With addicts, they are the last to know. So it was pretty safe that our President was not letting the cat out of the bag a few years ago when he spoke plainly to the nation. All of our suppliers already knew. It was pretty obvious if anyone ever gave it a second's worth of thought. Sometimes I think that all of the saber rattling going on today is to drive the price of oil to over $100/bbl. But then intended or not, the energy addicted world needs to change. We have to overthrow this hydrocarbon based economy for a sustainable system. Even the president of Shell Oil in the 1920s said that petroleum was too valuable to burn as fuel. At least $90 fuel makes alternative fuels economically viable. We may not be on the right track yet with corn-based ethanol and edible oil-based biodiesel, but change it is.

So maybe we don’t have it all "right" yet, but at least we have a declaration of independence even if the constitution is not yet written. One problem is the fact that what we need is a lot of disruptive technology. We need a way to unleash all of the brilliant minds working in R&D in corporate America. Unfortunately disruptive technology can get people fired so we need to find a way to let companies develop things that are counterproductive to their existing businesses. Take car companies. Just 5 years ago they were crowing over all the profits from gas-guzzling SUVs. How are we going to get them to make little, fuel efficient cars instead that have low profitability? Market pull is not working if a sampling of US car models is any indication.

And how can we get detergent and white goods manufacturers to make systems that replace what we have now with even more sustainable methods to recycle all our clothes every week? A regulated approach would be akin to schools coming and telling parents they are going to neuter all the seventh graders because we have to do something about population pressure! Perhaps a carrot-based approach could be developed through a system of Sustainability Tax Credits? Companies losing revenue from obsolescing business streams could receive tax credits for a percent of the difference between the old and new technology revenue streams for a period of time. This would help existing companies transition their businesses instead of having to replace all the existing suppliers with new ones that are not invested in the old methods.

One different thing today from when the realization struck that we needed to take an alternative path to burning petroleum back in the 1920's is access to information. Through the web, we have a lot of it, too much almost. The idea that we could use knowledge to manage a change is not very original after looking over the following link to a Whois search of websites called energy savings ____. I propose a 1 hr mandatory surfing rule for:

http://www.whois.ws/whois_index/e/domain_list.e.0295.php