It has been interesting to see people reacting to global warming and the increasing prices of oil and gas. It’s almost like the energy crisis of the 1970s never happened. Of course, that was political, but still, it changed life a little bit when you could only buy gas on certain days of the week, depending on your license plate number. Lots of people became enthused about conservation, and people could immediately see the use of cars (read Japanese), that got lots of miles per gallon.

Well, politics changed, and our society quickly put this bit of inconvenience behind us. But really, what has changed? Resources are not really more plentiful than they were before, in fact, less, of course, especially when you factor in other industrial companies coming into their own, oil-needy age. We Americans continue to use more energy each year, in fact. How could that be? More giant houses, built to use lots of energy for heating and cooling. McMansions, they’re called. More developments for said tracts of McMansions, over former farmland and on fragile coastlines. Our cars? Well, duh! Our office buildings, not paragons of energy conservation. The shame is, it really would be easy to save lots of energy doing relatively simply things, like driving more efficient cars, but Michigan and their ilk are firmly against this sort of thing.

Now, there are folks out there that are quick to announce conspiracy this and that, and from both directions, liberal and conservative. However, science, in many cases, cannot be denied, regardless of spin and party affiliation. It’s not really that difficult to believe that the oil and agricultural industries might collude to corner the emerging biofuel market. Why not? Many mega-, international companies exist out there, and they are powerful. This collusion might turn out to be a perfect storm, with regard to global warming, and the Earth’s poor people.

• Cost of Biofuels