pete C." wrote:

Today, many of those alternate energy technologies have greatly improved
and should we have another oil embargo type event the US consumer may
actually implement some alternates and cause a lasting effect on demand.
Maybe. I'd doubt it though. As you mention below our short attention
span. Also pretty much no matter what we do, there will a LONG time
before it kicks in. You have to go through the regular life cycle of
cars, power plants, etc., you have ramp up whatever alternatives you
come up with. We can decide we want to energy independent tomorrow and
it would still be better than 10 (probably coming up on 20) before any
real savings would occur. By then...


The ultimate problem is the short attention span and memory of the US
consumer. They forget all about oil embargoes, 9/11 and other problem
events and the reasons they should look at doing things a bit
differently. Even worse, in this age of the Internet and instant
propaganda the failing memory of the US consumer makes it very easy for
the propagandists to manipulate the uninformed public opinion.

On both sides of an issue.