I got my driver’s license early in 1974, and some of you remember that was right around the time of the first Arab oil embargo. That wasn’t the best time for a young guy to start driving, because after all, the price of gas shot up to 50 or 60 cents a gallon, and that’s when the speed limit was lowered to save gas. That’s not a good combination for a teenager with little money who likes to go fast. Saving gas became a big issue because of the volatile politics of the Middle East and OPEC cutting off oil imports. But there were also people, experts of some kind, saying that we had to conserve because the world oil supply was dwindling, and that within a few years, all the oil and fossil fuels would be used up.
But you know what? We’re still going, still pumping, and still driving. Despite all the dire predictions, we didn’t exhaust the oil supply in the 80’s as they predicted, and we didn’t use it up in the 90’s, and new sources are still being discovered.