October 12, 2005

It feels like the 1970s again

Firewood sales up, new interest in solar panels, people buying locking gas caps for their cars--if you remember 1973, the year of the OPEC oil embargo, the social landscape is beginning to look familiar, says writer Mark Clayton in the Christian Science Monitor.

"The country spent about 20 years learning how to save energy and the next 12 years forgetting more than we ever learned," says Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think tank in Snowmass, Colo. Subsidies for fossil-fuel development, contained in recent energy legislation, will end up being a costly waste as the economy and the public move toward efficiency on their own, he predicts.

Meanwhile, it's a good time to be in the firewood business. (Link via What's in Rebecca's Pocket.)

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