The naivete of this thinking is astounding. The federal government is spending $billions on alternative energy, and you have to gall to sit there and say hopefully we'll get serious. You get serious yourself, send in your retirement, sell your home and send that in, empty your pockets and send that. I'm sick of people telling us to get serious. Open your eyes and look out of your windows for a change.
You are extremely wrong.
I love to drive, aways have. Just an hour ago I returned from 11 hour round trip, much of it through the desert. Few things are more enjoyable and on days like today when I can get out of the office and drive through the desert alone I love my job. I love to drive fast. My wife and I have cars and a truck, motorcycles and scooters. If it burns oil we love it.
The world is likely beyond peak oil. Oil sand development is an excellent indication that the world now consumes more oil than the earth can produce. Consumption is going to increase as China and India replace the US in demanding oil. There are a number of other indicators, but I assume you know all this and there's no sense in posting it.
As much as I hate it, we no longer joyride on motorcycles. In fact, they are all for sale with the exception of one scooter. We have been trying to cut down on gasoline consumption in general. Not because our lower consumption is going to make a difference in the world but because we know that sooner rather than later we are all going to have to make major oil consumption sacrifices. Petroleum may sputter and fart a bit, but the price of oil is going to go up and up and up and so is damn near everything we use or consume from food to medicine to garbage bags to fertilizer to damn near anything you can name. At the present alternative fuel is not going to provide an option for any number of things petroleum related. You also seem to think that viable alternatives will be available before petroleum scarcity forces petroleum sky high. I'd be happy if you'd share a few timelines with us because I don't know about any favorable ones.
You claim the FD is astoundingly naive but you fail to mention exactly how and, as important, why.
Washington has no balls. That includes your beloved and worshipped conservatives in Congress. If Obama had balls, if Congress had balls, they would tell the nation the good times are gone. As much as I feckin hate to say it, they should drop the speed limit nationally. I hate that. Washington needs to have a frank discussion with the nation and explain that we can party on until until the lights go out or that we can conserve, seriously conserve, while we seriously work on alternative fuels. That's a plural, as in fuel
s. There is no one solution. "The clock is ticking and as there are variables beyond our control we don't really know how much time is left so it is better to sacrifice on the front end" - that kind of discussion. They need to have the kind of discussion that suggests people like commercial freight (shipping, rail, trucking and air) gets a price and/or tax break while the rest of us curtail our petroleum usage or pay much higher transportation taxes.
Alternative energy is much more viable when we aren't talking about transportation. When you talk about "billions" the government is spending you haven't been specific as to which type of energy you are referring, for what purpose, and you neglected to give us any real comparisons. How do you know that FD is naive?