This video clip, now six months old, has been making the rounds yesterday and today. Still, it's worth pondering.
What would you do if gasoline rose to $5 a gallon in two years? How would your driving, and car buying, behavior change?
Two days after the BP drilling rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, Shell Oil's ex-president John Hofmeister (miscaptioned as "Jeff" in the video) spoke at the McCall School of Business at Queens University in Charlotte.
Not only did he excoriate BP for continuing operations, he predicted that gasoline would reach prices of $5 a gallon by 2012. And he didn't stop there, envisioning chronic gasoline lines and "brownouts and blackouts" across the U.S. by the end of the decade.
'Why We Hate the Oil Companies,' by John Hofmeister
His solution? An independent panel to "take the politics out" of energy policy, along with less coal and oil and more nuclear power.
Hofmeister was touting his book (published in May), Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk From An Energy Insider.
It makes the not-unreasonable point that the only reason companies like Shell drill for oil is because the citizens of the world demand heating oil, gasoline, and so forth to live their lives better and more comfortably.
It's worth noting, by the way, that some energy analysts believe oil prices will stay reasonable until the middle of the decade. It all depends on the Chinese economy, and how quickly China's voracious appetite for imported oil and refined products exceeds pre-recession levels.
But back to you. Watch the video, then tell us how you think you would change your behavior if gasoline hit $5/gallon.
Leave us your thoughts in the Comments section below.
[ WCNC news via LA Weekly; hat tip: Ariel Schwartz]
