The Falling Price of Oil

I am sure I am not the only one that feels a guilty pleasure when filling up the tank of the car recently.  Compared to the $4.25 per gallon that I was paying regularly a few months ago, I feel like I am stealing at $1.79.

Yahoo News reports this morning that the price of oil has fallen below $53 per barrel since the world is frightened about a severe recession.  While this is great news for the price of oil for the near future, I am afraid that us Americans will become complacent yet again about switching our main energy supply from oil to a combination of substitutes.  

In fact, we typically have very short memories.  I have an older V8 car that I have been trying to sell for a few months.  No one would consider it three months ago.  Since the gas prices have been tanking, I have gotten a phone call almost every day about the car.  This is because people were worried about the gas prices, but now that they see the prices falling, they don't seem to care anymore.  Some of us are still in denial about our dependence on oil as a major problem.

I do not want to see us back in the same situation next year, or five years from now.  While I enjoy the cheap gas as much as anyone else, I do not want us to forget that we still need to be working on a solution to this problem.  Let's not pass this down yet another generation.