Eliminating the “Crisis” in the Energy Crisis:

“High tech Japan, having little to no natural energy resources, has long been dependent on importation of fuels of various kinds. Realizing that this left them extremely vulnerable, and not withstanding the steady rise in wholesale bulk price of foreign energy products, they embarked on a national campaign of old fashioned conservation. The results have been amazing, such as their oil consumption remaining steady since 1975.”

The article in the Guardian linked to above has interesting information about how the Japanese are actively changing the way they live their lives so that they consume less energy individually. Some of their experience could translate to the USA but not all of it. Japan has a much more highly developed mass transit system and their population density is much higher than ours.

Gasoline prices are thus a bigger deal here in the States. What the Japanese experience can teach us is that there is hope for intelligent response to energy shortages. But it’s going to be a while for us to rearrange our life-styles so that our experience will be similar to theirs.

I wonder if Japan has suburban house tracts like we do in the US? If they do, how do they handle moving people from their residence to the workplace? Certainly it can’t all be by personally owned automobile like it is here in the states…

(Via Technocrat.net.)