Conservation Nation

President Bush almost got it right this week when he declined to call on Americans to conserve energy. Sadly, he still seems to think that conservation is a win-win proposition; worse, so do both major presidential candidates... [snip]

In our modern society, using less gasoline means doing less and, most importantly, it means spending less. It means fewer shopping trips, less eating out, fewer pleasure trips and less employment in those businesses to where you drive. It means fewer cars, pleasure boats and airplanes, and fewer jobs in the industries that manufacture those goods.

Using less gasoline means engaging in less economic activity.

If you don’t remember the 1970s and very early 1980s, the last time conservation was all the rage, consider that every economic slowdown of the last 35 years, that is, the recessions of 1973-1975, 1979-1980, 1981-1982 and 1990-1991, has been associated with, if not caused by, a decline in oil consumption. Whenever oil consumption increased, GDP did, too. The same goes for total energy consumption...

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