Certain people have said that Americans don't sacrifice.
We did in the past. During World War II, Americans sacrificed.
Now? Not so much. If we did, or if we were willing to, we could end our dependence on foreign oil in one day.
How? Simple.
People on this site are intelligent; you already know how to do it. Maybe you need to hear it again, so follow me below the fold.
Warning; it's going to mean some sacrifice.
It's called carpooling, and in many countries is just a way of life. The only people that go anywhere one to a car are considered very rich.
We have the means to do this right now, especially with the World Wide Web.
Let's say I need to go downtown; I go to my computer and type in my destination. Within a few minutes, somebody in my neighborhood needs to go somewhere around the same destination. I pick them up; depending on how many miles I take them, they give me money for gas and vehicle maintenance.
For that trip, the amount of cars on the road has been cut in half; same for the amount of oil consumed; same for my costs for gasoline and automobile maintenance. If I can take it upon myself to wait long enough to get three passengers besides myself, the costs go to 25% of what they would be normally, and the amount of cars on the road is cut by three quarters. That's an enormous savings in petroleum. Probably enough to remove our dependence on foreign oil completely.
Of course, I would have to sacrifice a certain amount of convenience. Well, we sacrifice already a certain amount of convenience by not having a good public transit system in this country. They've had bullet trains in Japan for 50 years, along with solar water heaters on almost every roof.
So I sacrifice a certain amount of convenience by having to deliver people to their destinations, but because I have arranged these rides through the computer everybody is going roughly in the same area, and hopefully can walk to their destination. I sacrifice a convenience of being in my car by myself, but then again I cut my costs by 75% if I have three passengers, and that's handy, especially when the real price of oil hits, which is going to happen in the next year or two, like it or not.
There's another way to look at it, though; if gasoline costs four dollars a gallon, I just reduced its price to one dollar a gallon for myself And for the other three riders with me. And I've done it with currently available technology, and without changing or improving the available technology at all. All I've done is communicated my need to the people around me, and found who else shares the same need for transit.
Yes, you can think of it as sacrifice; but in many countries it is just a way of life. They may be third world countries, but we're going to third world status very fast, by wasting our money and our resources in the most ridiculously prodigal way.
So we can do this kicking and screaming, or we can do this singing and dancing; the choice is ours. Personally, I think that this is totally possible. We may have to give up the illusion of individuality that driving one person to a car confers, but it's always good to give up illusions. It's good for the soul. And it can make us feel much more self-reliant, as well as reducing or even eliminating our dependence on foreign oil immediately.