'73 oil embargo.. Ah yes, I remember it well.
And (even I) made it a point to look around, each year for about (5?) afterwards: for * signs of intelligent life in the universe.
* Lily Tomlin has her show of that name, in San Francisco this week IIRC. Laugh-In had our number too well, in the late '60s -- so the network had to kill it, of course.
After about six months, and the return of unlimited oil-at-Any-price for the 12 mpg Detroit iron of the day: we went back to sleep (nothwithstanding the occasional pious speech from this one or that one, admonishing ustoplanahead).
Nothing I've owned since (or then, actually) has produced <25 mpg except for: the '70 Buick Riviera I bought for a song, at the height of the 'discomfort': sold a year later for $1000+ profit. I deem this one transaction as adequate evidence of our attention span then, and since. Buick weighed 5000#, which I thought then was ludicrous.
Drive hard: *6 mpg* for that car. Drive really carefully: maybe 13 on a trip. Anyone notice the mileage of the Popular Urban assault Vehicles of the new millennium? (7300# for the Explorer)
(umm QED?)
Hydrogen, hybrids, ... lots of ideas have been around since before '73. We (generally) do not care about 'conservation' of any resource - only consumption, comfort and amusement / distraction.
Did 9/11 alter our deeply ingrained MO, more than momentarily?
Place bets.
Ashton
